Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - The Reappearance of Rachel Price

disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial

Thank you to PRH Audio for the ALC. I am providing this review of my own accord.

This book follows 18-year-old Bel as she begins filming a documentary about her mom Rachel's disappearance when she was 2 years old. Her father only agreed to this because they desperately need the money, and they just haven't received any answer about Rachel's whereabouts in the last 16 years. They're hoping the money will help their family, as Bel's grandfather slips deeper into dementia, and that they can possibly find some answers regarding Rachel. However, all of a sudden, Rachel re-appears and havoc ensues, obviously! Her answers about where she has been do not make sense to Bel, and Bel refuses to be led astray, investigating her mom herself, with the help of a documentary staff member, Ash. She leaves her younger cousin Carter and aunt Sherry and uncle Jeff out of this though, as she doesn't want to upset her family, especially her dad.

The audiobook is 16 hours, so if you listen at 2x speed, then it's 8 hours. I loved the AGGGTM series, like it is one of my all-time favorite young adult thrillers/mysteries. I think the entire trilogy is genius!!! However, this book was too long! HAHAHA. My friends who read this review will laugh at me, because that's always my top criticism and I'm sorry! I feel this could have been 4 hours shorter, cutting out a lot of extra fluff, especially the romance between

Ash and Bel, because I didn't particularly feel the same vibes I felt between Poppy & Sal in AGGGTM, but that's just me I guess?

Anyway, the actual mystery of:

what happened to Rachel
who took her
how she escaped
why she came back/at this time
where Bel's dad went

was .... not what I was expecting, and yet.....

it's always some dusty, crusty man. Let's be real! And it's always the spouse UGH.

Holly Jackson once again did the damn thing in letting ciswomen make wild choices, and allowing readers to unwaveringly support them lmao.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, I only wish it was shorter & I had to suspend disbelief in the aunt/uncle's storylines because ... I find that almost wrapped up *too* nicely with a bow, but whatevs.

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wondernaut55's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I adored this - it felt like a comeback from Five Survive, with a heavy focus on character development as well as an interesting mystery. Because of the equal focus on characters and a twisty plot, the pacing did suffer quite a bit, but I loved the characters and mystery enough to keep going.

Strong Points: Characters, compelling setup, intrapersonal relationships, and themes

Weak Points: Not really many stakes to stick to the mystery until we got to a little past the halfway point - if we’re breaking this up into 4 acts, act 2 bogged down pretty quickly, and act 3 started strong but like a rollercoaster it dropped hard. I also felt like our villain’s motive was pretty weak and didnt unravel the mystery in the most satisfying way. However, the theme carried that on its back, and I loved the wrap-up for it.

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bridget_magpie's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I was so excited to read this book. I love Holly Jackson’s style, she easily win me with AGGGTM. I really liked this book, there was so much suspense and mystery and I really didn’t expect what really happened. The story is great, but I wasn’t absolutely fan of the ending. Something about it just didn’t feel right with me. Saying all that, this is easily a strong 4 star novel.

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k8_mart's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

2.5

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wylanslcve's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

the funny thing about this book is that, even though I'd already pieced together 85% of what really happened fairly early on, holly jackson somehow managed to confuse me and make me second-guess myself consistently throughout this book in typical holly jackson fashion but honestly? I'm not complaining - this book is incredible in every sense of the word. it's very much what you'd expect there to be in one of jackson's books, filled with twists and turns and a meticulously-crafted mystery that left me completely hooked. seriously, I powered through most of the second half of this book in a single day, which is unusual for me nowadays. I do, however, have a couple of gripes with this one because no book is perfect and you need to be able to critically evaluate the media you're consuming, especially if it's media you enjoy:

1) the romance in this felt underdeveloped and frankly a bit forced. the chemistry between the two characters comes out of nowhere given how their dynamic never really changes over the course of the book, and even though it was sweet I didn't really care for it because of how little relationship development there is between them. they still felt like strangers to each other (at least, from my perspective) and it seemed like the only reason they were even paired with each other is because the love interest was the only age-appropriate person within bel's proximity.

2) I had a similar issue with some of jackson's other books (namely a good girl's guide to murder since the structure of the reappearance of rachel price is more similar to that than five survive), but it felt like most of the people were giving information up way too easily. I know bel is characterised as a persistent, "doesn't take no for an answer" type of person, but the way people were giving her the information she needed almost instantaneously without bel having to put up much of a fight felt extremely unrealistic to me. I get it, it's fiction, it's ya, it's meant to be unrealistic, but it still bothered me.

regardless, this book did not disappoint and holly jackson remains an instant-read author for me!

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jillkaarlela's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Holly Jackson does it again with a twisty YA mystery that had me guessing until literally the very end! I seriously did not know or expect anything that happened in this book, it truly was so shocking! (But looking back, I could see where I missed the clues) I loved all of the different directions that all of the characters took us in, they were all so interesting! I loved Bell’s relationship with Ash, they were such a fun little pair. I also loved Bell’s friendship with her cousin Carter! Bell is a grumpy, skeptic, black-cat FMC, and I am a sucker for those. I also loved the plot of the documentary running throughout this book! I think this was a great fully formed mystery within one book. It is a little longer than Jackson’s previous books, but I think that it had to be. I liked this one much better than her last stand-alone, “Five survive”. I think this was just a much more flushed out mystery overall that didn’t leave us with so many unanswered questions.

Age rating: 16+ (no sexual content)

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