I have a strange obsession with books where journalists with capital I Issues put themselves at the center of a story. (I'm looking at you Neil Strauss.) Which in the case of this book is something you should expect because the title makes it clear this book is about the author. I'm shocked other reviewers are shocked this is so personal. Go back to the cover guys, read it again.

So this book is both genuinely good, and genuinely terrible. I think the writing style sucks you in. He's one of those authors where if this book kept going and going I would just keep reading. It was easy for me to sit down and read half the book in one sitting which isn't something I normally do, BUT. But I think the author establishes himself as an unreliable narrator right from the get go. He talks about how reporters are often bad at getting facts right, which as a former reporter I can say is true. (How can three reporters in the same room write such conflicting stories, I ask.) Don't trust everything you read. But he repeatedly gets worked up about how he doesn't believe in coincidences, and at one point he tries to make the case that his son can read minds. It's sad because I get it. His son struggles...he wants to believe his son has a gift that's as cool as his life is hard. It's also sad this author struggles with impostor syndrome because he's a genuinely good writer. Occasionally he'll say something strange or he starts talking about someone without reminding you of who they are, but he's got good flow and I'm a huge fan of a casual writing style where the author feels like your friend, so I can forgive those things.

But writing aside, you still have the reliability issue. As a lot of people have pointed out, the author is extremely suspicious of everyone who wont talk to him, but he himself makes it clear that people close to Maura's disappearance get bothered a lot and have gone to great lengths to make themselves difficult to contact. And I do agree that if Maura is really missing it is strange that so many of the people who are close to her didn't want this book written. But the thing is...he never really seemed to ask himself, "Is it because Maura is in hiding and her family knows it?" The tone is much more conspiratorial. He repeatedly implies that maybe she ran away because her father was molesting her, and that her friends and family are hiding this horrible secret. WHICH, as it turns out, the author's grandfather molested his mother, as well as a lot of other family members. So...is the author projecting? I can't blame him for exploring the angle, but...yeesh. It kind of makes sense that people didn't want to talk to him if he was posting all this to the internet where they could read it while obsessively trying to contact them.

It feels dumb to put a spoiler alert on real life, but spoiler alert...I think Maura totally could be alive and well in Canada after using a safe house to flee her abusive boyfriend. And in that case, publishing everywhere there has been a sighting of a girl who is potentially her is incredibly unethical. Like dude. Her psycho ex isn't in prison. Is James potentially forcing her to upend her life AGAIN? Did this question even occur to him?

The problem with amateur sleuthing is you're literally stocking someone, but it's okay because they're dead right? Well what if they're not? You're essentially giving yourself permission to do some real creepy and uncool things in the name of helping. In this instance, the author is potentially doing a lot of harm and it's uncomfortable to read.

I honestly don't really know how to feel about this book because you're really climbing around inside the author's brain, which is my idea of a good time. But he does some truly reckless and alarming things, namely drunk driving (to rip a hole in space-time?), mouthing off to a judge and fighting a cop (you can't protect your sister from jail, man), and potentially exposing Maura to a man who's so crazy she changed her identity and let everyone believe she was dead to get away from him.

Or maybe I'M projecting because I relate to that version of the story because I once skipped the state to get away from an abusive boyfriend. Gah! This is such a tangled web.

Anyway, maybe he's doing the world a service by exposing this guy? I don't know. It's hard to get a grip on reality when everything you know about the case comes from the same source. He makes a lot of leaps in logic, some of which make sense to me, but also the guy saw a psychic at one point so...I have to keep in mind that my opinion is based entirely on questionable information I learned from someone who has a flair for the dramatic.

But all that said, I like James Renner. I don't think he's a bad dude or he has bad intentions. I think it's like the title says, he obsessed. He wants to know what happened at all costs.