This was a book I could not put down. It was a book I keep thinking about. Laced with humor and tragedy at the same time. This is an author Iwll be following.

Just wonderful! So sad, but so funny: the constant balance of life’s heartbreaks and absurdities. This will be an easy book to recommend to just about anyone. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a decent story. Told over several years, Sally talks to her sister before and after her death. I didn't get very invested in the characters, but the author did try to give a lot of details.

Notes Of Your Disappearance is an extremely well written book that explores the relationship and the grief endured by Sally, one of the characters in the book. This book was both funny at times and also heartbreaking. I don’t want to give away any spoilers but I loved the characters in this story. I couldn’t stop thinking of them even after I finished the book. For me, this was a very moving book- I enjoyed the journey of Sally, her sister ,Kathy, and a boy named Billy that both girls were enthralled with.. This is a delightful coming of age story- highly recommended. Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I loved this book. It will definitely be in my top ten from 2022. The ending was satisfying, the characters richly drawn, and the writing compelling. I’ll be thinking about this story— this family— for a long time.

Another case of not checking what the genre is before reading and assuming it was a thriller…
Thriller, is it NOT, which is my bad. But I really enjoyed this. It is unlike anything I have read before. It’s a story of sisterhood, familial bonds, love, tragedy, missed opportunities, and how differently we handle grief. Spanning from childhood to adulthood, I enjoyed the wide timeline and thought the story was laid out very well. So less thriller, more of a coming of age story laced with a love story as well.

Growing up Sally was full of questions and constantly looked to her older sister Kathy. Through everything, they had each other and bonded especially over their shared obsession with Billy Barnes. But as Kathy enters her teens, Sally pulls into herself and worries about no longer being close to her sister. When tragedy strikes her family, they are left raw and uncertain. Sally doesn’t know how to move forward or how her life will ever make sense again. We follow along as Sally processes the tragedy, how she views those around her that have also been affected, and how it has impacted her entire life even into adulthood.





*slight spoiler below stop reading if you haven’t read it*




I really loved how this was told as if Sally was talking to Kathy and filling her in on everything she’s been thinking and everything she has gone through as if Kathy isn’t actually gone. Really unique way of telling the story!

Thank you NetGalley and Henry Holt for early access!

When I saw this book was recommended for fans of Ask Again, Yes, I knew I had to read it! Ask Again, Yes was one of my favorite reads last year and whoever made that comparison, definitely nailed it. It's hard for me to put a finger on exactly what it is about these very specific types of reads that I enjoy, but for some reason they just really resonate with me.

This book is set over a time period of 15 years and is told from the perspective of Sally Holt talking to her sister Kathy. This is a coming-of-age story in the middle of a family tragedy (if you want to know what the tragedy is, then read the synopsis). While this book dealt with a lot of heavy things, it somehow had me laughing quite a bit at the wittiness and curiosity of the main character.

While I really enjoyed this, I do think it may take a specific audience to appreciate it fully. Some parts did drag on for a little longer than was necessary in my opinion but I was very happy with the ending.

Thank you so much to Henry Holt and Netgalley for the chance to read and review this book prior to release.

This will be available for purchase on May 17th!

This book is a sad and beautiful story about grief. I’m not sure what I was expecting when I received it, but it surprised me in a good way. It’s not fast paced but at the same time will keep you engaged. It’s certainly an interesting read.

There are surprisingly few dark coming of age stories so that was refreshing. It was sort of about the moments in life that you didn’t realize at the time were important but then realized they were in retrospect. Sally is telling the story of before and after her life changed and while you know her sister is going die, the journey is good. I appreciated how although the story was a sad one it wasn’t a maudlin book.

This book has all the feels. A coming of age story as narrated by younger sister Sally to older sister Kathy, told over a fifteen year span. They are very close, Sally idolizes beautiful Kathy, they are silly together, they ogle boys at the pool together [Billy Barnes, what a perfect name for the teenage boy who is the object of much ogling], roll their eyes in unison over their parents. They have a lot of sister rituals, like brushing their teeth together in the mirror until their mouths foam over and they lose it in hysterics. They are very close. The book is funny. Wickedly funny, insightful.

It's also sad, a study in grief, and how an unexpected death impacts the family still living, demonstrating how relationships continue after death. How deep bonds are forged over shared grief.

Sally's perceptions and observations age with her as she progresses from a super smart eighth grader to high school president of the Latin club to college graduate to a woman with a fiancé and a grownup apartment and a career. The situations she narrates over those fifteen years feel real, earned, honest.

I enjoyed this read a lot and will be on the lookout for more titles by Alison Espach. My thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was so excited to read this one, based on some great reviews from trusted sources. The writing is beautiful, and I couldn’t put it down. Sally, Kathy, Billy and the grieving parents are truly excellent character studies. That said, once the tragedy occurs at the beginning of the book, which sparks all the fascinating personal entanglements and theories on loss and grief, nothing really happens. I love a character driven novel—I prefer them—but I didn’t feel like Sally and Billy changed in a compelling way. I didn’t particularly like either of them as characters, but I felt tremendous compassion for them. The end also felt abrupt. If you enjoy purely character driven, dark coming of age stories, give this one a try. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Sixteen year old Kathy Holt is dead. That's not a spoiler. It's reality. It's the catalyst for everything else that happens in Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance. If we haven't experienced death of a young relative before, we've certainly heard of what it can do to families. Some take years to heal. Some never do, disintegrating into a shadow of their former selves. A slow, self-imposed suicide. Even tough people can crumble.

Narrated by Kathy's younger sister, Sally, this novel explores a family's grief over a period of fifteen years. It is like a letter to Kathy--the idolized, outgoing, courageous beacon in the Holt family. And that letter is BRILLIANTLY written. From angst-ridden teenager to confused college student to introspective adult, we follow Sally on her path as she supersedes her late sister in life's milestones. Or is it mill stone? Because Kathy's death weighs her down in everything she does. And, like a fateful boomerang, Sally continues to reconnect every few years with Billy, the only other witness of the tragedy. Billy Barnes. Bill. Kathy's boyfriend.

There's confusion, guilt, questions. So. Many. Questions. How can everything and everyone around me continue to move forward like nothing has happened? How can I ever be happy again? How can any of us live fully without feeling like we're betraying the dead relative? Look at all the things she'll never do.

I'm knocking one star off for language. I get that it's teenagers. I get that swearing and talking about sex is a way for teens to experiment and sound cool with each other, but there was A LOT. I wasn't comfortable with it. But Sally's observations are so bittersweet and sarcastic, so determined in their clever efforts to lighten the load of loss, that I couldn't help but keep reading. Even with the R-rated language it is one of the most well-written books I've read in a very long time. Believe me, a book has to be pretty amazing for me to be that forgiving. It was.

So I have to do something a bit different with this book. I won't summarize what didn't work first because my brain keeps jumping around too much. I am going to start out with the synopsis, characters, writing, plot, flow, setting, ending. Then get to the overall impressions of the book. I just feel like I got really drunk last night and read this book. But I think because of how it is marketed (mystery, thriller, romance, family, drama) that maybe I am misreading the ending in the book. I don't know. Let's go.

"Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance" follows pre-teen Sally Holt. Sally is obsessed by everything her older sister Kathy does. And when Kathy starts to fall for fellow teen Billy Barnes. Kathy recounts her day and talks about the times that she sees Billy in the hallways. Eventually though Kathy and Billy end up an item and over the following months Sally feels cut off from her sister as she begins to spend more time with Billy. Sally though starts to fall for Billy a bit too, but also hates him because he's taking Kathy away from her. But then a tragedy occurs and then there's the rest of the book.

So Sally. I didn't like her. I think that Espach at times was using enough context clues for a reader to read Sally as being on the autism spectrum. And I only say that because she has trouble understanding the meaning of things, she takes a lot of things too literal. And her growing need/obsession of everything that is Billy Barnes. And I hate to say this, but I found Sally repellant after a while. She really doesn't seem to understand other people around her at all. And at times I wanted to say go to therapy. But she does at least to two separate ones during the timeline of this book and I am like, okay, so sometimes therapy does not work.

I have to say that the other characters, Kathy, the parents, Billy Barnes, other characters were well developed in the 1/3 of this book. And then everything came crashing down. I can't do spoilers in these posts because they will show, but will post some spoilers on my Goodreads reviews if you are interested in reading them there. I just have to say that no one felt very real after a certain part of the book. I think it's because we are still stuck with the narrative style that I will get to in a minute.

The writing actually didn't work for me. I didn't see a lot of reviews mention this, but Espach writes this as if Sally is talking to her sister Kathy and then will even recount what Kathy said. So it's like you are watching a play and the narrator is explaining things but is also in the story. The whole thing was like a very long stream of consciousness at times and I wanted to yell stop, stop, stop so many times. It just didn't work after the first part of the book.

The flow was bad. I think things grinded to a halt after the first 1/3 of the book. The remaining 2/3 I just kept going my God this is still going. I think because the characters are stuck it just felt like you are watching them be stuck. The book showcases 15 years and follows Sally from the time she is a pre-teen until she is 27 years old.

Since Bill Clinton is mentioned along with 9/11 I guessed this book was set between 1993 and 1998 (the first 1/3) and the remaining parts take place after 2001.

I recently read another coming of age dramatic book, "Our Little World" and when compared to that, this book doesn't even compare. I think because that author managed to touch upon how grief shakes and changes you. But she has people moving on. For me, the characters in this book never move on. They all seem stuck. And in Sally's case she's just obsessed. I think if the genders had been switched this whole book would have been a cautionary tale or something. I just didn't find it uplifting. I went geez, I really just read that. But then I don't know if this is supposed to be dark or what. It's marketed weird. I saw some other reviewers calling this a dark romance and I went, what? We are doing this? The main reason why this got two stars from me was the the first 1/3 was really good and got me very engrossed in this story. But then the whole book takes a swan dive. So, there you go, my jumbled thoughts on this strange book.

Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance is an eloquent meditation on grief, guilt, and how both can wreak, destroy, change and heal lives.

Sally Holt stands on the cusp of entering the eighth grade during an eventful summer that will change her life forever.  It seems to pass along lazily enough at first – she and her sister, high school senior Kathy, spend it with their parents, and they spend hours lying out by the town pool.  The object of Kathy’s affection and Sally’s curiosity is local legend and older teen Billy Barnes, who works at the pool’s concession stand.  Billy once jumped off the roof of the local elementary school when he was in fifth grade – he’s still a rebel and a daredevil, but he’s also the local darling due to his basketball skills.

During this magic summer, Kathy and Billy become boyfriend and girlfriend.  But Kathy’s romance with Billy will have a tragic end when, while all three are riding together in a car, Billy swerves to avoid hitting a deer and crashes into a telephone pole.  The accident kills Kathy, leaving Sally and Billy behind to deal with the ramifications.  They begin bonding, calling each other before they go to sleep, for instance, to deal with their grief.  As Sally grows up, she begins to fall in love with Billy while watching her mother deteriorate under the veil of her own grief.  And eventually, Sally tries to move on.

Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance is about the crushing mantle of guilt.  It’s also a love story.  It takes Sally and Billy pages to get together and learn how to let go of Kathy, and in the meantime they try to discover who they are.  It might be a little uncomfortable for readers to watch this eighth grader grow up and develop a relationship with a boy she knew as a high school senior who dated her dead sister, but Espach handles the situation with sensitivity.

Sally’s relationship with her parents is complicated by their grief and guilt; her mother is nearly swallowed alive by her depression; her father tries to get on with life by being encouraging and chipper toward Sally.  They both disapprove of Billy and her friendship with him, blaming him for Kathy’s death.  Billy’s fine with it, as he blames himself, too.  The numbness, avoidant behavior, anger and tension are all written and well-produced. The narrator voice selected for Sally also works brilliantly.

Notes on your Sudden Disappearance is a story about love, sisterhood and the power of acceptance.  It’s a lovely novel, and if readers can ignore its small flaws, they will be in for a real treat.

Note to readers: the book is written in second-person PoV, which I know some find annoying.  If that’s you, then this book might not suit.

Buy it at: Amazon, Audible or your local independent retailer
Visit our Amazon Storefront

I received a complimentary copy of this book "Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance" and all opinions expressed are my own. This book is narrated by Sally starting as a middle school girl and going to the end as an adult. I had a hard time at first reading this type of writing. It did get better and I wanted to see what was going to happen. The story is about loss of a loved one and the grief they are going through. It is not all sad though, Sally can make you laugh. I did enjoy the book.

Told in second person, this character-driven sister story is a slow, meandering, often heartbreaking and often funny look at how one sister's untimely death affects her younger sister's life from adolescence into young adulthood.

Please don't expect anything fast-paced or thriller-like (or even a "disappearance" as we often think of it), as that is NOT what this book is. Instead, it is a book about grief through a young teen girl's eyes, how it affects her and her parents' mental health, her relationship with her sister's boyfriend, and how she views herself in her sister's absence.

While not the book I thought this would be, it was still interesting, and the writing style definitely kept me engaged where I otherwise might have stopped.

Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for the advanced copy!

This was one of those novels that seem simple but somehow finds its way deep into your thoughts. While this is a coming of age novel about Sally Holt and the aftermath of a terrible accident, there is much to consider about relationships and about the myriad ways we experience grief. I think what I appreciated most about this novel was how real the characters and their emotions felt to me as a reader. I loved the last chapter the most.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this. It was dark and sad but a beautiful story that describes grief and loss and brokenness in a poignant way.

Billy Barnes is swoon worthy and young Sally Holt loves listening to her older sister Kathy talk about him. Their fascination and secret devotion to Billy is a sweet and innocent part of their bond. As Sally prepares for eighth grade, Kathy begins dating Billy; a calm but memorable summer with long afternoons poolside ensues… until the morning Billy speeds down Main Street and slams into a tree to miss a deer. Billy is injured, Sally walks away unscathed, but Kathy dies instantly.
What follows is the touching story of life after the tragedy through Sally’s reflections - living with grief, regret, desire; emotions complicated by the large hole left behind by someone you love as you consider the trajectory of your life if only that one defining event hadn’t occurred.
Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance could’ve easily been a dark and depressing story but I found it to be touching and genuine with moments of unexpected beauty and humor. It’s a slow burn but that works wonderfully here as you savor Sally’s coming of age story told with a candor I appreciated.
Huge thanks to Henry Holt & Company and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance is scheduled for release on May 17, 2022.

Notes On Your Sudden Disappearance provides an in-depth look at how a single life event (in this case a death) can change the lives of many in profound and in a variety of ways. It delves into the grief experience and human response to loss. Humans experiences and deal with loss individually. Some at different times for the same event and others for different lengths of time. Some adjust eventually and others never do.

The story is narrated by Sally as she has conversations with her sister Kathy. Following Kathy’s death, Sally continues these conversations throughout the book. Narrated in this fashion, the story gets tedious, but a point needs to be made.

We follow Sally, her family and friends for many years as they deal with their loss. Billy is Kathy’s boyfriend and a significant player in the storyline. Sally and Billy have a shared experience that bonds them for life no matter how many times they each choose a different path. Thought provoking good read.