Billie is a mother and wife and a bit rebellious, and suddenly she disappears when she decided to take off on a hiking trip alone with only her backpack.  That was a year ago there has been no sign of Billie or her body. As time moves on it is getting harder to cope with the situation of Billies disappearance.
This is a very good read with twists and turns and very believable characters and the ending will surprise you as it did me
I gave this book 5 stars

Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown is about a mother, Billie, who disappears during a solo hike at a nature reserve in Northern California. Her teenage daughter believes she is alive, while her husband is trying to get some closure by having the courts recognize her death in absentia. As they come to terms with her disappearance, it becomes clear that enigmatic Billie was a woman with a lot of secrets, a sketchy past and a serious independent streak – but was she troubled enough to abandon her family? While this is being marketed as a thriller, I would say it is better described as a domestic drama – a gloomier version of Where Did You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple.

I can often judge how much I'm enjoying a book by how long it takes me to finish it -- and this one seemed to take an eternity.

One the surface it seems like the type of book that I'd enjoy -- a beautiful, active Berkely, CA mom goes out for a hike and never returns. Nothing but a hiking boot is found. She's presumed dead and her husband and teenaged daughter are left to grieve, and to ponder how much they really knew their wife/mother. 

This is much more of a character study than a who-dunnit. The elements of a good book were there, but something was definitely off. The book was a painfully slow read for me, the characters were largely unlikeable, and their actions often times seemed inauthentic.

Thank you to Spiegel & Grau and NetGalley for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When you get a story that you just have to read to the end....this is it. Billie Flanagan decides to go on a solo hike and just disappears from the trail. There is evidence of a struggle, but no body was ever found. Her family moves on the best they can, but then Olive her daughter, sees visions of her mother. This causes concern by her father Jonathan, and together they start to dig into Billie's past. This story shows you that, you may not know someone as well as you think. There are many twists and turns and questions. A very good thriller! Thank you Net Galley for allowing me to read this book and give a review of it.

When I first got the opportunity to read this novel, I was a bit unsure how I would feel about it. I tried to read another novel a few years ago by Janelle Brown, All We Ever Wanted was Everything, and I was unable to get through it. Watch Me Disappear is so different--in a good way! I really enjoyed the story, characters, pace, writing flow, just about everything with it really. The ending was not all that surprising, but it was still good and the whole story could be realistic. I love that it alternates between the different characters and each of their voices are clearly distinct. The only thing that I didn't feel like that fit was Olive's "visions" but it isn't something that really bothered me--more puzzled on how it related.

It takes a bit to really hook you, but keep reading it and you will not be able to put it down!

A mother disappears and you want to find out everything about it.  This has so many twists and connections and missteps that you won't want to put it down until the very last word.  This is the new Gone Girl:  Mom edition which means better!

Billie, both a wife & mother, goes missing on a hiking trip and disappears. The assumption is that she is dead; they find her car in the parking lot of the trail head and one of her hiking boots, but they never find a body. Her husband, Jonathan and her daughter, Olive struggle to move on with their lives; Jonathan begins drinking and Olive pulls away from her father. Around the 1 year anniversary of Billie's disappearance, Jonathan is awaiting the death certificate for his wife from the court, however his daughter seems to not be entirely sure her mother is really dead. Olive decides to start searching for her mother herself and eventually her father agrees to help.

This book sounds really interesting to me when I read the synopsis, however it fell a little flat for me. Basically, as you would expect, once they start searching for Billie, they discover that she has been lying and things aren't exactly as they seemed to be. I never really connected with any of the characters and generally when that occurs, I don't find myself as interested in the actual story. I did find the second half of the book a bit more interesting when Jonathan starts digging into his wife's past. The writing is alright, but nothing that really grabbed me and pulled me into the story. The story is told mostly in the present, with some flashbacks to the past. I do have to say I found the ending to be pretty impressive, it wasn't what I expected after we find out everything else. I know that is a bit vague, but I don't want to give anything away. An interesting story, just never really grabbed my attention the way I expected it to.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC.

Awesome book. Loved it.  Well written with great characters. Full review on Goodreads.

At a cursory glance, the Flanagan family is a typical Californian unit: a techie Dad with cool hair, a beautiful and athletic mother, and a mature teenaged daughter who cares about the environment. The trio share their existence in a cozy Craftsman set on a suburban street in Berkeley, passing their days grabbing lunch in vegan cafes full of lounging hipsters and on beaches with the crashing waves and sandy-haired surfers as their companions.

On the surface, Billie is a great mom. She creates Pinterest-worthy delights for the bake sales hosted at daughter Olive’s expensive private school. She stays perfectly fit by spending her weekends hiking the extensive trails in their area or finding the hottest new yoga class. Her interior is as impressive as her exterior, and Billie never fails to have something interesting to bring to the table when discussing human rights or animal activism. She left behind a checkered past wrought with rumors of a salacious father and a jailed boyfriend, all to fashion a comfortable little life in a sweet little town with a picture-perfect little family.

But, is it enough?

When Billie leaves for yet another of her weekend trips, expressing the need to – yet again – gather clarity and revel in some much-needed alone time, Jonathan doesn’t worry. The Pacific Crest Trail in Desolation Wilderness is nothing she can’t handle, and although he would prefer she not trek out on her own, he doesn’t dare say it out loud. Bille gave up her independence a long time ago in a gesture of devotion and love to their daughter, and he feels that he owes it to her to not question her need to regain a bit of what she’s lost now that Olive is getting older and doesn’t need her as much. He can’t lie and say that he doesn’t miss Billie when she’s gone, but he also doesn’t entirely mind the break from her constant barrage of perfection and soft spoken elitism. Part of him has always felt “less than” in her effervescent presence; he’s never quite managed to break into the coolness that she embodies, no matter how long they’ve been together.

But this trip proved to be a different kind of getaway. Billie never returned and was never found, not even after countless searches among the crags and caverns along the trail. The only thing left behind was a well-worn hiking boot, the object mocking the painful hole left behind in Jonathan and Olive’s life. Now, nearly a year later, they are both still struggling in vain to put their lives back together. . . to somehow glue the fragments of their shattered world into some semblance of normal. The measure of difficulty is beyond any degree they could have ever comprehended, especially as there was never a body to bury.

Nothing is working, and in fact, things are only getting worse as the one-year anniversary of her mother’s death looms in the near future. For Olive, the hardest part of losing Billie has been her attempts at figuring out who she is outside of her mom. Billie led her, encouraged her, and kept her on a path of righteousness while lending a free spirit to Olive’s otherwise naturally structured mindset. Without that guiding light in her life, Olive is lost. She knows her dad is doing his best but . . .

And then one day the unimaginable happens —  Olive sees her mother. Actually sees her! Standing in the middle of the school hallway, Olive has a clear and concise vision of her mother standing before her, long hair billowing in the wind and toes sunken into the white sands of the beach. Billie looks right at her and asks Olive why she isn’t looking for her, her face a mixture of amusement and the slightest tinge of regret. But as Olive reaches for her mom she connects with the hard part of a wall, jolting her back into the here and now and leaving a huge knot on her forehead for good measure.

The visions and images don’t go away and although Olive desperately struggles to find a connection between her realistic daydreams and the tangible world around her, she can’t seem to gain purchase. She spends days and nights in an attempt to decipher the visions or consciously bring them on, and her weekends out searching for her mother in the places her mind has shown her. Clues run into dead ends and mysteries remain mysteries. . . and to make matters worse, her father doesn’t take her seriously and instead, drags her to a doctor who prescribes medication with the sole intent to kill the emerging clairvoyant side of her.

What Olive doesn’t know is that her dad takes her more seriously than she thought. Jonathan has been doing some digging of his own, and is finding himself more and more baffled and unhappy by what he’s finding. Looking through the couple’s finances over the last year shows that Billie successfully siphoned off nearly $20,000 between their savings and checking accounts. And after a search through Billie’s laptop uncovers a hidden and locked file as well as some strange photos of a house he’s never seen and a bookmark to a private investigator’s office, Jonathan is left in a state of utter dismay. Did Billie really die that weekend, a year ago? Or did she disappear in another way entirely?

Both Olive and Jonathan begin to spiral out of control, their tandem paths peppered with insecurities, meddling friends, enigmatic strangers, and the question that haunts them both — is Billie still alive? 

Watch Me Disappear is the third book by noted journalist and novelist Janelle Brown.  A novel that has no qualms with delving into the complexities and flaws of each character allows readers to appreciate Brown’s raw and honest portrayal of the burdens Billie, Jonathan, and Olive all carry — each unique and solely theirs to shoulder. The people that we love are not always who or what we imagined and expected them to be, and Brown’s weaving of lives and story lines reminds readers that the human way of doing things is more often than not to see what we want to see. Billie, at her core, was not a good person. . . and it was fascinating to see how she infected lives with her selfishness while at the same time ingratiating herself.

Giving this novel a solid 4.5 out of 5 star rating, I am eager to pick up the other two novels Brown has penned. Her distinct descriptions of each character was a pleasure to read; at each turn of perspective I felt that Brown slipped into the character’s skin with ease and exceptional depth. While I did feel that a couple of the side story lines were a little contrived, I appreciated Brown’s attempts at creating even more ways for readers to connect with the realness of the characters. Several times I was sure that I had this novel and its mystery figured out, only to be given a twisting turn onto another avenue.

Watch Me Disappear is a clean and easy read for lovers of a good mystery, and is recommended for readers aged 15 and up. This book is available on all platforms on July 11, 2017.

I saw this book on NetGalley and instantly LOVED the cover. How gorgeous. Then the description pulled me into reading it. Billie Flannigan went out for a hike in the wilderness and never made it back home. Now a year later, her husband Jonathan and daughter Olive are having trouble adjusting to life without Billie and their new normal. Then Olive starts seeing her mother in hallucinations – is she psychic? – and is convinced that her mother is still alive.

As Olive explores what might have become of her mother, Jonathan does some investigating of his own. Was his life with Billie what he thought it was?

I should warn you right now: this is going to be another of my vague reviews. Watch Me Disappear is one of those novels where I just don’t want to say too much and give something away.

The further you read, the more the onion peels back on Billie’s character, and the lies she told her family. Jonathan begins to wonder if Billie really died in those woods, or if she just left her family for good. The Billie he knew wouldn’t do that. But the new Billie he’s learning about just might.

Watch Me Disappear is full of questions. Is Olive psychic? Who was Billie, really? Did Jonathan know her like he thought he did? And ultimately, what did happen to Billie that weekend when she ventured out on her own into the woods? At times maybe too many questions, but in the end they all worked together to tell the story.

As far as the characters go, Jonathan and Olive were pretty likable. I was rooting for them to get to the bottom of Billie’s disappearance so no matter the outcome they could continue with their lives. I wrote something about Billie’s character, but I just deleted that because...spoilers.

The biggest thing that didn’t work for me was the “psychic” piece. Jonathan is just getting ready to have Billie ruled as dead in court so he can collect on her much-needed life insurance. Olive’s visions begin and put her at odds with her father, kick-starting their own investigations; Olive looking into Billie’s disappearance, and Jonathan into Billie’s past. The visions did get the plot rolling, but I wasn’t convinced on that particular piece of this puzzle.

One thing I really liked was the ending. Instead of leaving things ambiguous and the reader guessing, Ms. Brown does finish the story and let you know exactly what happened to Billie on that fateful hiking trip. Some readers may appreciate an ambiguous ending, but I like to have all my i’s dotted and t’s crossed, so the ending worked well for me.

Overall this is a page-turner and a fun summer read.

When Billie Flanagan disappears while hiking in the woods, her husband and daughter miss her terribly and finally, mourn her when they believe her dead.  But slowly things about Billie's life are revealed -- parts of her life her husband of daughter never knew,  Billie's daughter , Olive, begins to have visions of her mother and Billie's husband begins to believe that Billie has simply run away and that perhaps he didn't know her at all.  They begin to discover who they are without her all the while still trying to figure out what really happened to her.  The book is exquisitely written and you will fall in love with all of the characters and get caught up in the mystery  I loved it!

Beautiful writing...just beautiful.  I liked the story and the mystery but I loved the writing.

Jonathan, Billie, and their 15-year-old daughter, Olive, spent one of their last days together having a picnic lunch on the beach.  A few days later, Billie decided to go backpacking alone along the Pacific Crest Trail in Desolation Wilderness.  She never returned and her body was never found.  Nearly a year later. she is officially classified as missing, presumed dead.  A heavily attended memorial service was held for her and Jonathan’s moving tribute to Billie was so well-received that he has been asked to write a book about her.

For many years, Jonathan had his own company which was very profitable and kept him busy all the time.  Many times, Billie begged him to quit and take life easy, but that doesn’t pay the bills.  But after Billie went missing, he did quit and has tried to devote his time to writing the book.  However, money is low and he is getting behind in Olive’s tuition payments.  She attends school at Claremont Prep., a girl’s school.  While it is a difficult thing to do, Jonathan needs to have the courts declare Billie dead so he can obtain a death certificate for life insurance purposes as such.

Olive is struggling at the loss of her mother and begins having visions where Billie talks to her telling her to come find her.  While Jonathan feels she is just grasping at straws, Olive digs into it more piecing things together, convinced her mother is still alive.

Jonathan is so worried about Olive and begins to wonder if Olive is right.  Could Billie still be alive?  If so, where is she and why has she not tried to contact them?  Thus begins his search into her past to try and learn more about her that might lead him to find some answers.

Billie is a complicated woman with an equally complicated past.  As we learn more about her, the reader goes from being convinced that she must be dead to not being sure.  You have to read all the way to the end to find out…is she or isn’t she?

I liked this book but the quest to find the answer to the question is a bit long.  I think that the story could have been shortened somewhat, but then I also understand that if it had been shorter, readers may not have been kept as uncertain as they are until they reach the end of the book.  Enjoy!

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this in advance of its publication. 

I definitely recommend it -- characters jump off the page (my heart goes out to Olive...other characters had my heart and then lost it a bit along the way, but no spoilers, so that's all I'll say), and the story builds in the way of all good page-turners. Great book, quick read (because you can't put it down)!!

Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown is an absolutely riveting mystery.  One mystery is where is Billie Flanagan, mother of Olive and wife of Jonathan.  The other mystery is who is Billie Flanagan.

Watch Me Disappear starts nearly a year after Billie Flanagan disappeared while hiking solo in the Desolation Wilderness.  The story is told in third person narrative.  Olive’s perspective is told through her daily experiences and thoughts, while Jonathan’s thoughts are conveyed through the memoir he is trying to write about his life with Billie.  It is not only an interesting story layout, but an interesting way to convey how Jonathan and Olive struggle with not just the disappearance of a loved one but of the mind-boggling revelations of Billie’s complex web of secrets from prior lives.  

One of Billie’s past lives comes back to haunt her through the reconnection with a friend named Harmony.  At first Harmony seems like a positive, good-hearted friend (think Suki from the Gilmore Girls television program), but as the story unfolds, Harmony’s actions and intentions become increasing questionable.  Harmony quickly becomes a very untrustworthy, unlikable character.

Being a teenager is hard enough, but being a somewhat odd teen whose mother is presumed dead is even harder.  As the one year anniversary of her mother’s disappearance approaches, Olive becomes convinced that her mother is not really dead, and that leads her to some heavy soul searching about how their relationship clearly lead to her mother leaving her.  The emotional gauntlet that Olive must navigate is exhausting.

More exhausting is Jonathan’s path.  He needs closure.  He wants Olive’s belief that her mother is alive to be true, but if Olive is right, why did his wife leave him and their beloved daughter.  Jonathan also questions his role in his wife’s disappearance—whether it is a decision to foolishly hike alone or a decision to disappear from their lives.  It is unfathomable until he starts to dig deeper into Billie’s laptop and the dwindling family finances.

As Jonathan digs deeper, he finds that his wife didn’t fabricate her past as much as she bended the truth to make her look better.  As people from her past are pulled into the story, Jonathan gets a better, fuller picture of who is wife really was. Through his search he along with the reader questions how much he truly knew about his wife—or anyone for that matter.  He questions the foundation of his marriage.  

Part mystery, part character study, Watch Me Disappear is a page-turner. Did Billie runway?  If so, why?    Does she want to be found as Olive believes?  Did she disappear to push Jonathan and Olive out of their comfort zone in order to reinvent her family?  Did she disappear to avoid dealing with the parts of her reality of which she was ashamed?  Or did she simply fall to her death while hiking?  Not only did the big reveal in the epilogue shock me, but the little revelations throughout the story about all the characters amazed me.  Watch Me Disappear is a fantastic read about yearning, loss, and new beginnings.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Random House via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  For more reading recommendations, visit Book Junkie Reviews: https://abookjunkiereviews.wordpress.com.

A year ago, Billie Flanagan set out hiking on her own in a remote part of California. She never returned home. Her body hasn't been found. Her husband Jonathan and their teenage daughter, Olive, are struggling emotionally as well as financially. Jonathan has been trying to write a memoir of his life with Billie, while Olive is clinging to the hope that her mother is still alive, more so since she's been having "visions" of her. Being able to declare Billie legally dead would aid them financially through the life insurance payout. Nevertheless, partly in an attempt to re-establish a much-needed bond with his daughter, and partly to satisfy his own needs, Jonathan starts looking closer at what exactly they know about Billie and their life prior to her disappearance. Who really was Billie Flanagan?
This was one of my vacation reads, and I very nearly gave up after the first couple of chapters because it didn't grab me at first and the writing style took some getting used to (present tense and third person), but I'm so glad I continued. Another couple of chapters and I was hooked. This is a bit of a cross-genre book. There's mystery. There's family drama. There's a young adult vibe with Olive's coming-of-age story as she has to find herself amidst the tragedy of her mother's disappearance. Above all, this was a fantastic character study with the three main individuals drawn solidly, and I found the characters believable although not all necessarily likeable. We largely learn about Billie through other people. The pace is steady, and there were some good twists and turns. I completely and utterly loved the ending. This was my first time reading a Janelle Brown book, and based on this, I'd be happy to read more.

Billie Flanagan was a beautiful woman, a free- spirit, charismatic with a picture perfect life. She had a brilliant beautiful daughter Olive and Jonathan, a husband who loved her!  Now it has been a year since Billie went on a solo hike in the Desolation Wilderness and vanished from the trail.  After weeks of searching the only things found are one of her hiking boots and a smashed cell phone.   No body!  And with no body, no closure, no burial, a husband and father desolate now turned to drink; and her determined that her mother is alive and sending her messages from the unknown to come and find her.  

Olive’s dreams / hallucinations or whatever they are have convinced her that her mom is alive and she must try to interpret the messages she receives as clues to help her on her search for her mother. Except some of the clues lead to secrets that Billie had kept - shaking the very foundation of the pedestal which Olive and Billie’s husband had kept Billie on!

*** I have to say that this was a very interesting premise on a disappearance plot.   Naturally you have lots of red herrings that pop up all over the place but with Billie though one never gets to actually meet her as the story starts with her disappearance and small background glimpses of a person who appeared to have it all!   Billie did inspire loyalty though with the friends she did have.  Though I question the relationship of friend with regard to Billie whose so called friends kept a few facts from Jonathan that might have helped him determine the person Billie was.  

The suspense was palpable and kept the action going. Whether you warmed up to Jonathan or not, who partially neglected his daughter as he drowned his grief with work and drink one can empathize with him - to a certain extent.   However, Olive was another matter. As a young teenager Olive needed her mom so much that the visions she was having (believe or not) were traumatic and to not be believed was even worse.    What was real, what was not.   What did the visions mean and where did they lead.  Had Olive followed them correctly and what would she find behind the door of the beach cottage all the clues lead her to?

Bottom line:  You will just have to read this very good thriller to find out!  

Marilyn Rondeau

As the blurb indicates, Billie has been missing for a year. Her husband Jonathon and teenage daughter Olive are struggling to cope with her absence.

Jonathan, feeling guilty for spending more time at work than with his family before her disappearance has quit his job hoping to write a memoir of his life with his effervescent wife. His book is not progressing as fast as he would like. He’s drinking too much and the private school his daughter attends would like to receive payment for her schooling. 

Olive is consumed with the loss of her mom and begins having visions of her mother at odd moments of the day, like waking dreams where her mom gives her cryptic sage advice. She becomes convinced that her mother is alive out there somewhere and is sending her psychic messages so they can be reunited. She even convinces her dad that they should start searching for Billie. Maybe she fell and has amnesia, maybe she’s been kidnapped, maybe she’s still alive. 

The plot outline drew me in, the long drawn out resolution to this plot let me down. A lot of my lack of enthusiasm comes from the behaviour of all the characters in the story. Billie, painted initially as a saint, quickly loses her lustre as a trusted and loving wife and mother as lies and misinformation are uncovered. Jonathan’s behaviour is erratic. His drinking problem clouds his judgement and places Olive at risk. A whole year goes by and only now does he think to question some of Billie’s closest friends? 

The scenes involving Olive were a maddening look at the questionable judgement of a teenage girl. Yes, she has dogged determination to find her mom alive. Yes, she’s struggling in school. (view spoiler) Her issues and emotional responses gave the book a YA feel, one I was not expecting when I read the blurb. I struggled to finish the book thanks to what felt like an endless rehash of the few solid bits of evidence and the nagging suspicion that I didn’t like Billie or Jonathon enough to care if she was dead or alive. 

ARC received from publisher via NetGalley for review.

Thanks so much for the opportunity but unfortunately this wasn't the right book for me. I ended up not finishing and stopping around 25 percent. It was slower than I expected, I thought it would be more thrilling.

In a nutshell, a mother goes off hiking alone one weekend and doesn't return.  After an exhaustive search, one year later, her teenaged daughter and husband are about to have her declared legally dead when the daughter begins to have strong doubts about her death. Eventually both father and daughter decide to learn more about the missing mother/wife and in so doing realize they didn't know her very well.  Life isn't always what it seems.  This book should have grabbed me immediately for a whole host of reasons: Berkeley location, characters, topic, or even family secrets appeal to me.  For some reason it just didn't hold my attention and I'm not completely sure why it wasn't gripping enough.  There was a flatness to it that I initially thought was based on the family members' grief but it didn't seem to change over the course of the story.  The ending was explained so well that there was nothing to chew over in my mind.  It was all just done.  I've nothing left to reflect upon.  So I feel as though I've been denied something which is an odd feeling.  I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.