Lost Girls by Merrie Destefano

This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Title: Lost Girls
Author: Merrie Destefano
Published by: Entangled: Teen
Release Date: January 3, 2017
Format: eARC
Pages: 360
Genres: Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 Beat the Backlist Challenge, Lenoreo's 2020 Fraterfest Readathon, Lenoreo's 2020 Monthly Motif Challenge, Lenoreo's 2020 Netgalley and Edelweiss Challenge, Lenoreo's COYER Quarantine Edition
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:

Blurb:

Yesterday, Rachel went to sleep listening to Taylor Swift, curled up in her grammy’s quilt, worrying about geometry. Today, she woke up in a ditch, bloodied, bruised, and missing a year of her life.

She doesn’t recognize the person she’s become: she’s popular. She wears nothing but black.

Black to cover the blood.

And she can fight.

Tell no one.

She’s not the only girl to go missing within the last year…but she’s the only girl to come back. She desperately wants to unravel what happened to her, to try and recover the rest of the Lost Girls.

But the more she discovers, the more her memories return. And as much as her new life scares her, it calls to her. Seductively. The good girl gone bad, sex, drugs, and raves, and something darker…something she still craves—the rush of the fight, the thrill of the win—something she can’t resist, that might still get her killed…

The only rule is: There are no rules.

My Review:

I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

3.5 stars — This book had a lot of ups and downs, but it mostly pulled it in in the end.

I will admit that I was initially intrigued by the mystery…but then I started not really liking or connecting with Rachel and for a good chunk of the beginning-middle I kinda just wanted to skim ahead and find out all the answers to the mysteries.  I suspected pretty much everyone of shenanigans at one point or another in this story.  I mean, some characters really did not behave or react how they should have — especially her parents!  I mean, she just got back from being kidnapped!  I don’t know…  And then there were her “friends” at school.  It was just a big ball of conflicting emotions for me.

Luckily, it was a pretty quick read, so I just powered through.  And somewhere along the way I found myself wanting the answers, despite still being kind of meh about Rachel.  She did have some glimmers of better-ness though, so that helped.

And the big reveal??  Well, I can’t say I guessed it from the beginning — I was going down an entirely different path for awhile.  But I did wonder about some parts.  Then other parts I didn’t guess AT ALL.  But I’m not a big mystery reader, so I honestly don’t know how it holds up in the genre.

I think part of my problem is that I just finished reading another young adult mystery, and I ADORED the heroine, and connected with her, and felt for her — even though she made bad choices as well.  So it was a pretty stark contrast to Rachel’s basically mean girl thing, and aggression, and all that.  I’m not sure I entirely get her whole transformation, but some of it did make sense and I felt a bit better about her by the end.

So yeah…how do people review mystery books?  I mean, I don’t want to give away anything by saying which characters I liked and which I didn’t.  I think I was only mostly sold on Molly and Kyle, though the others did have some redeeming qualities in the end.

It was strange.  It was outside my wheelhouse.  I’m glad I stuck it out for the ending, because it was different but interesting.  But I might be more choosy in my mysteries in the future.