This is a difficult review to write.
 
Partly because I loved it and partly because it bothered me.
 
This is a well-intentioned, beautiful written novel about mental illness and a life derailed by internet conspiracy theories. It deals with complex female and familial relationships in the aftermath of a family tragedy.  
 
I have to note that on the outset, this not a psychological thriller, but rather a slow burn mystery and character study on grief.
 
Teddi Angstrom, 26 is a teacher at an exclusive prep school in Maine. Ten years earlier, her sister disappeared, never to be seen again. On the tenth anniversary of her sister’s disappearance, Teddies father commits suicide. Left to pick up the pieces and deal with another loss in the family are Teddi and her mom.
 
During the clean-up of her father’s belongs, Teddi comes across his private investigation into her sister’s disappearance. There is an online forum via Reddit he was heavily involved in. Through this discovery, Teddi quickly becomes entangled with the group and all their theories (some quite outlandish). It doesn’t take long for her to be swept up in the true crime community and allow her personal life to spiral out of control as she becomes obsessive about solving what happened to her sister.
 
I don’t need characters to be likeable, but in all honesty Teddi and her mom were both incredibly “out there”. Not unlikable per se, but very full on through their actions and thought processes. There was also a running narrative about the family dog that just didn’t sit well with me. (That’s probably a me thing after just losing one of my fur babies!)
 
Overall, it’s a clever and darkly compelling read that tugs at your emotional heartstrings. While I don’t think it will be for everyone, I highly recommend it for those that enjoy character driven - heavy inner monologue, dark mysteries.

Many thanks @sohopress @netgalley #rbmedia for advanced reading e-arc and ALC.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this ARC to review.

Ten years after her sister’s disappearance, Teddy’s father takes his own life. As she sets to work tying up his loose ends left behind, Teddy learns he was actively perusing Reddit to find out what happened to Angie and engaging with people who may have answers to her outstanding questions. As Teddy picks up where he left off, she finds herself tumbling down a rabbit hole. Will she be able to find the answers her father could not?

This book has an intriguing premise, but it falls flat in execution. The result is a complicated plot without any real resolution. It sounds like a mystery/thriller in theory, but this is an incorrect way to market the book. More of a family drama, fans of mysteries and thrillers are likely to be disappointed in this read.

Additionally, the book is not an easy read. There are several challenging and disturbing sections (the way the family dog is treated throughout the book is extremely upsetting; some of the sex scenes are not going to be easy for some) and Teddy is perhaps one of the least likable main characters I have ever read in a book. It is not simply that she is flawed or challenging; she is one of the few book characters I’ve continuously called an idiot while reading. Selfish and fancying herself as more intelligent than she is, it was hard to care what happened to her halfway through. With an ending that is less than satisfying, the fact I pushed through the book is even more frustrating.

As a dark drama, this book will have an audience. As a mystery/thriller, I would have a hard time giving my recommendation.

This book is the perfect example of what can happen when someone becomes completely obsessed. In this case, Teddy has made a life for herself. A good job, a boyfriend she loves. She hasn't let her sister's disappearance ten years ago affect her life - until her father unexpectedly commits suicide. As she sorts through his things, she finds information that lets her know she was still looking into Angie's sudden disappearance. Following the clues, Teddy gets mixed up in the lives of people she never knew, following a trail of crumbs down a rabbit hole to her own destruction.

Rebecca Quinn Robertson narrates this story beautifully. Her voice is perfect for this deep dive into true crime and how depression and other circumstances can alter someone's life forever. Although the content is dark, I easily finished this one in a day with the audio.

If you're a fan of true crime and amateur sleuths with dark themes, this book is definitely for you!

I received an advanced digital and audio copy. All thoughts are my own.

I think this is what a thriller written by Ottessa Moshfegh might be like.

This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2024! I love a thriller and the premise of a reddit-based unsolved mysteries rabbit hole really appealed to me, as someone that's chronically online myself. Interestingly, I'd say that this book didn't turn out to be what I was originally expecting, but I ended up enjoying it just as much!

In retrospect the cover should've been the hint that it wasn't a conventional thriller that's just fast-paced and twist after twist - it was, however, so gripping, gritty, and a sort of study of grief, with just an undercurrent of a thriller. The book had me on the edge of my seat the entire time, but in more of an ominous, gloomy, "when is the other shoe going to drop" kind of way. The writing itself is so strong, almost lyrical at points. The character sketches were so effective, painting very vivid pictures of various characters and what it might feel like to be in a room with them, somehow effortlessly.

In brief, this is not your standard thriller, but still very much worth the read, especially if you are a fan of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and that kind of gritty, uneasy, very compelling tone and ambiance.

I will say that pet lovers (especially when it comes to dogs) should be wary of this one - TW for terminally ill dog and pet death.

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

This book was unlike anything I have ever read. The inclusion of Reddit seemed surreal to me. The way FMC Teddy was spiraling going down conspiracy theory rabbit holes about her sister's disappearance seemed so insane to me, but that's the reality of social media today! The author did a great job showing how badly that can affect a person. Social media addiction is real, and the message from this book seemed to say it has more negative impacts than positive ones.
Teddy has been through some tragedies, so her actions aren't exactly the best. I did not agree with everything Teddy did. Some of it seemed very over the top and not realistic at all. But again, that goes to show just how much scrolling through Reddit every night, becoming obsessed with conspiracy theories about her sister's disappearance 10 years ago, took a toll on her for the worst.
I found this story to be so captivating. Not sure if it will be the same in the print version, but the ARC did not have chapters, so it made it seem like one big stream of consciousness. Very fitting for this book, if you ask me. I was flying through the pages. This is a very character driven story, and I saw how every action Teddy made online affected her real life.
I did think some parts of this book were a little out of place. Some were gruesome. Some were confusing. This is definitely a book I want to reread in the future just so I can read it with a fresh set of eyes.
Overall, this was a good read. If you're into conspiracies and have a fascination with the internet and want to see how it affected the characters in this book, I highly recommend it.

I really enjoyed the first half of this book, but somewhere around the midpoint, it just unraveled for me. I did think the initial "falling down the rabbit hole" premise was well done, and reading the internet threads really added to the depth of the plot. I wish the rest of the book had gone as well.

Thank you NetGalley and SoHo press for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This one was honestly hard for me to rate. I enjoyed a lot of the first half of the book, but it lost me a bit towards the middle and to the end.

I think a big part of my disinterest was how misleading the marketing of this book is (not the writer’s fault). The description and tags indicate that this is a thriller full of suspense, but this to me was more of a character study in how people cope with grief, mental illness, addiction, and death. It’s a very heavy read with a lot of triggering issues. To me it was similar to Rebecca Makkai’s “I Have Some Questions for You”, but a lot heavier.

I really liked the incorporation of the Reddit threads because it helped create a distortion of reality so you really felt like you were going down the “rabbit hole” with the protagonist. Her downward spiral was palpable to the reader, which was hard to read, but impactful. The characters were also intriguing and there were so many layers to unpack with all of them. This book definitely does a good job of making the reader uncomfortable, which I think was the intention.

I think I just would’ve preferred knowing what I was getting into (in terms of content & genre) before reading the book because it felt misleading, as a fan of thrillers and mysteries.

This one can be hit or miss for readers. When Teddy's father committed suicide after ten years of her sister Angie's disappearance, she spirals out of control due to her grief and made some very devastating and painful decisions. I couldn't connect with her or the other characters, didn't get the storyline. Just finished it in hope of something good. Sorry to say I was disappointed at the end. It can be great for someone, though. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing the eARC.

I believe wholeheartedly that this book won’t find its true audience because it’s mislabeled as a thriller. This is more of a complicated look at grief and a character study. It was well written, but hard to read. There are long passages that I highlighted because the writing in them was profound. But then there were times when I wanted to throw my kindle because I couldn’t watch the characters continue to spiral.

Based on the synopsis I thought I’d be reading a twisty thriller with lots of online conspiracies about a cold case. This book is not that. This is closer to real life in that we don’t get the answers we want. There is a central mystery, but I think it’s important to know that the book is not focused on solving that mystery. It’s about the aftermath of losing someone you love, and how it might affect you to never know the answers you desperately want.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Soho Crime and RB Media for gifting me both a digital and audio ARC of the debut book by Kate Brody, the audiobook wonderfully narrated by Rebecca Quinn Robertson - 4 stars!

Ten years ago, Teddy's older sister, Angie, went missing and has never been found., Her family never recovered and now her father, Mark, has died by suicide. The family didn't know it, but Mark had been involved with a Reddit community investigating Angie's disappearance and it led him down many bad roads. Teddy now finds herself following those same roads. She gets involved with Mickey, a young girl obsessed with Angie's case, and soon her personal and professional life are in shambles.

Don't go into this one thinking it's a true crime book that will be wrapped up neatly in the end. It's more of a look into a family's grief after a tragedy and how everyone is affected. I loved the title and can only imagine how easy it would be these days to go down the online rabbit holes of social media when a family member is missing. All those theories and conspiracies from people that have no clue would drive you crazy. I thought the writing in this debut was great - I just think readers need to know better what the book is about. I can't wait to read more from this author.

Piecing together tidbits of information from Reddit, Teddy Angstrom finds herself falling down a rabbit hole of theories about her older sister’s disappearance and what could have possibly happened all those years ago. While we’re pulled along her journey, Teddy was so unlikeable that I struggled to engage more with the story, and the fact that the plot moved at a snail’s pace, it made for a very long, exhaustive reading experience.

This is the author’s debut novel, and while I struggled with it at times, I did like how she set up this dark mystery with grit and a stream-of-consciousness nature. I did wish there were more breaks, or even chapters, to help provide the reader with a little breather, but otherwise, I felt like it worked well for this story.

Thank you to Kate Brody, Soho Press and NetGalley for a digital copy of this book for an honest review.

2.75
Teddy’s father dies by suicide on the tenth anniversary of her older sister’s disappearance leading her into a spiral of grief and Reddit threads.

Wary as I am of thrillers nowadays, I thought this sounded great – especially given this description: “A twisty debut exploring the dark side of true crime fandom and the blurry lines of female friendship, perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, My Favorite Murder, and Fleabag.”

Perhaps if not for this description I wouldn’t have had high expectations and as a result, I might have enjoyed the book more for what it was: an examination of grief and family trauma. Unfortunately, it’s not ‘twisty’ at all and it certainly didn’t have the fast-paced plot of a Gillian Flynn novel. Also, the mention of MFM and Fleabag suggests some dark humour, which is definitely not the case.

I found the book more engaging in the beginning, when Teddy’s investigations start. Later, I found the pace slowed and the plot wasn’t moving forward. I was frustrated by the lack of a big twist or reveal, as this was the style of thriller I was expecting. That’s not to say there isn’t a mystery nor surprising revelations; it was just a little more subdued than I had expected.

What really made me come down on the lower side of a neutral rating was the treatment of animals in the story. I’m not a particularly sensitive reader but this book had a particularly upsetting scene involving a dog that did not seem to fit with the character and didn’t add much to the narrative in my opinion.

I really think this book will find its audience if readers are willing to adapt their expectations. If it sounds like one for you, it’s out now!

Thank you, NetGalley and Soho Press for the opportunity to read this ARC.

This book felt like two things: A book that never ends, and a party you went to with a friend and thought you were having a good time at but realize about halfway through that you’re not having as good of a time as you thought, but you can’t really leave so you stick it out and you really regret it by the end of the night.

Yeah. That’s what reading Rabbit Hole felt like to me: Unnecessarily long, uncomfortable in a misleading way, and then utterly miserable when you realize you hate everyone in the book and the plot has gone from somewhat interesting to moderately interesting into, “This really isn’t interesting at all anymore and I don’t want to read this anymore but now I’m about 65% in and I might as well finish”, and then, “I should have just quit”.

I know this seems harsh. It may be. I don’t know. All I know for sure is that I broke up the reading of this book into two chunks because I thought maybe it was just me and I needed to take a break and come back to it for it to seem more fresh and interesting. Usually it’s the second act of a book that fails me in mysteries and suspense novels. For Rabbit Hole, it was the third act that failed me. The second act was the most interesting part, in my opinion. In the third act, the whole book and every single character unraveled for me and no one and nothing was ever capable of redemption. I quite simply wasn’t feeling any of it.

TW/CW for animal suffering and death.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Amateur Sleuth/Mystery/Suspense Mystery

My first book of 2024 and while I for sure finished it, it was just an ok book from my point of view. A book that could be described as much more character driven then plot and had a very slow roll. I have found over my years of reading that I tend to lean and enjoy those books where the characters are great, but there is definitely some plot movement with great pacing.

Teddy Angstrom's father has committed suicide and this is the second mystery that she is trying to solve. The first is the ten-year-old mystery of her older sister's disappearance. Teddy wonders if the two are related and why her father has chosen now to end his life. She heads to reddit, the chat boards, and old school sleuthing to try to gather the clues to solve it all.

For me, when I read the synopsis I felt as though the book was leaning towards the real mystery of it all and while that is the heart of the story, this book is more literary fiction and coming of age as Teddy is really trying to find herself without two of her family members in her life.

The book was very raw and real, and to warn the sensitive readers, this one had some scenes that while appropriate for the book, could make you blush. I personally don't have someone that I would recommend this book to, but I hope with describing it this way, a reader could find it for themselves.

I really struggled with this book as the quality wanes and waxes depending on what part of the story you are in.
Kate Brody creates a novel to that looks at internet voyeurism by placing the reader in a missing person story. Ten years ago, Teddy Angstrom’s older sister, Angie, disappeared. When she is never found, Teddy’s father kills himself, starting the actions of the novel. He had been active in a Reddit community fixated on Angie, and obsessed with finding out if Angie is alive and where she is. Teddy falls down the same rabbit hole, dating a guy on the mysterious list of phone numbers her dad left behind. She also meets a young woman who wants to help finish the search. Teddy herself becomes obsessed with her sister even when it seems like there is no hope.
I had a hard time getting into this book. I found the exposition boring and emotionless even though the book opens when Teddy’s father drives off a bridge and dies Teddy’s voice stunted and I didn’t like her from the beginning, and it just got worse as the book progressed. But that progression helps the plot at least. The reader lives vicariously through Teddy. We all love a good mystery and, often, a conspiracy.
The pacing moves wonderfully except there is no real concept of time. I have no idea when Teddy moved her things into her new place and the period of time the story elapses. This could have been handled more smoothly if her editor had bothered to look at the progress from one story point to the next. You’d be reading and suddenly in the next paragraph, you were somewhere else. I had an advanced ARC so maybe this has been fixed in the editing of the printed book. This would be super helpful to the readers.
The other twist was easy to predict (Brody’s clues are too blatant). This combines with an ending that just…ends. I was unsure what to think of it. What was I supposed to take away from this story? Is this an end?
Rabbit Hole has some compelling writing that gets bogged down with other issues.

Thank you to Soho Press for sending me a copy of RABBIT HOLE. This one is out now.

I had a very hard time getting into this book. It has all the ingredients for a perfect thriller but it's almost as if they were added in the wrong order. This was all it took for me to not have a good time with it. I don't recommend this one at all.

DNF at 35%. I think this book might be suffering from the way it is described. Even though I saw a review before and went in knowing it was more of a slow burn book about grief than the thriller that the description made me expect - this still didn’t work for me. It was too slow and ultimately decided to stop. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the free ebook and audiobook to review.

Imagine your child disappears one night never to be heard from again. The police got nothing. No suspects. No closure. I’m pretty sure I’d be diving down the rabbit hole too! That’s what Mark did, and ten years later, with no real leads, he drives his car off a bridge, leaving his daughter to pick up where he left off. Theodora or “Teddy” who had just signed a lease and was ready to move out, is sucked back in, taking care of her mom and following her dads leads to figure out what happened to her sister Angelina.
The question that hangs in the air the whole book through - is she investigating or is she just grieving?
I read a review that said this book was more of a lesson in grief than it was a twisty thriller and I approached it from there and I’m so glad I did!
The investigation really takes a backseat to everything else that’s going on, which isn’t a lot on the surface, but the writing and the details are so rich in the internal dialogue that it sucks you in. You start caring for Teddy and the people she cares for. Even though these are all deeply flawed humans, we hang on to the ones we have for dear life. Perhaps especially when we know loss.

The rabbit hole here can be so much in my opinion. Yes - Reddit and the World Wide Web is one, and doom scrolling is a real thing to get lost in. But since Mark was an addict and Teddy seems to follow in his footsteps, that psychedelic drug trip is also a rabbit hole she is drawn towards.

I found this book compulsively readable, and it kept me up way past my bedtime. Did I agree with Teddy’s choices? Absolutely not. Can I relate? Not in the slightest. But there was just something about her, perhaps it’s curiosity in what drives her when absolutely everything about her life looks and feels like shit. As she takes over the life of the father who killed himself, what keeps her going? I don’t know. I don’t even know if I liked it. But I could not stop reading it, so that says something. It’s definitely a book about grief though, with mystery as a sub-genre since we don’t know what happened to her sister. I might place this in the company of “What happened to Ruthy Ramirez” (which was one of my favorites last year).

TW: Language, death of parent, death of spouse, death of child, mourning, animal death, death by suicide, drug addiction, alcoholism, toxic parent relationship, eating disorder, bullying, sexual assault, rape, graphic sexual scenes, animal cancer, death of dog (graphic), use of r-word,

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:Ten years ago, Theodora “Teddy” Angstrom’s older sister, Angie, went missing. Her case remains unsolved. Now Teddy’s father, Mark, has killed himself. Unbeknownst to Mark’s family, he had been active in a Reddit community fixated on Angie, and Teddy can’t help but fall down the same rabbit hole.

Teddy’s investigation quickly gets her in hot water with her gun-nut boyfriend, her long-lost half brother, and her colleagues at the prestigious high school where she teaches English. Further complicating matters is Teddy’s growing obsession with Mickey, a charming amateur sleuth who is eerily keen on helping her solve the case.

Bewitched by Mickey, Teddy begins to lose her moral compass. As she struggles to reconcile new information with old memories, her erratic behavior reaches a fever pitch, but she won’t stop until she finds Angie—or destroys herself in the process.
Release Date: January 2nd, 2024
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 380
Rating: ⭐

What I Liked:
1. Liked how the story was written
2. Ohhhh livejournal ❤️

What I Didn't Like:
1. Every thriller has a romance
2. Very little happens that moves the plot forward
3. Repetitive
4. More sex scenes then thrilling things

Overall Thoughts:
"His breath smells like hotdogs and whiskey."

Ew that sounds absolutely disgusting.

It's so weird how in your face Mickey was.

So I guess it's Bill who killed Angie

I didn't know that teachers bring dates to a school dance. I've never heard of this before. How weird. Seems unsafe.

There is a lot of trigger warnings in this book.

There was a moment where they are watching You've Got Mail. How weird because I just watched it two days ago.

Sorry I think Mickie is the one who is all these people and she keeps pushing everyone to find her sister. She doesn't even try to hid her last name when it was well known and attached to a drug dealer that Teddy's sister would get drugs from.

We get a whole oral sex scene that adds nothing to this book. What is the point. We're 270 pages in and this the kind of things we are getting as a readers.

I skimmed the ending because I was desperate for anything to happen that lead anywhere.

We then get all these random different thoughts of what could have happened.

Final Thoughts:
There were moments where this didn't feel like a mystery because when Teddy finds out about it so many people already had some elements solved.

It was completely underwhelming. It was so boring and so monotone. This is not a thriller.

After Theodora “Teddy” Angstrom’s sister Angie went missing a decade ago, her family never quite recovered especially as the case remained unsolved year after year. Then, on the 10th anniversary of her disappearance, her father kills herself. As Teddy packs up her father's things, she realizes that he had continued to actively search for Angie, including through an online community dedicated to Angie's disappearance. Despite wanting to move on, Teddy finds herself falling down the same rabbit hole that ensnared her father. Picking up where her father left off, Teddy soon is fixated on her investigation, throwing the rest of her life into increasing disarray especially as Teddy starts questioning herself, those around her, and everything she has long believed about her sister and her family.

This was an engaging book. It explores interesting themes around grief, the impact of unresolved (and unresolvable) questions about one's family, and friendship.

Highly recommended.