The Reappearance of Rachel Price delivers another stunner of a YA mystery from a mastermind of the genre.
Holly Jackson has absolutely smashed it again. It’s no secret that I adore her books, having previously covered the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series and standalone novel Five Survive. Her mysteries are tightly woven with compelling characters and twists that are smart, unforgettable and really pack a punch. The Reappearance of Rachel Price leans into that true crime style narrative, while undermining its more generalised tendencies to really hone in on the characters involved at the centre of the case. Expect devastating twists and turns that hit that much harder because of how invested you have become in these characters.
Jackson has done something so smart with this style of narrative. It is almost uncomfortably close to the characters, making you feel like a fly on the wall or a viewer of the very documentary being made. It makes you complicit in the exploitation Bel feels and the way a tragedy in her life that she cannot even remember has been turned into a bingeable mystery and obsession. She’s a constant object of interest for people who have no idea about her, turning her life into a salacious story that they can theorise about and transforming real people into the true crime caricatures we can expect to see.
As a reader, you feel so strongly for Bel, but you are also eager to devour this book and uncover all the secrets yourself. You theorise, you discuss and you dissect. All of this intensifies tenfold with the titular reappearance. This is where an already layered narrative around the impact of trauma, grief and familial relationships gets that much deeper and twisted. There are reveals that I never saw coming, but it always remains grounded and character focused. You share Bel’s sense of paranoia and extreme uprooting as her entire world shifts and changes multiple times. Everything is questioned and as Bel was too young to remember this period of her life, you rediscover it alongside her. She’s a complex and sometimes morally gray character. Her snark and sarcasm is a well built defence mechanism, but beneath it there is a lonely child scared of abandonment.
This is very much a book focused on family and the entangled, sometimes messy relationships within that space. There is one particularly excruciating scene with a family dinner that just reveals so much about everyone involved and takes on a new light after the final few chapters. It is just such a well crafted book that I already know will hold up to multiple rereads, with something new to notice each time. Jackson has always been a detail orientated writer but this shows a clear evolution of her writing style. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder got dark, but you felt like Pip was a guiding hand and beam of light through it all (mostly). This feels murkier and more inclined to spiral at any given moment. It constantly centres around manipulation and that causes you to question everything you are presented with.
There is such an excellent passage around gaslighting and abuse that just reframes the entire book in such a sickening way. Jackson has made subtle but devastating moves throughout that only come into the light at that moment. It is masterfully plotted and brilliantly executed. The ground never feels stable beneath your feet. It is a book concerned with the ambiguity of the truth, particularly in a true crime narrative. That final third of the book was a wild rollercoaster to read and it often felt like my heart was in my mouth as reveal after reveal poured out onto the page. It was dark, twisty and incredible.
The Reappearance of Rachel Price is the YA thriller of the year so far for me. It is a lit fuse that explodes in dramatic fashion, but also always stays focused on the characters at its heart. This is a twisty, ambiguous book that thrives in its entangled relationships, unpicking the secrets hidden within.
The Reappearance of Rachel Price is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of April 2nd 2024.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
From the author of the multimillion bestselling A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series and Five Survive comes a new true-crime fueled mystery thriller about a girl determined to uncover the shocking truth about her missing mother while filming a documentary on the unsolved case.
Lights. Camera. Lies.
18-year-old Bel has lived her whole life in the shadow of her mom’s mysterious disappearance. Sixteen years ago, Rachel Price vanished and young Bel was the only witness, but she has no memory of it. Rachel is gone, long presumed dead, and Bel wishes everyone would just move on.
But the case is dragged up from the past when the Price family agree to a true crime documentary. Bel can’t wait for filming to end, for life to go back to normal. And then the impossible happens. Rachel Price reappears, and life will never be normal again.
Rachel has an unbelievable story about what happened to her. Unbelievable, because Bel isn’t sure it’s real. If Rachel is lying, then where has she been all this time? And – could she be dangerous? With the cameras still rolling, Bel must uncover the truth about her mother, and find out why Rachel Price really came back from the dead . . .
From world-renowned author Holly Jackson comes a mind-blowing masterpiece about one girl’s search for the truth, and the terror in finding out who your family really is.
