Name: Do Not Become Alarmed
ISBN: 9780241980965

Maile Meloy

When Liv and Nora decide to take their husbands and children on a holiday cruise, everyone is thrilled. The ship's comforts and possibilities seem infinite. But when they all go ashore in beautiful Central America, a series of minor mishaps lead the families further from the ship's safety. One minute the children are there, and the next they're gone. What follows is a heart-racing story told from the perspectives of the adults and the children, as the distraught parents - now turning on one another and blaming themselves - try to recover their children and their shattered lives.

Do Not Become Alarmed

A "novel about what happens when two families go on a tropical vacation--and the children go missing"--

Fellowes Cynthia

I really enjoyed this book - my first by this author. It was a compelling read - two families go on a cruise and their children go missing. I thought that the character development was uneven in that I never could remember which children went with which family and I also could not get a sense of the personalities of most of the children. Even when references were made as to their characteristics, it didn't necessarily jive with my gut feelings about them. But the parents were very well developed and their motivations very clear. All in all it was well written, interesting and suspenseful. I recommend it.

Boring, disjointed, random character introductions, no closure on some characters, no depth.

Very hard read and I would not recommend it to anyone.

mari

Rosie Yakob 

The moving and suspenseful new novel that Ann Patchett calls "smart and thrilling and impossible to put down... the book that every reader longs for." “This summer’s undoubtable smash hit… an addictive, heart-palpitating story.” —Marie Claire The sun is shining, the sea is blue, the children have disappeared. When Liv and Nora decide to take their husbands and children on a holiday cruise, everyone is thrilled. The adults are lulled by the ship’s comfort and ease. The four children—ages six to eleven—love the nonstop buffet and their newfound independence. But when they all go ashore for an adventure in Central America, a series of minor misfortunes and miscalculations leads the families farther from the safety of the ship. One minute the children are there, and the next they’re gone. The disintegration of the world the families knew—told from the perspectives of both the adults and the children—is both riveting and revealing. The parents, accustomed to security and control, turn on each other and blame themselves, while the seemingly helpless children discover resources they never knew they possessed. Do Not Become Alarmed is a story about the protective force of innocence and the limits of parental power, and an insightful look at privileged illusions of safety. Celebrated for her spare and moving fiction, Maile Meloy has written a gripping novel about how quickly what we count on can fall away, and the way a crisis shifts our perceptions of what matters most.

Do Not Become Alarmed

Reviews

Highlights