"There's no doing good in one way without doing harm in another."

At first, I was sure I was going to be bored by this book: sisters Quinn and Sarah, bound together by family love and the trauma of losing their brother long ago, but always at odds over the lifestyle choices of each--it felt like a story I had read before.

However, this book has so much more to offer than just family drama, although that develops into an important and compelling part of the narrative. The politics and societal mores of India clash with Sarah's outgoing personality and desire for concrete action. When she takes her job with a tiger conservation nonprofit organization a little too literally, she stirs up publicity as well as personal controversy. Back home in Louisville, Kentucky, Quinn's solid, safe family life starts to feel shaky as she contemplates the state of her marriage and her mother's mental health. Eventually, the sisters' stories converge in India and they learn things about their past and their present selves that change the way they see the world.

I liked this book for many reasons. First, as the above quote suggests, there are no easy answers. Sarah's desire to help conserve the tiger population puts her in conflict with native inhabitants of the small town where she works, as does her identity as a Westerner. Quinn has to balance what's best for her family with what she personally needs to stay happy and healthy. I particularly liked the ending, although I won't spoil it here.

In addition, I thought Yocom did a superb job of balancing character development with an engaging plot; I like a book that moves, but I also enjoy getting to know the protagonist(s) and feeling like I can understand their motivation.

Lastly, I think this book has an important message about conservation, which the author treats as the complex and emotional subject it is. This is the kind of book that can start a conversation about topics such as women's rights, protecting endangered species, and empowering citizens to become part of the solution to these issues. Best of all, it does none of this at the expense of the story--it fits naturally into the narrative.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and would give it 4.5/5 stars.

This one started off strong for me. I was drawn into the story quickly and the author does an excellent job of creating setting and interesting characters. I enjoyed reading Sarah and Quinn's  alternating points of view on opposite sides of the globe. I found the facts about the tigers and the conservation efforts very interesting. I do not, however, like sex scenes in the novels that I read and feel like I can not recommend it to others who are sensitive to that type of content. Without the love scenes I would give it a 4 star rating but with them my rating is a 3.

For some reason, when I started reading this novel, I wasn't sure I'd remain interested because I felt like I had to reread things at the beginning  thinking I was missing something.  I just had to be patient and the story unfolded. The author intentionally said little about Marcus's death in the beginning so she could use that death as a thread throughout the novel.  The novel begins in India, where the husband and father of three young children takes his family so he can practice medicine.  The mother misses being back home in Kentucky, where they do return after the death of the son.  Years later, one sister remains to India to work with endangered Bengal tigers, and the other sister marries and has twins of her own, the son suffers from asthma, so she is constantly reminded of how Marcus died young. Sarah, the twin of Marcus, invites Quinn to visit her in India, and they reestablish their ties, visit their family home, and reunite with their caretaker.  It's a novel where someone spends her life blaming herself  for something she could not have prevented, a novel where humans are responsible for the extinction of tigers and many do try to save them, and where families fall apart because of unfair expectations, hidden secrets, and miscommunication.  I do wish the novel hadn't ended as it did because that ending seemed to be the destination from the start, yet, somehow, it did seem possible that another ending could have happened.

This book was such a pleasant surprise! The characters and setting pulled me right in, keeping up the momentum until the very end.

I thought the character development between the two sisters was one of the most impressive aspects. A lot of novels are using different perspectives now, but I think that it was done particularly well in this book. You really felt the difference between Quinn and Sarah, in their personalities as well as a sense that their lives, they are on different paths. Really really well done!

Three Ways to Disappear is a beautiful story that books you from the first chapter. I loved this book. Well written and wonderful characters.

Not since I read Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide have I been moved by another environmental fiction like did with Three Ways to Disappear. Exquisitely written and tenderly narrated, Katy Yocom's narration is smooth as a knife on a ripe banana even when it delivers the most horrifying plot point. Yocom is sensitive to the landscape and people she writes about and, as an Indian I empathized with a lot of details told in the book. The impressive details and nuances of village life she brings to her story is proof of her meticulous research. Not to mention, there is not a discordant chord in the symphony of her writing. Man-animal conflict is at the heart of Three Ways to Disappear, blended as it is with a family tragedy, and the author's well-polished knowledge of the subject on Tigers makes it an extremely engaging read. Often times, in its narrative beauty, the book bears resemblance to Katharine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers and it only further signals the author's triumph. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I’m in awe and in love with this book! Three Ways to Disappear is both an absorbing family drama as well as an environmental  fiction novel. It is a story as passionate about the restoration and healing of a family as well as the survival of the majestic Bengal tigers, an endangered species.

Set in the year 2000, Sarah returns to India, the land of her early childhood, to work for the conservation of Bengal tigers as a staff member of Tiger Survival, which is based at the lush Ranthambore tiger reserve in Northern India. 

Sarah and her older sister Quinn are still traumatized by the death of Sarah’s twin brother Marcus to cholera while living in India with their medical doctor father and mother. Her mother refuses to talk about the loss,. Quinn carries guilt over the events leading up to the illness and death of Marcus. 

Sarah has inherited her late father’s compassion and love of  service,. He could not look away from the suffering of the poor, which is why he started a medical clinic in India.

Quinn lives in the US and now has twins of her own, a boy and girl. She fears the past may repeat itself, as her son has nearly died from an asthma attack. She has irrational fears she will not be able to save her son, as she believes she failed to save her brother.

This story encompasses themes of childhood past trauma, family, marriage, service, conservation, the regal Bengal tiger, the culture of India, and romantic love. 

I received a digital ARC from NetGalley and Ashland Creek Publishing in exchange for my honest review.

A story of an American family who grew up in India, then left early because of a family tragedy. Each family member deals with the tragedy in their own way, however it casts a shadow over each of their lives. The secrets and sadness break through when one daughter returns to India to help save the tigers and finds love along the way.

 Three Ways is a story about culture, nature, and family relationships. It is well written and engaging until the very end. As someone who lived in India, it also brought back memories of the people and  places I visited while there.

This book is an unraveling of sorts. The author takes us into rural India exploring a childhood that's beautiful until trauma strikes and they up and leave only for the youngest, Sarah to move there years later as a journalist, helping to save tigers. It's a beautifully told story with each character's views expressed in their own time and voice. 
Thank you Netgalley for the eARC.

This is a delightful 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.

A powerful story told by two sisters who lost a brother when he was 7. Raised until then in India, his twin returns to work in tiger conservation while their older sister deals with guilt and worry. I enjoyed the sisters and their story. The author made India and the plight of the tigers come to life in vivid color.

Author Katy Yocum's debut novel Three Ways to Disappear is rich and compelling. It deftly intertwines themes of family, the connections between humanity nature, and the impact secrets can have on relationships  between family members and sweethearts. It took me two days after finishing this book to gather my thoughts for this review, because by the end of the book I was so emotionally invested in these characters and what might happen to them. I felt the most connected to the younger sister, Sarah. While I could empathize with Quinn, I could not always admire her. This might have been intentional on the author's part. Quinn is a smart, talented, and sensitive soul. But she has been conditioned to suppress her emotions and cope with the unfairness of the situations she is dealt without really questioning them. There were many places in this novel where I really became frustrated with her over passiveness. The very people who are supposed to love her most, often took advantage or her or sometimes treated her with open contempt. While I know this can often reflect what happens in the real world, it is still maddening to read about a character allowing this to happen in a work of fiction. For that reason, Sarah makes a very refreshing contrast to her sister. She is not perfect  and she admittedly makes some poor decisions throughout her version of the story, but she is resilient, curious, smart, and tremendously brave. In her own way, she too hides from the tragedies of her past that tore her nuclear family apart when she was a child by constantly traveling and never truly settling down until she decides to give up her career in journalism. When she finally does start to settle and tentatively put down roots as an ambassador for an NGO seeking to save the endangered tigers of India, she does so in a way that is essentially forbidden and risks making her an exile and an outcast from the very place she has begun to think of as home. Still, I loved Sarah. I loved the fact that she questioned things. I admired her courage, especially the fact that she never blamed others for what happened to her throughout the story, but she always took responsibility for her own actions. I also found the romance between her and her forbidden lover to be touching and fun to read. Most of all, I was captivated by her connection to the tigers throughout the story, and I loved that this connection carried through to the very end. 

It amazed me how Yocum was able to make all of these characters so real and life-like, even the tigers. Her characterization, plot and setting were all vibrant and lovely. She makes it seem effortless the way she captures the beauty and complexities of India and makes the setting as much a part of the story as the people and the animals she characterizes. The prose was also beautiful and thought provoking. 

My only real complaints about the book were the ending and the way the chapters were broken down. I was caught completely by surprise by the ending of this novel. Without giving away any spoilers, I can only say that the way it ended brought to mind novels by another author who is well-known and popular and who has had several books adapted into movies. I can't even say which author I mean because that in itself would be a spoiler. While I concede that the ending is very plausible and could happen in real-life, I didn't completely believe that this is the way the story needed to end. I felt that other scenarios would have made for an equally plausible ending and that is as much as I will say about it. In terms of the way the chapters were broken down, it might be that if I'd read a paper copy of this book it wouldn't have bothered me to have each chapter titled by the sister's name only, without also numbering each chapter. This is mainly a pet peeve on my part. I gain a sense of real satisfaction when I can, in some way, measure how far I've progressed in a book as I am reading it. This is harder to do anyway with a digital copy, but not having the numbered chapters made it even more difficult. 

Overall, I give this book four out of five stars. I really enjoyed reading it and had no trouble finishing it. It kept my interest all the way through to the end. I found the premise to be unique, and even though it is a work of literary fiction, it still often kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. I found it to be a beautiful, engrossing, and fun read.

This lovely, compact novel was a delight to read, and a great pick for book clubs. Told in alternating points of view, this is a story of two sisters who are more different than alike in their complicated responses to the death of their brother that ended their happy ex-pat childhood in India and broke their family apart. It’s also a story about tigers and community and survival and the stories we tell ourselves. 

Sarah, the younger sister, is a divorced, disillusioned journalist who decides to move to India to save the tigers. Umm, best unintentional Eat Pray Love move EVER. Who hasn’t wanted to quit her life and go save the tigers? Evidently, Quinn, the older sister. As her kids reach the same age as the brother who died, Sarah’s move to India triggers Quinn like crazy. 

Unlike many sister stories, this one is thankfully free of a good sister/bad sister agenda. We all got our issues, girls. So do the tigers, and all the people who live around the tigers. I was as emotionally invested in the tiger Machli’s drama as I was with the sisters. There’s a strong you-go-girl vibe to this book, and no easy answers. Pick it up for the tigers, and you’ll be surprised at how much more is there.

A well written story you fall in love with the characters,set in India and focuses on the lives of people living there.
secrets discovered and mysteries solved.

Three Ways to Disappear is a compelling novel that perfectly balances the conservationist angle with the dramatic family drama. Locom’s writing style is beautiful and glides through the themes of family tragedy, finding oneself, forbidden love and the magic of cultural kinship to mother -nature.  
Sarah DeVaughan retires from her dangerous career in journalism, and pursues her true passion, returning to the country of her childhood- sparking the personal journey of finding where home truly is. 
Her older sister Quinn battles with demons of her past, and the repercussions it has on her present family life. She learns to let go, to see strong women in another world, and to overcome fear. 
I felt like I was transported to India, and I was so inspired by the descriptive depiction of frontline work by the environmentalists with the animals as well as the local villagers.

One is hard pressed to say which sister in this tale of family disconnection and reunification is more compelling: the exotic Sarah, journalist-turned-wildlife-activist, or Quinn, mother and keeper of the second, intact, set of twins in the family.

The story’s dual locations of India and Louisville, Kentucky mirrors the dividing of the narrative back and forth between the sisters’ points of view, which in turn reflects the western vs. eastern branching of the tale. Which is to say more lies tantalizingly beneath the surface of this book, rewarding multiple reads.

Filled with tigers, twins, passion, second chances, and plot twists which lead to an unexpected but satisfying climax, this book mesmerizes. It also educates on the plight of tigers and their struggle to survive.

This is a beautiful novel about family and truth and being an outsider. Sarah , a journalist, takes on a job with a tiger conservation NGO in the small village in India where she and her family once lived, while in the US, her sister Quinn deals with a callous husband, a sick child, and the weight of guilt from her childhood in India. The two work to create a new relationship with each other and those around them, all the while threatened by the politics of their presence in India. The plots are compelling and the writing is gorgeous without being overambitious or false.

This novel explores many classic themes: family, belonging and survival.  The writing here is very lush and the story, while on well-trodden themes, delivers a very readable take.

Three Ways to Disappear is lush and poignant, transporting the reader to a remote Indian village where Sarah DeVaughan has left her job as a roving journalist to join an idealistic and determined group of individuals working to save the endangered Bengal tigers who roam and hunt in the neighboring nature preserve.  The novel is rich in tension, introducing the real global tragedy of 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. The characters themselves are complex, idealistic, haunted and human. This is the story of family trauma, secrets, love, and hope as Sarah returns home to India, a place of deep personal tragedy. It is the story of struggle and survival—villagers, sisters, tigers—all trying to find their way in an imperfect world.  The writing is crisp and organic, the descriptions as lush as the jungle in monsoon. A lovely, memorable, novel.