Here's what you should know about my life (or the life of any teacher) in June: it is pure chaos. Between attempting to wrangle my children for the last 10 days of school, checking off all my end-of-year tasks, packing up my classroom, recycling all the things...I mean, you get it, right?
It's insanity.
Thank goodness for a good book. Because although June is the least relaxing month of the year, it's one of my favorites for reading. I love the transition into summer reading lists, the chatter between friends about the books that you must get to this summer, and the light at the end of the tunnel that is my promise land -- reading, interrupted, on the beach for an entire day (or five).
All this to say that if you have a day of uninterrupted beach/reading time in your schedule this summer, I highly recommend that you bring along Watch Me Disappear. Not only is the cover design perfectly suited for summer reading -- the words on the page are sure to keep you captivated, as they did for me when I read this book cover-to-cover on a recent Sunday afternoon.
Watch Me Disappear tells the story of the Flanagan family. One year ago, Olive Flanagan's mother, Billie, disappeared while hiking the Pacific Coast Trail. Though her body was never found, Olive and her father Jonathan mourn her loss. In that year of grief, Olive withdraws into herself while Jonathan writes a memoir of their perfect love story, aided by one too many afternoon drinks. As Jonathan battles the courts to get the official death certificate for his wife, Olive is not entirely convinced that her mother is dead. Her evidence? She's been having visions of her mother, and she's convinced they are really telepathic messages. Jonathan, worried about his child's mental well-being, takes a second look into Billie's disappearance, and soon comes to find that his wife wasn't exactly the saintly stay-at-home mom and doting wife that he describes in his memoir.
This book isn't ground-breaking in it's ideas, but it was certainly a page turner and one that fits so well into that category of dysfunctional family/psychological thriller. I would describe it as similar to Where'd You Go Bernadette but without the humor and with more of a psychological element. I don't want to say much more (you know, spoilers are hard to avoid with this genre), but I would most definitely recommend adding this to your summer reading list.
This title will be released on July 11, 2017.
Bottom-Line Rating: 4/5
Title: Watch Me Disappear
Author: Janelle Brown
Publisher: Penguin Random House, 2017
Price: $20 to preorder on Amazon
ISBN: 0812989465
Format: E-book
Source: Net Galley
Note: Top Shelf Text was provided with a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own!
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