Chloe Cates is a social media superstar. The young teen's life is completely controlled by her domineering mother. One day, the young girl goes missing, and her family's life is turned upside down.

Mandy McHugh is a very accomplished novelist. I read this book in two sittings, and was highly satisfied. It is fast-paced and has well-rounded characters.

This is a great read for fans of Gone Girl and Girl on a Train.

Thanks to Mandy McHugh, NetGalley, and Penzler Publishers for this copy.

Chloe Cates Is Missing
by Mandy McHugh
Pub Date 18 Jan 2022 | Archive Date 31 Dec 2021
Penzler Publishers, Scarlet
General Fiction (Adult) | Mystery & Thrillers


I am reviewing a copy of Chloe Cates is Missing through Penzler Publishers, Scarlet and NetGalley:


A young Internet celebrities sudden disappearance ignites a firestorm of speculation across social media. Now they must find a detective who will extinguish the blaze.



The 13-year-old star of the hit YouTube series, “CC and Me Chloe Cates has disappeared without a trace. No one knows where she has gone, not even her ruthless Momager Jennifer Scarborough, who has spent much of her daughter’s young life crafting a child celebrity persona that is finally beginning to pay off. With Chloe gone the faux-fairytale world that supported that persona begins to fracture, revealing secrets capable of reducing the highly-dysfunctional Scarborough family to rubble.





Jennifer turns to social media for help, Anxious to find her daughter and preserve the life she’s worked so hard to build, but that does not stop the false claims, and salacious suspicions from multiplying. As the search becomes as sensational as Chloe’s series, Missing Persons detective Emilina Stone steps in, only to realize she has a connection to this case herself. Will she be able to stay objective and cut through the rumors to find the truth before it’s too late?



I give Chloe Cates Is Missing Four stars!


Happy Reading!

So good. Quick read, kept me engaged and the ending left me satisfied that everything was answered. The resolution was unexpected in the best way. Such a great story.

This novel's plot would be common if not for its relevance in the age of social media.

Chloe Cates is an internet star and has been in the spotlight ever since she was four. Her mother Jennifer Scarborough doesn't mind exploiting her daughter's privacy for money and professional satisfaction. This novel looks at the fallout when Chloe (real name Abby) goes missing. We not only see the disintegration of the Scarborough family, but also the psychological impact of early fame on Abby.

This was a great thriller. I was hooked from the beginning. I thought this would be a YA novel, but it's actually an adult thriller that just has an adolescent as one of its main characters.

When I'm on Instagram specifically, I often see influencers who feature their children prominently on their social platforms and I wonder what the effects on those children will be years down the road. Will they be mortified that their childhood was so public? Will they be angry and resentful at their parents? This story explores those questions through the Chloe Cates.

While the beginning and middle moved pretty fast, I found the pacing of the novel stalled near the end. Still, the twist at the end was unexpected and I was satisfied with the novel's conclusion.

Overall, this is a solid read for those wanting to read a timely domestic thriller.

4.5 stars. I was invested in this one! SO good and keeps you guessing who the killer really is……. I think I’m still second guessing between 2 people. So fun! Very explosive secrets come out in a very dysfunctional family life. I connected with the characters, especially Abby. I will definitely be recommending this one to everyone. Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy!

This was a "stay up way past my bedtime because I needed answers" kind of read! This fast-paced drama sucks you right in. Filled with various viewpoints from multiple unlikeable characters (like I really hated them all), we learn how life inside this family's house is very different from how they portray themselves online.

This book was filled with shocking confessionals, gruesome twists, and plenty of drama. It's a good one!!

Interesting plot but you don't really connect with the characters. However, I finished it in a day and a half since it was a good enough mystery with decent pacing. A very nutso ending; fans of Meg Abbot, esp Dare Me will love this.

Maybe a bit more of a drama here, but I did really enjoy it. If you like over the top dramatic Moms, this is the book for you! How far she geos is just incredible. Well written, great plot and satisfying ending. Thank you so much!

This book was extremely modern and relevant more so than any book I’ve ever read. The world we live in has changed so much since Covid and this book really showcased that very well.
I appreciated the short chapters and the multiple POV and I also liked the journal entries of Abby.

I always try to find likability in characters but did struggle a bit to find any likable traits in them.
I also got annoyed with the mom using works such as fork or crust instead of cuss words. I also really questioned the dads ability to care for his daughter.

For fans of the show cruel summer add this one to your tbr!

3.5 stars. Despite a promising premise, I found too many aspects of this book unbelievable and YA-ish. Yes it had a few good moments, and I wanted to know what happened….but it was a miss for more. Thank you NetGalley and Pendleton Publishers for my ARC. Expected pub date: 1/18/22

This is a fast-paced and twisty thriller about an influencer/blogger mother whose teen daughter (Abby, known as Chloe online) goes missing. The book alternates between different perspectives (the mother, the father, the daughter's diary, the brother, and the detective investigating the case). I had a lot of fun reading this book. The plot kept me on the edge of my seat as it kept twisting and turning. I never felt particularly attached to any of the characters, but I really wanted to know what happened to Abby/Chloe so I was glued to this one from beginning to end!
I did feel like there were a few too many twists and side characters. Some of them didn't seem totally necessary and it made the book overall a little less convincing (too much coincidence at times). I also had a hard time with the journal entries- they were full of slang and pop culture references as well as detailed bits of dialogue. This was great for moving the plot forward and I liked the idea of a diary, but the text itself distracted me a bit. Nevertheless, I don't read this genre for a realistic story, I read it to be fully engaged and entertained, so I'd call this book a success in that regard!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy. I feel like I have read every thriller/mystery out there, but this one had an angle I have not read yet. The whole mommy blogger/influencer world is pretty terrifying and I think the author raised some very relevant questions about consent from the children involved and other online privacy concerns. I also really liked how the author left the ending. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more from the author in the future.

Chloe Cates is missing is a phenomenal debut. Seriously. It’s SO good.

I started it late evening yesterday and read until the early hours, and then picked it up again as soon as I could today. Within twenty-four hours of starting this book, I’d finished it. I simply couldn’t read it fast enough. Chloe Cates is Missing is a twisty, complicated story that spirals around Jennifer, the mother of Abigail who is more publicly known as Chloe. Jennifer began a ‘mommy blog’ when Abby was little, and ‘Chloe’ is its main character. While Jennifer’s son is allowed a normal life, Abby isn’t. She’s not allowed to go to school, have friends, or make any of her own choices. She has to constantly perform as Chloe, and we see the horrific things that this leads to. And the story begins when Jennifer finds that her precious daughter is missing…

Jennifer is such a fascinating character. She’s dark and twisty. She sees her daughter only in terms of what Chloe can provide her. She treats her like a doll, wanting to control every aspect of her life. And she’ll do anything to make sure she gets her own way. And she lies. She lies a lot, and I was never quite sure when she was telling the truth. This made the tension so, so high. I couldn’t stop reading. She’d engineered an entire fake life for her daughter for her followers to watch. Chloe’s ‘friends’ were photoshopped models. Any time Abby really did start making friends of her own, Jennifer put a stop to it. She wanted her daughter isolated and dependent, and Jackson, Jennifer’s husband and Chloe’s father just lets it happen.

Jennifer is also a murderer. Part of the narrative is from the perspective of Emilina, the former best friend of Jennifer and the now detective investigating Chloe’s disappearance. Emilina knows exactly what kind of person Jennifer is, as Jennifer forced her to cover up the murder when they were kids.

And that’s not the only murder in the book. We’ve also got the murder of Missy, a girl the same age as Chloe and who looks pretty similar to her. And it soon becomes clear the murder of Missy and the disappearance of Chloe are intrinsically connected.

Chloe/Abby is a fascinating character. I really felt for her, could feel her desperation through her journal entries as she tried to fight her controlling mother. Indeed, the journal was quite horrifying to read when it became apparent just how far Jennifer would go to make sure her daughter was doing what she wanted. There was a fantastic twist about the boy whom Abby was secretly getting to know. And we really see the effect of all this emotional abuse on Abby and learn how her mother’s behaviour has shaped her. Nothing is as it seems!

There are so many twists in this book. The pacing is spot-on, and I simply had to read it as quickly as possible to find out who was the evil mastermind—because no matter how hard I tried to work it out, I just couldn’t. Every time I thought I had a handle on one of the suspects, a new curveball was thrown into the mix.

We’ve got a lot of first person narrators—Jennifer, Emilina, Abby, and Jackson (Jennifer’s husband)—but it didn’t feel like too many and I was able to separate the narratives quite easily.

All in all, this is a highly recommended read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of CHLOE CATES IS MISSING by Mandy McHugh in exchange for my honest review.***

Jennifer, a YouTube celebrity with her daughter Abigail (Chloe Cates), puts making money ahead of parenting her thirteen year old daughter. When Abby goes missing suspicion falls on Jennifer as well as Abby’s brother and father. Leading the investigation, Emilina, who shares a childhood secret with Jennifer.

I’m a sucker for a missing kid book and was excited to get my hands on an ARC of CHLOE CATES IS MISSING. Told from multiple points of view, including Abby’s diary entries, none of the characters was particularly likable. I had a lot of empathy for Abby, forced into the Chloe persona before she had a choice, being responsible for her family’s livelihood shouldn’t have been her responsibility. Without Chloe, the character her mother created almost a decade earlier, there would be no income. I had difficulty finding any redeeming qualities in Jennifer.

Theories of Abby’s disappearance changed throughout CHLOE CATES IS MISSING. I wouldn’t have blamed her for running away and also worried Jennifer had killed her among other possibilities. I can’t say that I guessed the ending but it was one of the items on my very long list.

Mandy McHugh created a topical mystery that also asks important questions about social media fame including when parental pressure spurs that fame before a child can consent as well as who gets the income and why aren’t children protected the way they are for child actors. Readers will love CHLOE CATES IS MISSING. It would also make a great miniseries.

This was a wild ride! I haven't read a YouTube-star centered book (ever?), I believe. This was also my first Mandy McHugh novel, and I was impressed.

This book centers around CC and Me, a mommy YouTube channel where Jennifer has aide from her daughter "Chloe Cates", who's real name is hidden for privacy reasons. Though Abbie hates her mother's personality online, the rubber really meets the road when Abbie goes missing and threads begin to unravel as her mother is now the center of speculation.

It was interesting to jump around on the timeline and get a feel for what Abbie might have been feeling during the whole thing (particularly how she felt about the influencer 'job' that her mother was apart of). I was second guessing myself the whole way, and I definitely recommend this novel if you're into YA mystery.

Wow, this was definitely one of the best books I've read this year. It was suspenseful, exciting and incredibly interesting. A storyline I've yet to read which is rare in psychological thrillers. It really opens your eyes to what's going on behind the scenes for the children of the family bloggers that are so popular right now. I think this book will stay with me for a long time. Absolutely loved it and will definitely be on the lookout for Mandy McHugh's next novel!

This is a decent thriller about Chloe Cates. The various POVs and the fact that some of the chapters were excerpts from Abby's journal added to the story. This book had a good pace, which kept me wanting to read more. While I enjoyed the overall storyline of this book, I was not satisfied with many of the twists. I kept thinking "that would never happen." Overall, I thought Chloe Cates is Missing was an entertaining thriller.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with this eArc in exchange for an honest review.

Disturbing!

Imagine you are a police detective and a homicide was perpetrated by a narcissistic loon in your community. This investigation will drag you behind the scenes into the glitter-bomb realm of internet influencers and social media hype. The escalating trouble with dysfunctional families who live entirely for the whims of the camera, the sponsors, and the clicks . . . perception and persona become blurred between the act and real life.

This story did not hook me until halfway in, which means some will DNF it before it has a chance to grab you by the boo-boo. Occasionally it was a tad over the top drama for me (I'm probably too old), mainly because beyond pithy discussions of books and/ or film, I can’t relate to much of what takes place on platforms of the interactive web.

This novel needs to be finished in its entirety to be fully felt or appreciated and I have an inkling it will do quite well with the younger pop-culture-loving crowd.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and Scarlet for an advanced copy of Chole Cates is Missing for my unbiased evaluation. 3.5 stars

The book is a thrilling new take on the mystery genre. As someone who does not read this type of book normally, I found the fast paced nature of this book a breathe of fresh air.

I want to give a spoiler free review, as the book is full of twists and turns, but you will be kept on the edge of your seat the whole time.

I’ve always wondered about those kids whose parents have them on full social media display. The parents who stage perfect photos for their mommy blogs, the ones who make their children influencers and have them constantly performing for YouTube or Instagram. I figure some kids really enjoy it, but I imagine the majority of kids making money for their parents have times when they hate it.

Abigail is 13 years old, and has been in the virtual public’s eye for over a decade. Her mom, Jennifer, has one of those ‘perfect mom’ blogs, but of course it’s all a facade. She has rebranded her daughter into a perfect ball of glitter and sparkles named ‘Chloe Cates’. With her popular online show, “CC and Me”, Abby is pulling in sponsors and making money - but it’s never enough for her mother to be happy.

Abby is over being Chloe. She’s over the constant content creation, she’s over wearing inappropriate clothes that she hates, she’s over doing appearances at malls, and she’s over being homeschooled because her schedule is so crazy. Jennifer doesn’t care about any of those things - she cares about likes, subscribers and making money (she’s truly an awful character, one you’ll love to hate!).

One morning, Jennifer goes to wake up Abby for an important photo shoot, and realizes she’s gone. Her window is open, leaving one to think she snuck out, but her phone is still charging on the nightstand. After her husband, Jackson, and son, JJ, also can’t find her, the police are called.

Detective Emilina Stone is assigned to the case, and she soon realizes she knows Jennifer … twenty years ago, they were great friends, but after one horrific night, they stopped speaking. Neither woman is happy to be working with the other, but they also don’t want to reveal the secret that binds them, so they stay silent about their past as the search for Abigail begins.

The book is written from the viewpoints of Jennifer, Emilina and Jackson, and also has excerpts from Abigail’s diary (probably my favorite parts in the book). I remember being 13, and the thought of my parents putting pictures and videos that I hated online for the world to see would have mortified me. I really felt for this character and her situation, and it worries me that real kids could be going through the same thing (hopefully not to the extent that it does in this book!).

This is one of those stories that grabs you immediately and doesn’t let go; with a few red herrings, I found myself trying to figure out every angle and I still had no clue about anything… but I liked where it was going. I wanted the book to end so I could find out everything, but I also didn’t want it to end because I was really enjoying the ride!

I’m pretty surprised (and impressed) that this is a debut novel. It was so well-written, it seemed like it was created by a seasoned suspense writer. I think this book will be big when it’s released in January, and I’m looking forward to more from this author! Five stars for this one, for sure, and a reminder to scrutinize what’s in the eyes of those hyped-up, label-wearing, fun-having kiddos on YouTube. If their parents are anything like Abby’s, they are going to need some help.

(Thank you to W. W. Norton & Company, Mandy McHugh and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review.)