It’s been a year since Billie Flanagan—a beautiful, charismatic Berkeley mom with an enviable life—went on a solo hike in Desolation Wilderness and vanished from the trail.

No body—only a hiking boot—has ever been found. Billie’s husband and teenage daughter cope with her death the best they can: Jonathan drinks, Olive grows remote.

But then Olive starts having waking dreams—or are they hallucinations?—that her mother is still alive. Jonathan worries about Olive’s emotional stability, until he starts unearthing secrets from Billie’s past that bring into question everything he thought he knew about his wife. Together, Olive and Jonathan embark on a quest for the truth—about Billie, their family, and the stories we tell ourselves about the people we love.

The story is about a family dealing with the disappearance of the mother ” Billie”, she had a wild eventful past and everyone loves her and worships her, but one day she goes hiking and never comes back, which leaves her husband and daughter trying to make peace with what happened, did she die and they have to move on? or, did she disappear and they need to find her?

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My Review : 

The story is about a family dealing with the disappearance of the mother ” Billie”, she had a wild eventful past and everyone loves her and worships her, but one day she goes hiking and never comes back, which leaves her husband and daughter trying to make peace with what happened, did she die and they have to move on? or, did she disappear and they need to find her?

This book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley

Thoughts: 

❃ I loved the writing in this book, It’s beautiful and made me like the story from the first few pages,

At first, the story was heartwarming and sweet, then it took a mysterious turn
It wasn’t thrilling or scary but very suspenseful and made me question the characters and the lives they had.

❃ The characters were great, i loved some and hated others,I admired ” Billie” at certain times but hated her selfishness at some points as well , I was invested in the father and daughter’s lives and feelings more, I really appreciate it when a book can do that, I also admired the relationship between them, you could feel the love they had for each other

But as the story goes on, you start to find out some not so pretty things about certain characters, Lies start to unfold, doubt and accusations start to take place over the good memories.

❃ The plot: I’m not sure how i feel about it, The events in this story didn’t start picking up until about 70% of the book, it was a bit slow paced for my liking but i was okay with it because I was waiting for the big reveal, i had high hopes for a mind blowing twist that would leave me gasping, which didn’t happen here, The actual reveal is good, I did enjoy it, but it left me a bit disappointed, It wasn’t something unexpected, and I didn’t get all the explanations i was waiting for .

The reason I’m giving this book 4 stars is because of the beautiful writing and the idea behind it, Do we really know the people we love as much as we think we do?

I loved that idea, and i enjoyed how it was represented in Billie and Jonathan.

“Maybe this is why they say love is blind : who you want people to be makes you blind to who they really are”

“I was marrying a woman who didn’t want to be known by anyone – not even me “