The mystery isn't completely original in that it's been done before but the mystery is captivating enough both from the outset when the older sister challenges her friend to a midnight race- she swimming the length of the lake and her friend running on foot. She never made it to the other side of the lake, the boy Toby doesn't know what more he can share and after a year of her missing, Teddy, the younger sister is trying to move on but just can't.

It's not until Teddy and Toby are pushed together working the summer job at the lake where she disappeared that Teddy realizes Toby isn't the scumbag she thought he was. He does want to be helpful and Teddy might have feelings for him now too. The unraveling is about a sister who had some tragic things happen including Olympic-sized pressure to swim, a hidden romance, and bigger plans for herself before she went missing. So it's a story of grief and moving on but also about making space to live as Teddy must do.

What happened to Izzy? Where did she go? No one knows, but Teddy of all people should hold some answers regarding her twin’s disappearance. But sadly, she’s in the dark as much as anyone else is—including the last person to see Izzy: Toby Smith.

Teddy has made it a point to avoid Toby at all costs, but that becomes impossible when he volunteers at the same lake she works at. Confronted by his appearance, Teddy is also exposed to the temptation of delving back into her own investigation of Izzy going missing. And now that she has a new starting point—aka, Toby—Teddy is convinced she’ll get the answers she missed before. So long as Toby stays honest with her, that is…
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Oh this was such a perfect summer mystery! Almost immediately I was sucked into wondering what happened to Izzy and who could’ve been involved. There were a lot of twists and turns to the plot which I really enjoyed, and I really liked how easy it was to follow Teddy along her investigation.

But what really makes this a perfect read for me was all the insight Teddy gained at the end, and also all the personal growth she went through. I think this is a great book for people have dealt with or are dealing with the disappearance of a loved one, or just putting someone in the shoes of someone who has/is. This was super emotional and suspenseful, and I highly suggest you give it a shot!

Some Y.A. books live up to their genre, but some capture the very essence of youth as if you are missing out. This will sprinkle in the confusion of belonging in the teen years and it will all come back to knock you off your core. It is a heartfelt mystery and told through Teddy's POV, she tells the story as if she is talking to her twin sister, Izzy, who is missing. This was a clever part of the story...the conversation that she would have had with her. Izzy met up with a friend Toby at midnight at Bottomrock Lake. She was an excellent swimmer and had planned to compete in the Olympics, so she wanted to swim across the lake and have him meet her on the other side. She never resurfaced. A year later, Teddy still mourns their loss and considers her missing and not dead.

There are many twists and turns leading to suspects in her disappearance then assumptions maybe she ran away when online bullying comments are found. It uncovers sibling rivalry, grief at its toughest moments and the anxiety of the stares from locals. Her and Toby will find a connection that is raw and real.
I enjoyed the unraveling and how it is delivered. The characters are well thought out and depicted with emotion. The story flows so evenly and I rushed through the audio to find out what happened to Izzy. This will remind you of John Green's book Looking for Alaska, which you got to love.
Thank you NetGalley and Disney-Hyperion for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a beautifully written book about grief, anger and loss. I cannot imagine anything worse than losing a sister but especially if you don’t know if they are lost or dead. I feel like the mysteries took a backseat for me to the story of the emotions and pain that Teddy is going through.

The ideas were good but there were parts that just didn’t work so well and were too obvious. I liked the style but a little unbelievable in places

AFTER YOU VANISHED by E. A. Neeves is a true page-turner. I can honestly say that, even as I was packing for a trip to Europe, my mind was obsessively picking through the plot lines of this psychological thriller, turning over solutions to the puzzle Neeves lays out. The plot turns on the mysterious disappearance of our main character's twin, an Olympic-level swimmer who goes for a midnight dip in a lake and is never seen again.
The author's choice to have Teddy, the main character, address the narrative to Izzy, her vanished twin, makes for a moving and visceral reading experience. The overlay of romance is delicately constructed to enhance the mystery rather than distract from it. I would recommend.

Teddy’s favorite place is Bottomrock Lake, she loves swimming and has worked there for the past several years. Including last year when her twin sister Izzy disappeared. Teddy becomes obsessed with what happened to her.

When Toby, Izzy’s secret boyfriend, comes back to town, Teddy is suspicious. Teddy is determined to get to know him and uncover his secrets in the hope of finding more about her sister. Can Teddy unearth the key without falling for the boy who watched her sister disappear?

This book was definitely a slow burn mystery focusing more on character development. There was one scene towards the end that I don’t think needed to be included, and it didn’t really add to the plot. To me it took away from the story instead of adding to it. However, the rest of the book was good, and I enjoyed seeing Teddy’s development. I loved that all the characters were well written and full of depth.

If you are looking for a slow burn YA mystery that dabbles in romance, I suggest you check this one out.

Thank you to Disney Publishing Worldwide, Disney Hyperion and Netgalley, @netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Additional links will be added once posted.

3.5 stars rounded up

I was really impressed by this debut mystery! The characters were very thoughtfully crafted and there were realistic, but satisfying results to the mystery of what happened to Teddy's twin sister, Izzy. I loved the sports component to this story - both Izzy and her best friend, Toby, who becomes part of Teddy's world, are extremely competitive swimmers. I also really appreciated the complex and thoughtful response to grief that Teddy experiences during the story. Teddy's love of Bottomrock Lake, it's familiarity, traditions, experiences, are palpable and convey a fabulous sense of place in this story. I will definitely recommend this to my students and buy copies for my library.

This story felt like it started at around 75%, and by then I was on the verge of DNFing because the charm of the narrator constantly addressing the sister and the “you knew better…” “you know how… remember?” got boring as… I do not remember. This is the first time something has been mentioned and I am not ‘in’ in the story and the detail is never relevant to the plot. A bulk of the characters still felt underdeveloped after the 75% mark, but at least the story started Going Somewhere and some progress started on investigating the mystery of the missing, even if it never found a satisfying conclusion. As much as this book bored me, I will commend it for being an excellent exploration of trying to rediscover yourself throughout grief and how to move on with your life when half of you is missing.

And that assault scene near the end was entirely unnecessarily (IMO) and I can't even say that it contributed to the plot.

Six months ago, Teddy’s twin sister Izzy waded into a lake never to be seen again. At a memorial, she meets Toby, someone she believes to be a jerk. As she gets to know him, she unravels secrets from her sister’s life.

This one is more of a family story and dealing with grief than a twisty, turny thriller (which is what I expected it to be). If you go into it with the right expectations though, you should enjoy it.

A captivating mystery wrapped in a thoughtful examination of grief with a touch of romance. Framing the tale as Teddy telling it to her missing twin sister is a unique and smart choice that made me instantly aware of the close bond between the two of them. Teddy is a wonderful protagonist who experiences a massive amount of character growth, much of it tied to Toby, who she hates at the beginning since he was with Izzy on the night she vanished. The setting of Bottomrock Lake is a rich one that I can tell was drawn from Neeves' own experiences, and the wide cast of secondary and tertiary characters all factor interestingly into the story. It was fun to follow along with the investigation and try to guess how each new piece of information and revealed secret factored into Izzy's disappearance. Neeves gracefully handles sensitive subjects like mental health and sexual assault through the book, and I like how not every single question is given a neat answer by the end, allowing for Teddy and readers to fill in any remaining blanks.

After You Vanished is a brilliant coming-of-age story about the different kinds of love, grief and acceptance after Teddy's twin sister, Izzy, disappears following a late night rendezvous at Bottomrock Lake.

There are more subjects that AFV touches upon, however to mention them would take away from the mystery element of the story. I think it best to go into reading with as little information as possible, and Teddy and Izzy's story is no different.

Teddy and Toby (Izzy's swim teammate) are dynamic, compelling main characters that deal with Izzy's disappearance in both similar and different ways. Their own motivations for unraveling the mystery behind Izzy are organic and heart-wrenching, and I found myself breathlessly trying to solve the mystery alongside them.

Bottomrock Lake, the main setting of the story, becomes a main character of its own, and i'm a sucker for settings behaving as such in novels. Neeves does a masterful job weaving twists and emotions, and while I was left a bit unsettled by the ending, it felt right considering the story and character arcs.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was sort of a coming of age, dealing with teen issues with a twist--- a sister is missing and has been for about a year. Having the sister talk to the missing sister is a technique i've seen recently but I think it's pretty effective. It's almost more like reading a diary than a novel which I think works well with emotional stories like this.

I wouldn't go into this expecting a big mystery plot, it is around a mystery but it more of a book about dealing with it and the aftermath than a puzzle to solve.

Quick read, good story.

Teddy's sister vanished almost a year ago and Teddy just can't seem to move on without knowing what happened. I enjoyed the character development between the 2 main characters.

Last summer Izzy Ware waded into Bottomrock Lake at midnight and vanished.
It seems that everyone has moved on, believing that she drowned even though her body was never found.
Teddy (Theodora) Izzy’s twin sister, has questions:
*How could she have drowned when she was an olympic level swimmer?
*Why would she, who never broke the rules, have even gotten into the lake at night?
*Why is her passport missing?
*And WHY is Toby, the boy who was with Izzy the night she vanished, working at Bottomrock this year?
Throughout the summer, Teddy and Toby work together to try to figure out what happened to Izzy, but each new piece of information about Izzy leads to more questions.
The story is told from Teddy’s point of view, in a one sided conversation with Izzy.

This is a great story of a sister working her way through her grief and trying to come out the other side. I really enjoyed it.

I will be purchasing this one for my High School library, but would not recommend it for younger students. There is an assault and a scene where the characters remove their clothes. There is some language.

Thank you to netgalley for providing an e-galley for review. After You Vanished is told from the point of view of the twin sister that is left behind after Izzy goes missing in a midnight swim. Teddy can't believe her sister could drown, she trained for the Olympics, so she decides to find out where Izzy went herself, especially since her passport and camping gear are missing. But so is Izzy's body. This book explores the devastation of the people who are left after a loved one goes missing, and there is no wrap up. This is a good mystery book for readers who are squeamish, as there is little to no blood, and it's a mostly psychological, exploration of grief and ultimately acceptance.

After her sister vanished one night, Teddy searches for answers. On the surface, the story’s plot seems simple: a girl starts looking for clues, questions friends and acquaintances, and follows the events of that night. However, there are many twists and turns as she learns more about her sister than she knew before.
After You Vanished is an interesting look into how people process their grief. It also shows how perceptions can be wrong. Teddy could not accept that her sister was dead, holding onto hope but still feeling Izzy was lost to her. Her parents had adapted to a life without her, but still hiding their grief. Throughout all that Teddy continued to search, only to come to false conclusions based on what others had told her and what she felt was true based on her experiences with her sister.
This book’s message is to not accept popular opinion or rumors and to not judge someone before knowing the facts. That makes this novel quite relevant today.
I liked After You Vanished. I became engrossed in Teddy’s search for her sister and in essence really finding herself.

This is an engaging story about Teddy's search for answers after her sister's untimely death. It is entirely written as a journal, where Teddy writes to her missing/presumed dead sister, Izzy. Which at times made this a slightly boring read, as there are large, long sections where we just hear Teddy's thoughts and surmises and rehashing of events.

The other characters are well fleshed out, and the 'mystery' of Izzy's disappearance makes for a diverting plotline, but this is really a tale of a grieving sister who refuses to accept her sister is gone, and who finds romance with the boy she thought was partially responsible for her sister's accidental drowning.

Spoiler alert: without giving too much away, I was not a fan of the whole thing reading as a possible murder mystery, only for it to quickly end with, nope, no murder or mystery here at all.

I do think this is an entertaining read for teens, even though it touches briefly on SA, but without being at all explicit.

This is a well written but slow moving book. Young readers will like it if they want a good look at grief, secrets and romance but those who are looking for a fast moving mystery will probably be frustrated.

WOW. I don't even know where to begin.

The characters, the world building, the topics of conversation - incredible.

After You Vanished follows Teddy searching for answers around her missing twin, Izzy. She goes through a mental and physical journey of digging up the past to find the truth.

There's grief and loss, and depression and anxiety, and learning how to work through that by talking and being surrounded by friends and family that care. Any aspect of mental health in a book always resonates with me and I can relate to the struggles these characters went through. Teddy's indecisiveness and anxiety had her overthinking most situations - so many different scenarios she'd imagined during her "research". The mentions of SA threw me; not something I was expecting HOWEVER, it was approached respectfully and with enough detail to make you aware of the situation, and for that I praise Neeves.

The chemistry between Teddy and Toby made me squeal! I was smiling so much when they had scenes together (which ends up being most of the book). The tension they share and the banter they have just makes me so happy. It's these kind of cutesy-romance interactions that I love. But OMG THEIR FIRST KISS - TOBY HOW COULD YOU?! (I'm putting it down to nerves, okay?). I was so disappointed in Toby for having Izzy's passport because I knew this would break their relationship and I love them together. I like that Teddy learned to forgive Toby and he apologised for his wrongdoing, and I like that they're rebuilding their relationship as there is DEFINITELY a spark still.

I loved the cute lil side-romance blossoming with Pat and Nadia too, that was adorable - could this maybe be the premise for a sequel...? Finding out who K was was a bombshell- I never suspected it until a paragraph before the reveal. I was SURE it was Derek after remembering his nickname was Ken. Derek, no. Don't like. The author did such a good job of writing his character that I genuinely don't like him. Also (!!!) the secondary mini-plot bomb that Neeves dropped towards the end of the book with Snappy; that was mean.

The characters are so well written that you go through an array of emotions towards them, much like Teddy. For example, Teddy believes that K is Coach Keith, and we start to believe it too feeling angry and building up a judgment before he's had his chance to talk. Then when his side of the story comes out, you feel sympathy and frustration, and realise that there's more than just Teddy and her parents suffering the loss.

Moving onto the world building - breathtaking. I'm very good at picturing scenes in a book but it makes such a difference when the writer describes things with balance. There wasn't too much description that I felt it took away from the story, and there wasn't too little that I felt I had to fill in so many blanks myself. I think what would be a great edition to this book (it may already be a thing) is a map, as the story is set predominantly in one location. I'd love to see the layout of the lake and the surrounding are with the trails and the dam.

The cover of the book is STUNNING! It was one of the first things I noticed about the book and drew me in to read the description. Now that I've read the book, I can see how perfectly it matches the story. I love the middle-ground between realism and cartoon. The title page too, the fading from top to bottom - LOVE.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a YA Mystery with elements of romance. Please note that there are strong elements of SA and the above-mentioned mental health issues present throughout the book.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and the author, E A Neeves, for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this DEBUT novel in exchange for an honest review.