SPOILERS!!!
I have higher expectations about this book, and even though I like some parts, there are some others that I find a bit disappointing.
When Lauren is rescued, she bonds with Paula, the social worker, but she refuses to go home with her parents. She believes that her parents didn’t care for her, or else, they would have found her. Then even though she finds enough evidence of their relentless search for her, she still refuses to acknowledge their bond to her. I can understand how hard it has been for her, being raped, getting pregnant at 12 and then losing her daughter when the girl was only three, but her stubbornness to try to get reacquainted with her parents while her eagerness to be with Paula make her appear a bit inconsistent and selfish.
Then when Rachel and Dan visit the compound to see where their daughter was kept captive, a FBI agent tells them that they have removed the earth in the spot where Mac’s grave is supposed to be, but they haven’t found her remains, but a box with just a few moments. They are going to explore the rest of the compound. When Rachel goes and tells her daughter about it, she tells her and Paula that she is not surprised. When Mac got too sick, apparently Kevin took her to the hospital and left her there to die. Laurel doesn’t know what hospital he took the girl to, since he didn’t talk to her about that. Rachel has the hope that maybe Mac is alive.
The police then interrogates Kevin Hawkins. He claims that he never abducted Laurel, but she went with him willingly because she couldn’t stand up being with her family. He also denies having raped her or made her pregnant. Later when Laurel learns about this, she is heartbroken because it hurt her to hear that he is denying the existence of her little sweet girl. Then Rachel thinks they need to prove that Laurel was raped and had a baby daughter. I can’t boast about knowing much about medical things, but I think the book is wrong in saying that there is no accurate way to prove that Laurel had been sexually assaulted or having given birth. I have heart that there are clear signs that a doctor can identify in a woman’s body that the the said woman has been having intercourse and been pregnant.
Sierra, her sister, is another character that I find quite selfish. I know she is a child, but because of the circumstance, she is more equipped to understand what her sister has gone through. We can also understand that she is jealous of Laurel because her mother has been obsessed with finding her eldest daughter in these years, and as a consequence, she has neglected Sierra from the love she should have had. I can understand these circumstances, but what I can’t get my head around is that fact that Sierra is totally indifferent towards Laurel. I would have expected her to feel curious and try to talk to her sister. When Laurel went missing, Sierra was just six, so she can’t remember what it feels like to have a sister, so shouldn’t she long to know what having a sibling feels like?
Rachel is not very likeable either. She knows that she has neglected Sierra, but she still feels unable to show she also cares for her younger daughter. We have not seen any display of affection, and Sierra seems to relate to her just for the money that she can provide her with.
Paula isn’t a character I love either. She has been good to Laurel, but she is getting too involved, and somehow I feel that unwillingly or not she is pushing herself in the place where Rachel should be. The limits between the personal and non-personal are being smudged, and I think it is wrong of her to create these strong bonds with Laurel when the girl should be doing so with her mum and dad.
The book is okay. The idea is interesting, but sometimes the characters’ attitudes jar me, and they don’t ring true.
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