Review: Lost Girls by Merrie Destefano [Giveaway]

Lost Girls
by Merrie Destefano
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Publication Date: Jan. 3, 2017
Genre: YA
Rating:

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 thoughts…

Rachel goes missing for two weeks, shows up battered in a ditch, and has lost an entire year of her memory. She has no idea what has happened over the last year but she soon realizes that she’s not the same girl she was a year ago. Instead of light colors, dancing ballet, and listening to Taylor Swift, Rachel now wears all black, takes drugs, and is into some sketchy stuff. A local FBI agent is convinced that Rachel’s experience wasn’t a solitary thing but in fact the workings of a kidnapper how has snatched other girls. Some of which have come up dead. However, without her memory Rachel is unable to not only help find the other lost girls, she’s also vulnerable to her attacker finding her and finishing the job.

I’m not usually one for thrillers or mysteries but this story sounded really interesting. I mean, I couldn’t imagine waking up in a ditch, broken, bruised, and completely confused how you got there when you had just curled up in your bed to go to sleep. Then, to find out that not only do you not have your memory of being kidnapped but you also don’t remember an entire year of your life?! It blew my mind. Also, not only does she not remember the past year but all of a sudden she’s strong, has fast reflexes, is a wicked good fighter that can knock a grown man on his back, and has track marks on the inside of her arm. Oh yeah, and the sweet little ballet dancer is apparently now the Queen Bee of her mini group of girls who are all afraid of her and yet respect her. There was just so much going on in the book that I couldn’t stop reading. I read it within a day.

I don’t want to go into too much detail and give anything away because it all sort of comes in waves as she remembers bits and pieces of the last year of her life. Then there’s her friends, who she doesn’t remember, who also sloly introduce her to her old life over time. So, you get pieces as to who Rachel was before everything happened as well as clues leading up to how she was kidnapped. The whole thing had me on the edge of my seat.

Lost Girls was a doozy, that’s for sure. Between the fight scenes, the confusion of who Rachel really is, the underlying danger of what/who’s still out there possibly waiting for the perfect moment to snatch Rachel back, I could not put this book down. I had to know what happened next. I had to know if Rachel liked the person she’d become, if she’d continue down the path she was previously on or if she would revert back to the sweet innocent girl she was. This was a very entertaining read and I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a gritty, suspenseful, YA that will have you wondering how everything will go down right up until the last page.

 

 

Favorite quote…

“Life had definitely taken a sudden turn for the creepy.”

 

 

Meet the author…

CURRENTLY A FULL-TIME NOVELIST and magazine editor, Merrie Destefano’s next novel, LOST GIRLS, releases on January 3, 2017. Her other novels include AFTERLIFE and FEAST, both published by HarperCollins, and FATHOM, which was self-published. The editor of Victorian Homes magazine, she has also been the editor of American Farmhouse Style, Vintage Gardens, and Zombies magazine, and was the founding editor of Cottages & Bungalows magazine.

With 20 years experience in publishing, she worked for a variety of publishing/broadcasting companies that include Focus on the Family, The Word For Today, and PJS Publications (now Primedia). Besides editing and writing, her background includes print buying, writing/producing radio promos, directing photo shoots, developing new products, writing jacket copy for books, creating sales media packets and organizing direct mail campaigns.

Born in the Midwest, she currently lives in Southern California with her husband, two German shepherds, a Siamese cat and the occasional wandering possum. Her favorite hobbies are reading speculative fiction and watching old Star Trek episodes, and her incurable addiction is writing. She loves to camp in the mountains, walk on the beach, watch old movies, listen to alternative music—although rarely all at the same time.

Website | Twitter | Facebook

 

 

Giveaway time!

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4 Thoughts on “Review: Lost Girls by Merrie Destefano [Giveaway]

  1. Wow! This does sound like quite a ride, Grace. And it might now have been something I’d have picked up on my own but I’ll certainly keep an eye out for it now. 🙂

    • Egads! Kristin! I know you’re not Grace…the problems with multitasking. 😉

      • HaHaHaHa I was like, “Grace? o.O Who’s Grace?” HaHaHa No worries. I’ve been known to do the same thing. 😉 And if you see the book, definitely check it out. THere’s a lot that goes on but I couldn’t really talk about it because it is all part of the mystery of what she’s been up to over the last year, and she slowly starts figuring it all out throughout the book. So I really didn’t want to talk about it and give anything away but there’s a lot more that goes on in the story that I didn’t talk about.

  2. This book instantly got my full attention just by reading the sypnosis. Can’t wait to read this one, and ofcourse win the giveaway hehe

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