If I Disappear - Eliza Jane Brazier

Mystery/Thriller

Rating: 5/10

When her favourite true crime podcast host Rachel goes missing, Sera, a young woman adrift in her own life, sets out to investigate and plunges headfirst into her own dangerous obsession. She decides that clues to Rachels disappearance are hidden in the podcast episodes and that she is the only one who can figure it out and save her.

Are you intrigued? I was, and the plot mostly delivered but sadly the cast of characters did not.  Every one of them was broken in some way and utterly apathic in the face of their issues. What should have been a polarizing storyline turned out instead to be startling and inconceivable.  I have no problem with suspending my disbelief and keeping company with unreliable narrators in my reading life, but there are limits.

The lure of a plot where the hunter becomes the hunted set against the true crime podcast culture would have been better served in the hands of a more skilled author. 

Someday, maybe.

Footnote: While I struggled with my feelings about this read, the nonsensical ending is what tipped me over the edge into dissatisfaction.  I feel sad I spent so much time getting there.