Review: The Girl Who Was Taken, by Charlie Donlea

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Thriller

Goodreads

The Girl Who Was Taken is the story of two girls: one missing, one who came back. One night, Nicole and Megan disappeared, and two weeks later Megan escaped her captor. One year later, Nicole is still missing and Megan is now a national sensation as the book telling the gritty details of her kidnapping and brave escape.

On the surface, this is not any different from all other thrillers of girls being kidnapped, abused, killed, of which the whole genre is quite saturated. But really, I was very pleased to find out that this does not use the Dead/Missing Girl Trope as most other books do, but instead gives voice to different girls in this story, including the victim, and putting them first.

I really enjoyed how this puts the women of this story on the forefront, and how at any given moment my guess on who was the kidnapper/murderer shifted. That was pretty awesome. I also liked the main characters, all three so different: Nicole being shown as a “slutty, bitchy” girl but you still relate and feel compassionate for her humanity and flaws and youth; Megan, who’s genuinely good and sweet, but also being strong as hell; Livia is intelligent and driven, and my favorite of the three (also she works in forensic pathology, which was so cool/gross to read about).

My only complaint about the book is how the ending felt like it came out of the blue and I didn’t get enough closure as I’d like to – but that is a personal thing, I think a lot of people will enjoy the ending. I still have many questions and, days after having finished this book, I am still thinking about it. This was SO GOOD. I listened to it in audiobook and highly recommend it!

Thanks to my sister for recommending it to me!