I love when books have their own stories to tell. ✨
I joined NetGalley in 2015. I requested a bunch of titles, but got impatient waiting for replies, logged off, and forgot the site existed until 2023, when I finished the second book in Melissa Blair's Halfling Saga and needed to immediately find the third. I found it on NetGalley, along with a whole backlog of books from 2015 I had never read. Over the past year, I've obtained the entire backlog through libraries and second-hand purchases, and I've been slowly working through in addition to my current reads.
The Disappearance of Emily H. By Barrie Summy is one of those 2015 titles. I bought a copy from a used bookstore out of Utah via Amazon in February 2024 for $6.36. I put it on my desk at work, where it eventually found itself at the bottom of a stack of books. Today, I carefully extracted it from the bottom of the pile, and began to read. I got about a third of the way through before I noticed the writing on the title page shown here. Signed by the author, the sweet inscription is addressed to Isaac. It reads: "Isaac...such a pleasure...getting to meet (oops) you on the set in T.O. love you as Ruben!" with lots of drawn stars, which reflect the main character, Raine's, special ability to see sparkles ✨ which are the remnants of memories.
I read this book in one day, cover to cover. It is a bit different than I expected based on the summary, but the story was engaging. There are TWO villains, a missing girl, and a poisoning of a dog. I don't remember trigger warnings being big in 2015, but I was sad about the dog and wanted to mention it. Disability rep is also pretty terrible as a girl's sister is described as "not all there."
There are plenty of cringey teen moments to make this perfectly very young YA, maybe even Middle Grade since the characters are eighth graders, and there are zero seriously controversial topics addressed.
Huge thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children's for putting this novel on my list to be read a decade later. I apologize for the belated review!

This book ended up being pretty intense for a middle grade novel and I had a lot of fun reading it. It may not be perfect but it is enjoyable and one I would say that you should give a shot if you’re looking for a light, adventurous, surprising, middle grade read.

The Disappearance of Emily H., by Barrie Summy, is a middle grade magical realism novel set in Yielding, New York. The protagonist, Raine has the ability to see "sparkles", or memories on objects around her, When she grabs a sparkle, she can see a memory from the past. This ability is about to come in handy because Raine just moved to Yielding and the house she moved into was once home to Emily H., who disappeared shortly before Raine moved in. After facing a relentless group of bullies, Raine begins to realize these bullies are hiding something about the disappearance of Emily. Now Raine has to get close enough to the bullies to read enough sparkles so she can piece together the truth of what really happened to Emily.

"Sparkles help me figure out people, help me figure out how to fit in."