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Review on 'The Reappearance of Rachel Price' by Holly Jackson 🎬

  • May 8, 2024
  • 3 min read

Updated: Feb 2

Author: Holly Jackson

Format Read: Hardback Pages: 430 Publication Date: 2nd April 2024


Review:

I had high expectations for this book, and it delivered!


Ever since I heard that Holly Jackson was releasing a new book, it became my sole goal to get my hands on it as soon as possible. My local Works did not disappoint, especially when I wasn’t even looking for it at the time. To be honest, I think it must have been fate for me to own this book. And of course, I got the hardback to add it to the rest of my Holly Jackson standalone collection (i.e. Five Survive). 😊


I had no idea what was going to happen when I started this book. Literally, all I had was the synopsis on the cover jacket, which was still very vague considering the fact that the event happens within the first 10 chapters. Even then, I was still shocked by what was going on. The only thing I was certain of was that Ash would be the love interest and partner-in-crime, as Holly Jackson always gives the female main character. Though I had to prepare myself for the inevitable—they weren’t going to end up together since this wasn’t a romance novel. (Sorry, my romance brain side always likes to pop up. :( )


On top of this, I had to prepare myself for the fact that the novel was in third person, as all of her novels are. I have nothing against third-person POV, but I usually read first-person POV, or if I’m lucky, dual POV in first person. This means it takes me a second to readjust and make sure my brain doesn’t reject the different version (though it is pretty normal for books). I don’t know what I was worried about, though, because from the first page, the book drew me in, and I was already trying to connect dots that didn’t even exist... it was THAT entertaining for me.


Rachel Price disappeared 16 years ago, when Bel was 2 years old. Now 18-year-old Bel is talking to a camera crew about her mother’s disappearance for a documentary. The entire family is under scrutiny: Uncle Jeff, Aunt Sherry, Grandpa Pat (though he can’t remember much from a stroke the previous year), Cousin Carter, and Charlie (Bel's dad). During the reenactment of the day that Rachel Price went missing, she returns, turning everyone’s lives upside down. However, Bel is not so easily convinced. Something is suspicious about her mother’s reappearance, especially since she believes that her mother left her in the first place with a planned disappearance. Bel starts to work with Ash, the only one who believes her, as she tries to unravel her mother’s discrepancies in the story she is presenting to the world. Little does she know that the life she knows will never be the same again.


As expected from Holly Jackson, there was a plot twist I didn’t see coming. The morning I finished the novel, my nan recommended I write down three plot points I thought would be the end result. I only managed to write down two, and the first one ended up being correct, though with some additional information. I definitely didn’t expect the moment where Rachel explains everything that has been happening, and the person I had hoped wasn’t bad... ended up being the bad one. I was really happy to have a moment where everything connected, so I could finally understand what was going on.


I think what made this ending so heartbreaking for me was that I had witnessed all the characters throughout the book, and I felt the betrayal just as much as Bel did. I didn’t expect it to hit so hard, and now that I’ve stepped back from the book, I’m not as affected, but while reading, I hated that I had to learn the nice things about a person before Bel put the clues together and discovered they weren’t the nice person she thought they were. I never want to spoil the book for you guys, as I truly believe the mystery is worth the wait. But in the end, I was kind of annoyed with myself that I didn’t see it coming from the start.


The last chapter was a nice wrap-up point that ended quite heartwarmingly as the remaining characters tried to move on with their lives after everything that had happened in the last month or so. However, I believe there are still some unanswered questions I will never know. Why did he want to kill her? Why was Bel being manipulated? Surely there was a future plan... but that never comes to fruition. 😣

 

Until the next chapter,


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