Name: Good as Gone
Rating: 3.081081081081081 (37 reviews)
ISBN: 9780008203153

Amy Gentry

Eight years ago, thirteen-year-old Julie Whitaker was kidnapped from her bedroom in the middle of the night.

Good as Gone

Good as Gone: A Novel of Suspense

Haylie

This was utter trash. Amy Gentry owes the world an apology tbh. I guess spoilers even though are they really spoilers when the story itself is hot garbage?

Pros
- Literally, only the idea of someone posing as a returned kidnapped kid and trying to unravel that mystery of whether they are that kid or if they are a fraud. That idea alone is one that could've been explored and Gentry just copped out with a "sike, gotcha!" moment instead. Slapped the revelation at the end in the middle of the climax. The mother legit went "it clicked she's my kid", as a reader that is lazy writing and this book should be used as toilet paper because of such.

Cons
- Who the hell writes two POVs with one timeline going forward in the present and the other going backward from the present to the past? 
- Trying to hide "the twist" by omitting names at the end after countless changed aliases is just confusing writing - not smart at all. It's Julie. Just say it's JULIE. WHY IS SHE NOT REFERRING TO HER NAME IN THE END WTF.
- You are seriously telling me that a child who was kidnapped would not return home to their family because of serious brainwashing that would've been obvious from the start? You are seriously telling me that a child would not return to their family, their home being the only familiar place they know? Common sense says that would be the first thing they would do. You are seriously telling me that a family who was anti-religious would allow their daughter to attend Sunday school and not keep an eye on that? Yeah, right. That's insulting.
- I never thought I would be bored at the idea of a girl being beaten and raped, but Gentry used those plot devices SO MUCH in this book for no reason it essentially became Julie's personality trait. I didn't learn that Julie was an ~imaginative believer~ until the last few pages of the book. I only knew Julie as the girl removed from her family that got beaten and raped and had an abortion or miscarriage here and there. The shock value was removed before I was halfway through the book.

Sometimes if an author has more than one book (and it's not in a series) I try to read it to see if they a)improved (if I didn't read their debut and I hated the non-debut) or b) if their writing deteriorated (if I didn't like their debut). This book was so awful I will be avoiding any further written materials from Amy Gentry in the future.

Nicole Dykeman

I enjoyed this, I really did, but honestly, I can't give it any more than 2 stars because it was so confusing. I literally couldn't follow the book or understand what was happening or who was who because the author never stated anything outright until the last part of the story.

Ally Gagliardo

This book was so messy. I wanted to like it but it was complicated just for the sake of being complicated.

Clara Moore

I don't normally read thrillers and this one was full of content that was really hard to stomach. But nonetheless I was impressed with the writing style and it was definitely different and stood apart from other family drama thrillers. Would only recommend if you want to read something very dark.

Melissa Schwartz

I was really happy with the ending, I think it all came together very well. I did almost give this 3 though, I think some select parts were overly vague and while the purpose is obviously to throw you off, sometimes setting and occurrences weren’t clear and given the ending, some of that felt unresolved. But, the beginning and end really stole the show for me

Jill Swan

Good, not great. Her second book, Last Woman Standing, was much better. Well conceived, better pacing with the suspense, it felt like she learned a lot in between the two books. If you liked this, read that one, and if you didn’t really like this, maybe try that one anyway.

Salmi

Jeff Borton

Melissa Bragg 

Lexi Kilmartin

Propulsive and suspenseful, Good as Gone will appeal to fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, and keep readers guessing until the final pages. Thirteen-year-old Julie Whitaker was kidnapped from her bedroom in the middle of the night, witnessed only by her younger sister. Her family was shattered, but managed to stick together, hoping against hope that Julie is still alive. And then one night: the doorbell rings. A young woman who appears to be Julie is finally, miraculously, home safe. The family is ecstatic but Anna, Julie s mother, has whispers of doubts.She hates to face them. She cannot avoid them. When she is contacted by a former detective turned private eye, she begins a torturous search for the truth about the woman she desperately hopes is her daughter. "

Good as Gone

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