She's Gone

 Book 46 of my 2023 Reading Challenge

read from May 10 - 24

She's Gone

by David Bell

Summary (via Goodreads)

When 17-year-old Hunter Gifford wakes in the hospital on the night of homecoming, he's shocked to learn he and his girlfriend, Chloe Summers, have been in a terrible car accident. Hunter has no memory of the crash, and his shock turns to horror when he is told Chloe's blood has been found in the car―but she has disappeared.
Back at school, his fellow students taunt him, and his former best friend starts making a true-crime documentary about the case―one that points the finger directly at Hunter. And just when things can't get any worse, Chloe's mother stands in front of the entire town at a candlelight vigil and accuses Hunter of murder.
Under mounting pressure from the police, Hunter takes matters into his own hands by questioning anyone who might know the truth and posting videos to prove his innocence. When Hunter learns he and Chloe were seen arguing loudly outside the dance, he faces a sickening possibility. Was he angry enough to kill the person he loved?

My Opinion

2 stars

The beginning was very good and engaged me right away but when I was almost halfway through the book and no progress had been made I was frustrated and skimmed through the rest just to see what the resolution was.

I can't really say what I didn't like about the book without spoilers so I will give 2 general statements.  First, when Hunter's memory loss is critical to how long it took to figure everything out yet there was no way to plan for Hunter experiencing memory loss, it made the actions inexplicable.  Second, it is really tough to thread the needle when it's first-person narration from the point of view of someone experiencing memory loss; there needs to be enough observation that the reader can pick out clues even if the character hasn't put them together yet but there also can't be too many or there is no way the character should still be in the dark.  Unfortunately, I knew one of the twists fairly early on and it was very frustrating watching Hunter almost deliberately avoid finding answers (such as not reading messages, etc.)

Even though this wasn't the book for me I would probably give this author another try.