I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
After Anna by Alex Lake
on 8/2/2016
The real nightmare starts when her daughter is returned…
A bone-chilling psychological thriller that will suit fans of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Daughter by Jane Shemilt, and The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.
A girl is missing. Five years old, taken from outside her school. She has vanished, traceless. The police are at a loss; her parents are beyond grief. Their daughter is lost forever, perhaps dead, perhaps enslaved. But the biggest mystery is yet to come: one week after she was abducted, their daughter is returned. She has no memory of where she has been. And this, for her mother, is just the beginning of the nightmare.
Julia arrives at her daughter’s school 30 minutes late only to find out her daughter is missing. Everyone at the school assumes Anna left with her mother, but we know that wasn’t the case. Who took Anna from her school?
After reading a few lines from the synopsis, I knew I was ready to devour this book in one sitting. As a parent, we try to keep our child(ren) protected by any means necessary.
In my opinion, the synopsis revealed a little too much information. So I’m not giving out any spoilers when I say Anna is returned home a week later with no memory of what happened to her. The questions begin to stack more than the clues to find out why Anna was taken.
After reading one sentence earlier in the book, I had a feeling I knew who took Anna. The book does a take a few twist and turns, but my hunch turned out to be true.
After Anna wasn’t a terrible book but it failed to keep me on toes. One of my issues with the book was the author’s style of writing. The first few pages I loved being in the character’s mind but after two or three chapters in – it became vexatious. I wished the author would have trusted the reader to know what the characters were doing instead of giving a blow-by-blow play of the character’s thoughts and actions.
(Example: You watch her stare at the doll’s house. Watch her brow furrow and her eyes narrow. Watch her recoil from what she is starting to understand.) I know you may be thinking I don’t see anything wrong with that. A few sentences here and there of narration is alright, but there’s a significant percentage of it throughout the book.
My Final Verdict: 3.5 Stars – I would recommend this book to readers that seldom read suspense books. I’m sure it will have your brain working overtime.
Reviewed by: Orsayor
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