A review by stories_of_the_soul27
The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson

mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

This is a classic Holly Jackson book! Which means that it had her style of leaving clues around for the reader to pick up and jump in with the narrator in solving the crime with her. But it also meant that if you have read her AGGGTM you would realise that the plot is predictable because Jackson is reusing the same formula for writing her villains. 

It took me a while to get into the book because: 
  1. Bel, the narrator, was so annoying. While it was understandable why she is who she is, still it was very difficult to like her. And that dampened the mood a bit. 
  2. The prose is a bit too flowery for describing conflicting emotions and building up a mystery. 
  3. The initial clues and inconsistencies left were not much to incite a gasp in a reader. 

But as the story progressed, the mystery and the characters developed a lot and I started to care for a lot of them. My ratings are mostly for the main characters and few of the side characters. The bonding Jackson showed among them and the tearjerker moments in between solidified my attention to the story. I also loved how she again brought the grey area of a murder-mystery story to light with her storytelling. 

It was an enjoyable read especially after you cross the 50% of the book. But Jackson needs to change her formula for the climatic reveals and deciding who the perpetrators are and what their motives are. It’s getting repetitive.