Island of Lost Girls by Jennifer McMahon

Island of Lost Girls by Jennifer McMahon

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks, October 2009

Genre: Fiction

Pages: eBook, 271 pages

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Summary (from Goodreads.com):

One summer day, at a gas station in a small Vermont town, six-year-old Ernestine Florucci is abducted by a person wearing a rabbit suit while her mother is buying lottery tickets. Twenty-three year old Rhonda Farr is the only witness, and she does nothing as she watches the scene unfold – little Ernie goes with the rabbit so casually, confidently getting into the rabbit’s Volkswagen bug, smiling while the rabbit carefully fastens her seatbelt.

The police are skeptical of Rhonda’s story and Ernie’s mother blames her outright. The kidnapping forces Rhonda to face another disappearance, that of her best friend from childhood – Lizzy Shale, whose brother, Peter just so happens to be a prime suspect in Ernie’s abduction.

Unraveling the present mystery plunges Rhonda headlong down the rabbit hole of her past. She must struggle to makes sense of the loss of the two girls, and to ask herself if the Peter she grew up with - and has secretly loved all her life - could have a much darker side.

Review:

I went into this book, thinking that it would be all about the abduction of a little girl and the search to bring her home. Never, in the long time that it was on my TBR list, did I realize that it really wasn't about finding the little girl who had gone missing but was more about solving mysteries from the past.

When I started reading, I was gripped by both ends of the story... the current timeline (2006) and the past (1993) but as I read further, I found my mind drifting and I could tell that if I let myself, I would be skimming the paragraphs just looking for parts of dialogue that added to the overall flow and weren't just words added to fill up more pages. Now, I will say that as the story comes together at the end, it does pick up it's pace and I found that I was reading from the edge of my seat. But for the overall flow, I wasn't impressed.

Now, as far as the two stories go, I can say that they are both very predictable... I had called the ending from, basically, the beginning and I imagine that readers of mystery/suspense books will be able to do this as well. It's definitely a story that I have read before and there was nothing added to it to make me excited.

The characters were okay... I didn't find myself drawn to anyone in particular and actually found Rhonda to be annoying and so wishy-washy that it was bothersome. I mean, who sees a child being lured from one vehicle to another, by A BUNNY, and just sits in their car DOING NOTHING?!?! Glad to know there are stand-up citizens like Rhonda out there to protect the innocent children of the world. (insert eye roll here).

Overall, not a book that I would recommend and while I am always glad to get another book under my belt, this one isn't very memorable.