I found this book to be thought provoking and emotionally profound. I recommend this for anyone who wants to read about family drama or conservationism (or both!)

I love how this book was a cross between environmental fiction and a family drama. Three Ways To Disappear tackles some very real problems that our world faces without beating it into you like most environmental texts. Instead you see it expertly woven into a familial drama and you can see the parallels and it makes you ask how can I stop this from happening. It is beautifully written and I can't wait to see what Katy Yocom does next.

Sisters Sarah and Quinn set about resolving past secrets and conflicts in different ways. Sarah quits her job and heads back to India, to a conservation group for tigers. Quinn remains in Kentucky, chasing other types of demons.

Lovely, thought-provoking summer read - it has the page-turning quality of chick lit but with the depth of a real storyteller. I found myself staying up later every night to read "just one more chapter", which is always a good sign. I got the sense that Yocom was following the characters' lead, rather than forcing them into a plot she'd already designed, which always makes for the best storytelling. My only wish was that Yocom had completely steered clear of the "chick lit" trope, which she didn't manage to do - I found it detracted from the story, which was rich enough without them.

Sarah has recently left journalism due to her frustration at not being able to do more than just tell a story. The forced abandonment her profession demands, the development of a journalists detachment that enables them to walk away and move on to the next story isn't in her. She resigns.

In her confusion about what to do next Sarah decides to return to the country where she spent her early childhood, where mysteries about their time there still remain. India.

Protecting Bengal Tigers in India

She joins a tiger protection organisation in Ranthambore National Park and helps raise awareness of the issues of a community, where humans, their animals and wildlife compete for scarce resources, land and water. There is tension between those trying to protect the tigers and those trying to keep their animals alive, where water is scarce and the lake is a forbidden zone to them.

Sarah's twin bother Marcus died of cholera when they were children, her mother fled with Sarah and her sister Quinn, leaving her husband and returned to America. All three of them have different perspectives on what happened that day, and Sarah's move back begins to unravel the shadow that has remained with them all.

Sarah provokes controversy after taking a photo of a poacher that becomes evidence and lands him in jail, leaving his wife and children in difficulty and when she rescues a cub that has fallen into the river. Her actions raise her profile in the wider community, in some ways helpful to the organisation but in other ways endangering her.

Her involvement with one of her colleagues creates further complications, highlighting cultural taboos she is determined to overcome. The scheme she comes up with to resolve those issues is well-intended, requiring a stretch of the imagination to accept.

It's a thought provoking novel that looks at how our environment has changed as species are hunted into extinction, how overpopulation and the need to survive means that humans compete with wildlife for scarce resources and how cross cultural alliances can be sabotaged by those whose worldview favours domination, or nurtured by those seeking partnership.

How We Disappear

Three Ways Humans Disappear - sickness, accident, violence
Three Ways Animals Disappear - hunted, starvation, genetic extinction

I'm still thinking about the meaning of the title as it can be interpreted in a number of ways that aren't made clear in the text, but it made me think about how humans disappear and how animal species disappear. It seems it remains a mystery to the author as well.

“The title is a bit of a mystery even to me! I originally chose “Three” because the family in the story has three children, and “disappear” because of the threat of extinction to the tiger. But there are so many ways to disappear: for instance, through death, or by withdrawing from relationships. And as time goes by, the meaning of the title shifts a bit. Currently I think one interpretation of three ways to disappear would be physically, emotionally, and spiritually,” Yocom explained.

It took me a while to get into the book and there was some discomfort for me around the 'white saviour' aspect to it and although the main protagonist had spent some of her childhood in India, she didn't feel natural to the environment, nor was her presence really appreciated, she was seen as another threat, as her first published photograph proved. Equally the love story. Overall it was an enjoyable read despite its flaws.

Environmental Literature

It reminded me of The Tusk That Did the Damage, a novel set in South India that explores the moral complexities of the ivory trade through the eyes of a poacher, a documentary filmmaker and an elephant.

The tigress in this story Machli is based on a real tiger with the same name who lived in the lakes region of Ranthambore and was observed and photographed by the author in 2006.

This book won the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature and is published by Ashland Creek Press, who publish books that foster an appreciation for worlds outside our own, for nature and the animal kingdom, for the creative process, and for the ways in which we connect."

Further Reading

EcoLit Books: An Interview and Q & A with Katy Yocom

Interesting novel that centers on conservationists trying to save the Tiger population at a preserve in India. The storyline was a bit ambitious and I thought it would have been a better nonfiction book tracking some of the actual conservationists working in India. There were a lot of themes and characters here. I think sticking with telling the story from either Quinn or Sarah's perspective would have allowed for more character development. I was not invested in any of the characters.

Katy Yocom created a beautiful novel about a girl named Sarah who is just hoping to find her place in this world. Moving back to India, the place of her largest tragedy, brings up emotions she hasn't felt in awhile. However, she is there to save the tigers at all costs. Her sister Quinn is hoping she will come to her senses and move back home before something also happens to her.

I loved the growing and sense of purpose this book had to offer. A lot of people can relate to Sarah about just wanting to feel at home. I recommend checking this book out!

This interesting combination of family drama and environmental fiction or eco fiction really worked for me. I wasn't sure what to expect going in, but I was surprised to find I fell in love with the story as a whole, but not in parts. Usually it's the other way around.

It was very interesting to read about how one invest so much in Tigers and their life ad survival all while struggle with her own life and getting connection with her sister, yet again. I didn't have any expetations for this one, but the book was interesting and moving. Though it took time for me to connect with both the sisters, and it felt like when i did, it was over. That was a little sad.

I have serious problems with this book. The story is well-written, well-articulated and compelling but it perpetuates the damaging trope of white saviourism. Every time we put -- in reality, in fiction, in our reporting on things -- energetic and well-meaning Western white people at the center of a critical situation affecting the life of subaltern communities of color, we feed into the fantasy that 1) privileged white people have something to give that subaltern POCs don't already have, 2) the neo-liberal, often Christian, though not in this case, values of the Western world are universally good and everyone on earth would be better off if they adopted them, 3) subaltern communities are simple, uneducated and uncultured, 4) whatever culture they might have is primitive and of little value, which leads us among other things to find great fault with aspects of their culture which are in fact aspects of our culture too, namely misogyny and the subjection of women, 5) whatever causes subaltern communities to suffer from poverty is not the product of centuries-long colonial exploitation from which the West benefits to this day but their innate lack of resourcefulness, and lastly 6) a well-meaning, enthusiastic and possibly well-heeled white Westerner can all by themselves step in and make everything better.

The devaluation of historical wrongs perpetrated on communities of color worldwide and of the richness of their culture that the trope of the white saviour perpetrates is so grievous that this trope should be fought with everything we have in our power. It is better for white people to stop profiting from the exploitation of communities of color the world over through conscious practices in their own (the white people's) countries than to pick up and go help. Stay home, white people. If you are burning to help, help your neighbors by agitating for justice, voting for politicians who will fight for equality for all, subscribing to AOC's Instagram feed and learning from her.

First off, that cover. Beautiful! Environmental fiction, family drama, this book really has it all. Yocum's writing is rich and relevant. I love her character development. Everything about this story was compelling.

In this brilliant debut novel, Katy Yocom brings us closer to the fatal reality of the extinction of Bengal tigers, layering her novel with intricate family relationships, and emotionally-gripping journey of two sisters, Sarah and Quinn.

«Three Ways to Disappear» is by far one of the best Literary Fiction books of this year! With such a powerful first novel, Katy Yocom instantly became my new favorite author, and I can’t wait to see what else she will come up with in the future.

There are books that just tell a story. And then there are others that make you live that story together with the characters. «Three Ways to Disappear» is a perfect example of the novel that grips the reader from the very first pages with its seamless writing, real characters, and eye-opening experience.

Winner of Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature, «Three Ways to Disappear» is a magnificent representation of the difficult survival of Bengal tigers. As I was reading this book, I felt present at every sighting of the tigers. I worried about their well-being, for their complicated relationship with the villagers around the Ranthambore National park, and I felt outraged for the crimes committed against these marvelous creatures.

Just over 300 pages, this books managed to break my heart, to make me hope and to increase my heart rate with worry for the main characters. It has been a very long time since I felt so invested in the story and in the fate of the characters. I loved Sarah and her courageous spirit. I loved Quinn and her desperate need to protect. Their lives weren’t perfect, they made mistakes, they struggled, and for those 4-5 hours that it took for me to read the book, they were the real people whose story I followed very closely.

The little secrets that Katy Yocom hid in the plot, made for the great incentive to keep reading this book even faster. What actually happened on that fateful day? Whose fault was it and does it really matter?

Tygre tygre burning bright!

What an unusual story; intriguing and immersing with the switch between past reminiscences and the current day of two sisters. Sarah DeVaughan, a disillusioned journalist is “Done. With journalism.” She's covered the worst of areas evidencing man's inhumanity to man and is now turning her back on the world of war and heartbreak for what will become a different sort of heartbreak, the world of animal protection and sanctuaries. A world of poaching, and of death and life revisited and the past revisited at the Tiger Sanctuary, Ranthambore (a place she'd last visited when she was seven and her twin Marcus was still alive) in Sawai Madhopur, India doing media work and fundraising for a conservation NGO.
Underlining Sarah's move is the story of her childhood, her family's half remembered early life in India, and the death of her twin. Something her sister Quinn has never come to grips with. That tragedy forms the background for Sara's journey as the story moves between the sisters' lives and their inner torments.
The sanctuary had been hastily created by the government on the lush land held by the farmers of the Village of Vinyal. They had been relocated to flat treeless lands, a place where water for cattle becomes a major concern for the people's livelihood over against the survival of the tigers.
Sarah's story is unexpected, touching and complex. Her love for the tigers grows, as does her concern for the women of the village, particularly the widows and the damaged. Marrying together those concerns are both heartbreaking and triumphant.
Then there's the tiger Akbar, the resident male. Almost it seems that an awareness of each other passes between Sarah and Akbar. Indeed data shows that almost each time Sarah journeys into the park, Akbar appears. Her first sight of him says it all, "He turned his head and looked right into her eyes." That connection holds throughout the story.
As an aside, the reasons for people wearing tiger masks on the back of their heads is fascinating.
Well researched, this is a story for our times with just a touch of magic and lament.
The book's title says it all, Three ways to disappear!

A Smith Publicity ARC via NetGalley

‘A critically endangered top predator, the linchpin of entire ecosystems.’

Those who have been following along for a while now might have picked up on my love for eco-literature. You might have also seen a gravitational lean towards books featuring tigers. Three Ways To Disappear is the first novel I've had the pleasure of reading that combines these two interests: an environmental read about saving tigers, and it’s also set in India, a place I love to read about – it’s as if the universe whispered into Katy Yocom's ear and compelled her to write my ideal novel.

‘“Everything is connected,” Sanjay said. “Protecting the tiger will protect every species of animal and plant that shares its habitat. The trees that scrub pollution from the air and the rivers that supply water to every living thing.”
“So to save the tiger is to save all of nature,” Jai said. “Including us.”’

I adored this novel. It more than lived up to my expectations. I'm not going to compare it to other recent eco-literature releases or to the works of other great novelists that write to these themes because in all honesty, Three Ways To Disappear is in a class of its own. The author is clearly passionate and knowledgeable about her subject and setting, but she has the skill as a writer to translate this into highly readable fiction. The reader is given a complete picture of what is happening in India to tigers, what’s being done to protect them and increase their numbers in the wild, and what the holistic challenges are – globally.


Three Ways To Disappear is not only a novel about tigers though. It’s also a story about a fractured family, two sisters who lost each other along the way from childhood to adulthood and need to find their way back to each other before they can fully experience everything their own lives have to offer. It’s about growing up in India as a westerner and longing for it once you’re wrenched away. It’s about cross-cultural love, grief, parental worry, marriage, being a daughter and a sister, trying to figure out who you are and what you want – connections, between people and nature.


‘It was too much. “You know what? If you think I’m making Nick smaller by worrying about him, you ought to see how small people get when they die. They just vanish, and it’s a sick fucking joke that life goes on and on and on without them. Every second of my life since then has been an insult to him. And you know what? It never goes away. The hole he left is always there. Do you understand that? It is still there. It’s the fucking stencil of my life.”’


I have so much love for this novel and would recommend it in a heartbeat. It’s a magnificent tribute to tigers, to India, and to the power of humanity when focused in on improving the lives of others along with preserving wildlife and protecting nature. India just comes to life within these pages, the beauty and despair, existing side by side. This novel travelled down rivers I never expected it to. Three Ways To Disappear may be Katy Yocom's debut novel but she is no novice when it comes to writing. The way she connected humans and tigers within this novel was masterful. There is one particular scene near the end of the novel, that despite its tragedy, was uniquely uplifting for the possibilities it confirmed – that animals and humans can, have and do connect.



Thanks is extended to Ashland Creek Press and Smith Publicity Inc. via NetGalley for providing me with a copy of Three Ways To Disappear for review.

I finished this one cloudy afternoon I placed my kindle down and breathed deeply. Whoa. I didn’t expect that.

I really didn’t know what to expect from this boo other than two sisters who faced their past. But it wasn’t as simple as that. No it wasn’t.

India is portrayed here as a complicated country. And serves as a great backdrop for the story, though for Quinn, it’s mostly in generic USA. It’s when the she and the story shifts to India is where it’s most interesting.

Such a pleasure to read this book. Even if I kept getting surprised by the turn of events in it.

Thank you NetGalley and Ashland Creek Press for a copy of the book!

Three Ways to Disappear really surprised me. I hadn't expected such a well written and moving story, but that's exactly what I got! Three Ways to Disappear tells the story of three siblings, Sarah, Quinn and Marcus. Having moved away from India following Marcus' death the two girls try to build a new life, but India keeps drawing Sarah back. There she finds fulfillment in working with endangered tigers, and finds love.

I didn't know much about tiger conservation, but this was a really interesting way to learn about it. I also really enjoyed the sibling dynamics, and I think they were portrayed quite realistically, as was the girl's fraught relationship with their mother.

A really good read. If anything, just a little sad. Will recommend.

Three Ways to Disappear is a book that will stand the test of time. It goes back and forth between two sisters. One sister is completely immersed in her family life, while the other is immersed in her work as a journalist who studies tigers in India.

The story has so much tragedy, and that is where I connected with this book the most. The author really honed in on the backstory of both sisters and did such an amazing job of creating an emotional connection with the reader.

Title: Three Ways to Disappear
Author: Katy Yocom
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Sarah and Quinn spent their childhood in India, but a family tragedy drove their mother to return home to the U.S. with the girls years ago. Now, Sarah has decided to leave her life as a journalist behind to return to India to help save Bengal tigers, but the past haunts her every step. Local politics make her new job harder and a secret—and forbidden—love affair adds to the danger every day.

Quinn is afraid of losing her sister in India. Her own marriage is troubled, with her son’s life-threatening illness shadowing every day and her mother’s continued refusal to speak of or deal with the past adding another layer of tension. When Sarah asks Quinn to come to India, Quinn realizes she’ll have to face the past if she’s ever to assuage her guilt over it.

Wow. This book was an incredible read! (Except the ending. Which was so right for the book—but I was hoping for something different, so totally my own issue.) The Indian setting brims with life—colorful and full of spice—and is as much a character as Sarah and Quinn are. The sisters’ relationship is complex and scarred, but they begin to heal together. This book also does an excellent job showing the plight of endangered Bengal tigers—and the work being done to save them.

Katy Yocom is an award-winning author who lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Three Ways to Disappear is her debut novel.

(Galley courtesy of Ashland Creek Press via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Three Ways to Disappear
by Katy Yocom
Ashland Creek Press
Release date: July 16, 2019
Pages: 300


Ashland Creek Publishing in exchange for my honest review.
This book was received as an ARC from the publisher and Author , in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own


Katy Yocom has created an unforgettable poignant charged novel. Told in alternating chapters, it’s the story of two sisters and the repercussions of carrying secrets and guilt.
The writing is beautiful and the plot slowly unfolds revealing a tale of love and loss, fractured relationships, and learning to let go of the past. With complex global issues of the tragedy of the native villagers whose livelihoods have been ravaged by the loss of lands and lakes consumed by national nature parks who confiscate the land as a way to save both earth and wildlife. In this descriptive and lush book about human nature and a beautiful relatable characters, the author pulls you into this dramatic descriptive storyline.
Sarah DeVaughan leaves behind a nomadic and dangerous career as a journalist, to return to India, the country of her childhood and a place of unspeakable family tragedy, to help preserve the endangered Bengal tigers. Meanwhile, at home in Kentucky, her sister, Quinn—also deeply scarred by the past and herself a keeper of secrets—tries to support her sister, even as she fears that India will not be whatever sister, Sarah needs right now in her life

I definitely recommend this book to friends and family

"When I was a boy, I used to wonder why tigers would ever hurt anything but humans....Most of us are completely distracted ninety percent of the time, regretting the past or worrying about the future. We would be the easiest prey in the world."

What makes this novel unique, is that it is a Family Drama combined with an Environmental fiction novel.

Sarah returns to India, land of her early childhood to work for the conservation of the Bengal Tigers. It soon becomes apparent that she has a way with the tigers and that they seem to favor her, as sightings in the park increase since her arrival. But while in India, old wounds resurface (her twin brother Marcus died of cholera at age 8) and she starts questioning the past.

Her older sister Quinn lives in the US and struggles with her own grief of what happened to Marcus in India, as she blames herself. Having twins herself, and the one suffering from severe asthma, she is scared of losing him as well.

The two storylines interweaves perfectly and you really get invested in the lives of these sisters. The writing is beautiful and learning about the Bengal tiger was a bonus for me.

Themes that are explored in the book: Early childhood trauma, family, marriage, nature conservation, Indian culture, inter-racial relationships, mental health.