What is this about: This deals with a kidnapping, and the aftermath of one of the victim’s return home. Amy is lost and as she tries to figure out who she is and what she should do — leave and return to her kidnapper or stay.
What else is this about: All of the above and nothing else.
Stars: 2.5/5
Should you read: This desperately wants to be another Baby Doll, but it’s not.
Blurb: A bittersweet homecoming holds dark secrets in this heart-wrenching story of loss, love, and survival for readers of Room.
When sixteen-year-old Amy returns home, she can’t tell her family what’s happened to her. She can’t tell them where she’s been since she and her best friend, her cousin Dee, were kidnapped six years ago—who stole them from their families or what’s become of Dee. She has to stay silent because she’s afraid of what might happen next, and she’s desperate to protect her secrets at any cost.
Amy tries to readjust to life at “home,” but nothing she does feels right. She’s a stranger in her own family, and the guilt that she’s the one who returned is insurmountable. Amy soon realizes that keeping secrets won’t change what’s happened, and they may end up hurting those she loves the most. She has to go back in order to move forward, risking everything along the way. Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee is a riveting, affecting story of loss and hope.
That this book begins with Amy getting off a bus and returning home after six years tells readers right away, her return is not what it seems. Six years ago Amy and her cousin Dee were kidnapped. The book is about Amy’s return, about her trying to figure out if she should stay or return to her kidnapper for a very good reason.
I think this is where the book let me down — Amy, as a character, is flat. One note. She does try to readjust to life, tries to get to know her family again, but there’s something lacking in her and their relationships compared to Baby Doll. She won’t tell anyone what happened or where she or Dee have been or who their kidnapper is, and while I believe like Baby Doll, this sort of narrative means some liberties have to be taken, this book didn’t make her constant silence on important questions work for me.
Characters should have pushed her more for answers, and while her parents are present, I was surprised they weren’t the ones doing the pushing for answers — those closest to us, always push the hardest right? And Dee was their family too. I get they were grateful for her return, but that meant that the people pushing for answers were Dee’s family — her sister Lee in particular — who basically tried to be too normal with her, to give her space to give them answers. I would have rather she pushed or demanded answers, and by the time she did, it was too little too late for me. The emotional oomph in this book is saved for the ending, the last third perhaps? Which makes for an uneven read. Dee’s mother makes a brief appearance, and is mentioned seeking out lawyer’s help at once point for answers, but there’s her connection with Amy was missing — some of this we and Amy are told about and that’s it.
I suspect the author was counting on the middle, which focused on flashbacks to their captivity, to the way Amy and Dee coped (and didn’t cope) with each other and their kidnapper, to give the emotional oomph, but, to me, it made clear that Amy shouldn’t have been the main character in this, or perhaps, she shouldn’t have escaped. Dee’s story is the one that will break your heart, and even as I sympathised with Amy, I couldn’t quite feel as much for her as I did for Dee.
It’s not a spoiler to say that Dee had two kids in captivity and that the kidnapper threatened to kill them should Amy have returned with cops to them — the book builds up to that pretty clearly early on. The main points of this plot hinge on what Amy will do about this threat, but more importantly, on details of her captivity with Dee that she feels too guilty to share entirely — in a way, the book is about coming to terms with doing what’s right — for Dee’s kid’s in this case — than anything else. But, instead of a narrative that builds this up, I felt like this narrative might’ve had more tension or better pacing had the author doled out more revelations in the beginning/middle of the book rather than leaving them for the end. Instead Amy wanders about her life trying to readjust but not really there, and I didn’t really connect with that part of the narrative and Amy as a result.
There seems to be an increase in books like this after Room, and I think the author here wanted to stand out with a different sort of POV on this sort of event. But, it was just lacking for me. What do you think of this book?
I had to laugh at your “what else is this about” line. It seems I made a wise choice in skipping this book, now I don’t feel so bad.
You totally did. Sighs. It just didn’t gel at all.