Can you say Deus ex machina?
In case you didn't know Deus ex machina means putting the hand of god into your story. Hannah Jayne utilizes this to a point that she shouldn't, making the ending too easy and the resolution of a 250 page book end in one page.
Let's start with the summary (from the back): Not everyone who goes into the woods come out... It was supposed to be a short hike, a way for Fletcher and Adam to kill time one boring afternoon. But when day turns into night and neither boy returns home, their town is thrown into turmoil. Search teams comb the forest. Then Avery, the police chief's daughter, stumbles on a body. It's Fletcher - disoriented, beaten, and covered in blood. He has no memory of the incident, and worse yet, he has no idea what happened to the still-missing Adam... As danger and suspicion grow, one thing becomes very clear: No one can escape the truth.
Plot: Like any good mystery it starts with someone disappearing, and another person being involved but not being able to remember anything. I believe the plot is believable until the end when she brings in deus ex machina (hand of god). It screws up the whole plot. It builds to a great climax and then there is no resolution just a quick some up in a couple paragraphs and some of the resolutions make absolutely no sense. I'll get into some of these resolutions in the character's portion.
Characters:
Avery: I have a few things to say about this character, annoying and over-dramatic. Your average teenage girl (I can say that, I was a teenage girl once). She is pushy and wants to know what happens which eventually almost gets her killed, a classic mystery thriller protagonist.
Fletcher: I loved him, you were struggling to understand things as he did, he creeped you out yet you sympathized with him. This character was really well written.
Chief Templeton: A concerned father and police chief. He was a classic do the right thing, straight arrow sort of character that worked in this story. No complaints or absolute praises for this character.
Mrs. Carroll (fletcher's mother): She was weird, and extremely overprotective. You understand the character more towards the end, but she was still a flat character and you definitely do not connect with the character. She is also involved in the deus ex machina at the end that makes the author's story completely unravel.
Secondary characters: There are so many characters that are brought in and only there for a page or two and then seem to disappear. I find it strange. I felt as if the author just threw the characters in at the right time to get Fletcher or Avery from point A to point B.
Genre: Mystery thriller. Definitely stuck in the genre and you could tell what the genre was instantly.
World Believability and Ending: The world was definitely believable. Even with the main character being overdramatic you definitely could picture the modern day world and no weird elements were thrown in that did not fit in the world. The ending, oh boy. The ending ruins this entire book. I mean come on. The climax was riveting, but the ending was disappointing. the resolution was a page and it seemed as if the author didn't know how to end it and didn't know how to tie in the loose ends and so she threw god's hand in to fix what she couldn't fix. Definitely not my favorite ending. The build up was great and then when I finished I was left disappointed.
Overall Grade: C, I'm giving this book such a generous grade because the climax was so well written.
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