This is a great book! There are so many plot twists and turns. And the characters are some of the most real characters I've ever encountered. Raw. Gritty. Real. The story is dark. The characters are dark. And it worked so well. I was kept on the edge of my seat trying to sort it all out and was shocked when it all came to light.

https://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/girl-last-seen

Lainey was ten when she was taken. She spent three horrible years in her kidnapper's basement, enduring horrible things. Lainey is supposed to be "lucky," since she escaped, but it's hard for her to see it that way sometimes. Her entire life has been formed by that awful period in her life. And now, another girl has gone missing. Olivia Shaw, who looks exactly like Lainey did thirteen years ago. Lainey's kidnapper was never found: the police say because she could never give strong enough evidence to identify him. So Lainey has spent these years afraid, living in a haze of pills and booze, and waiting for something bad to happen. Well, something bad has happened. How exactly is Lainey involved, and is she ever going to be safe again?

I definitely have some mixed feelings about this one. It certainly grabs you from the beginning and has some moments that make you go "what?!" Parts of the story are very unique--I enjoyed the plot of two young women/girls aligned by a potential kidnapper--but the story was marred somewhat by the focus on Lainey's drinking and drugs. She's presented as an unreliable narrator, which I understand, and as a flawed heroine. Some of the scenes with her nearly make you cringe: you feel a mix of such sympathy and frustration, because she's such a stressful protagonist. The trend toward these frustrating, unreliable narrators lately has grown a bit old for me.

My other issue was Lainey's strange dynamic with the detective investigating Olivia's disappearance, Sean: the same detective, coincidentally, who found Lainey thirteen years ago as she stumbled helplessly along the road after escaping her horrible fate in the basement. Their dynamic, frankly, is just odd, and I found it almost distracting from the main story. Romance? Just a side story? Is he involved? It was less a bit of intrigue though and, as I mentioned, a distraction. And honestly, a little confusing. After a while, I started to get a little bored with Lainey's helplessness, her interactions with Sean, and the overall lack of things moving forward.

That changed about 3/4 in, when things picked up and became interesting again. There are definitely some fascinating moments in the book, and I did find it engaging overall, despite some stumbles along the way. This is a first novel and I see room from improvement, for sure. I'm going for a 3-star rating -- this is based on a combination of 2.5 stars for some stilted/cheesy writing combined with 3.5 stars for some exciting plot twists, including one near the end that pretty much made it all worth it. I would certainly be intrigued to read Laurin's next book. Don't let my review scare you from this one: I read a lot of thrillers, so I get bit jaded reading some similar plot devices. There's still plenty of pieces to like here.

Girl Last Seen is the debut book by Nina Laurin and it's an exciting thriller that engrossed me from the moment I started to read the book. One of the reasons for the book to be so darn good is that Laine, the first girl that was taken was so well written that one could really feel here torment through the pages. She may have escaped her tormentor, but she is still not free. And, now another girl, Olivia has gone missing and the girl looks just like her. Is it a coincidence or has the man that took taken Olivia as well?

Now, there were things I saw coming that didn't surprise me, as things happen that made me perceive how it probably would go. Not that the book was without surprises. The last part of the book was definitely not lacking surprises. It's a book that pulls you in as you follow Laine being pulled into the investigation and even being suspected of being involved in Olivia's disappearance.

There were just one thing that bothered me in the book, but it's a spoiler thing so I can't really discuss it so much, but it's something that happens when the police officer in charge is at Olivia's school with Laine. They learn something there about Olivia that the school shouldn't know as far as I know when it comes to the law. And, that's all I'm going to say about that! Other than that was the book really good!

Girl Last Seen by Nina Laurin is a gritty, suspense-laden mystery.

In the ten years since her pedophile kidnapper inexplicably freed her, Laine Moreno has never fully recovered from her three year ordeal. Now twenty-three, she holds down two jobs to support herself and she relies on alcohol and drugs to keep her dark memories at bay. Laine comes face to face with her past when ten year old Olivia Shaw goes missing and Detective Sean Ortiz suspects there is a connection between Laine’s still unsolved case and Olivia’s kidnapping. Laine wants nothing more than to help find the young girl, but will she help or hinder the investigation?

Laine’s ordeal at the hands of abductor was horrendous but little was done to find her captor after her release. The daughter of a junkie, Laine was quickly forgotten as she became a ward of the state and soon turned to unhealthy methods of coping with what happened to her. Now on probation and still undergoing counseling, Laine is her own worst enemy as she numbs her pain with a plethora of prescription drug addictions and alcohol. She wants to help rescue Olivia, but Laine is impulsive and unable to cope with the traumatic memories from her time in captivity.

Since Olivia is from a wealthy family, her disappearance is a high profile case with intense media scrutiny. There is also a great deal of pressure on the police to locate the missing girl and Sean’s reason for reaching out to Laine is two-fold: rule her out as a suspect and check to see if she has recalled any new details about her own case.  Laine implicitly trusts Sean due to their history but is her faith in him misplaced? Laine soon discovers she can rely on no one but herself as she continues trying to find Olivia on her own while she becomes progressively more paranoid as her downward spiral continues.

With plenty of unexpected twists and turns and an increasingly unreliable narrator, Girl Last Seen is a somewhat dark mystery that delves into some difficult subject matter. Although Laine is initially a sympathetic protagonist, it is easy to become frustrated with her erratic behavior and poor choices.  Sean is not exactly impartial when it comes to Laine and he, too, makes some very ill-advised decisions. Nina Laurin brings the investigation to an adrenaline-fueled (but slightly improbably) conclusion and the novel ends on a surprisingly upbeat note.

Ten years ago, 13-year-old Ella was found walking along a road. She had been missing for three years, sexually abused and held captive in a basement. Unable to provide the police with any clues to her captor's identity, no one was ever apprehended for what happened to Ella. Now known as Lainey, she just about manages to scrape by, working two jobs, relying on booze and pills to keep going, and avoiding any meaningful human contact. When a ten-year-old girl disappears from the grounds of her school, Lainey/Ella believes the same person who abducted her is responsible.
I'm going to start with the not so good bits. For me, those were certain aspects of the plot. I think I might be harsher than others here because of the amount of crime fiction I get through, so consequently, after a while, you tend to come across the same old plot devices and this story had several here-we-go-again elements that resulted in eye-rolling and a lack of surprise.
Despite this, Girl Last Seen was a fast-paced page-turner that I didn't want to put down. This was mainly due to the taut writing style and the dialogue, which I thought was very well done. Also, the characterization of the addicted, lonely and completely broken protagonist was excellent. Can't say I particularly liked any of the characters, but as far as flawed characters go, Nina Laurin did a fantastic job. This was gritty. It was dark. It's a debut, which makes the writing and the characterization even more impressive. I would certainly read more from this author. Hopefully, next time, there will be less need for overused plot devices.
I received an ARC via NetGalley.

A great debut thriller from Nina Laurin! Don't miss it!! Nina has a way with words that makes this book impossible to put down. I love a good thriller so this was amazing. Laurin has a way of making this a fast paced read while still giving the reader a chance to indulge and digest the information that is beautifully presented. Ella/Laine is not really a character that you can have sympathy for. Yet there are bits and pieces of a broken girl that you will find yourself dying to understand. The story is dark and twisty and you can’t help but continue to turn pages to see how it all plays out. 13 years ago, Ella disappeared without a word, daughter to a junkie no one even looked for her. Laine goes on a roller coaster ride trying to piece her past together to try and give a little girl a future. I cannot go into many details on plot without giving it away but if you are looking for a book to get lost in this is your book.  Thank you to Netgalley the author and the publisher this was awesome.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this book. It didn't quite match what I expected, but it definitely affected my mood, so points for that.

Lainey's life has been tragically hard, and she's had a hard time recovering. She's full of despair and self-hate, and this comes through quite clearly. She often seems lost, and looks to pills to ease the pain. Her unhappiness is palpable in the writing, and this is the main strength of the story.

The actual plot is a little convoluted, but doesn't reach mind-blown status, so ends up feeling just a tad flat. There are several cliched elements (like the ever dying cellphone battery) that feel clunky and lazy. The actual whodunit mystery was interesting, but I never really felt super concerned about knowing the result, I never got that invested in it.

Overall, this was an interesting book with great character portrayal, but felt a little flat in the plot department. That makes it a hard book to rate, as I can't really decided if I loved it or disliked it.

Ten years ago a young girl, Ella Santos, escaped her captor and was rescued after being held hostage for three long years. Now Ella has grown up and changed her name to Lainey. Lainey works two jobs and struggles daily with the mental and physical scars her time in captivity left her with. One day they Lainey’s worst fear comes to pass when she sees the picture of a missing girl, one that looks exactly like her ten year old self had.

Lainey had wondered and watched all these years for her captor to replace her in her basement prison knowing that psychopaths like that rarely stop until caught. Her memories of that time never helped catch her captor though and now Lainey fears that he has struck again and this time that little girl may just be Lainey’s daughter.

When starting off reading Girl Last Seen I was really thinking I was going to love this book. The author’s writing and the story did have me rather engaged in the beginning of the book however somewhere along the line it went a bit downhill leaving me to rate this one at 2.5 stars.

To start with I really never did care for Lainey/Ella as a character. She’s a broken soul after what happened to her that has had a rough life so I really wanted to feel for her but the drinking and pill popping along with some questionable moves just rubbed me the wrong way I suppose. Then I would add that there are things within the story that never quite sit well with me along the way plus when getting to the final wrap up I just didn’t see that working in my mind. Perhaps it’s just me having read several really good thrillers and being a bit too critical but unfortunately this one seemed a bit flawed in the end.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

I received this book "Girl Last Seen" from Netgalley for my honest review. 

Olivia Shaw goes missing and Lainey Moreno has this strange feeling because she was once missing also. Lainey used to be Ella and she was kidnapped when she was 10 and released when she was 13. Something seems familiar to Lainey about the missing girl Olivia. Lainey is a broken women for what has been done to her and she wants to find Olivia before the same thing happens to her. I did like the book and it was a fast read. There were some expected turns in the story and I did not guess who the kidnapper was.

A thrilling, dark story of a girl attempting to find the monster from her real-life nightmares. Will she find his latest victim and heal her own broken past? You won't stop turning pages until the end.

While Girl Last Seen did hold my attention as I waited to board my flight and while we were in the air, by the end, Laurin had sadly not impressed me with any new material in a "girl gets kidnapped and then goes after new kidnapped girl" story. Having just finished The Marsh King's Daughter, where the daughter still has an affection for her now prison-escapee father and knows she's the only one who can find him, Girl Last Seen didn't present an original point of view. Laurin leaves readers wishing they had the perspectives of the characters who are actively involved in the kidnapping situation, but who aren't rounded out well enough. Had those chapters been written, I think I would have an entirely different opinion on this thriller. Readers of Chevy Stevens and B.A. Harris will enjoy this book, but won't impress them as much as the stories Laurin's peers have concocted.

If you grew up reading the Janie Johnson series (The Face on the Milk Carton series) and/or like thrillers, check out Girl Last Seen by Nina Laurin. Really suspenseful with an ending I totally didn't predict. Comes out in June and you should preorder.

Page turner with surprising twists.  Enjoyed this book immensely.  Refreshing and original.

Lainey Moreno is definitely not your typical protagonist.  She is honestly not very likeable and you keep thinking that she should just get over her traumatic past and get on with her life.  However, there is still some goodness left in Lainey as she decides she has to find out what happened to Olivia.  A child who disappeared at the same age as Lainey was when she was kidnapped.  Considering what you discover about Lainey’s past you have to wonder how she even manages to face each day – but she does, and you will be outraged, saddened, surprised and heart broken by the ending.

Without flinching, the mystery of a young girl's disappearance alternates with the damaged survivor of a similar crime..

Zipped right through this one, and then dove into Charlie Donlea's previous book, "Summit Lake".

I'll say that "The Girl Who Was Taken" was a better book, but "Summit Lake" had a satisfactory ending. I'm assuming that Donlea left the door open and the mystery unresolved so he can crank out a sequel or series. I'm hoping that he'll get it out quickly!