Good as Gone by Amy Gentry

Good as Gone is a Book of the Month Club book that has been sitting on my shelf for a little, like most of my books do before being read. However, I am glad that I waited to read it, as right now I'm in one of my mystery/suspense moods.

(Source: Kelsey Darling)

Eight years ago, in the middle of the night. Jane watcher her older sister Julie be kidnapped from her room at knife point. That was the last to be seen of Julie. Now, it is present day. Jane is in college, and her parents have formed a life around the void of their missing daughter. Of course it is not the same, how could it be; but it is a life nonetheless. Then, one evening as they are sitting down for dinner, the doorbell rings, and who should be at the door other than...drum roll...Julie! She passes out upon her mother opening the door and they rush her to the hospital. When Julie sits down with detectives, she tells a harrowing story of being sold to drug lords and sex traffickers and the years of abuse she faced at the hands of her captor; how she barely escaped captivity and walked to the home she knew all of those years ago, and thankfully found her family.

But something is off; not everything is right about Julie. Of course everything wouldn't be right after everything she went through, but Anna, the mother, is beginning to question the validity of the story. When a PI also questions Julie's truth, Anna is stuck between a rock and a hard place. She wants Julie to be the daughter who was taken from her so long ago, but things aren't adding up. And now, a body of a little girl wearing the same pajamas as Julie was the night she was taken has been found. Could that body actually be Julie? If so, then who is the woman who is staying in the house claiming to be Julie?

(Source: Giphy)

I am naturally skeptical when I read books like this (or even hear real-life stories like this). I know that there are sickos out there who would lie and say that they are the missing person. (You should watch The Impostor on Netflix for a real-life story of someone messed up enough to do that.) This is where Amy Gentry really surprises the reader. Some chapters are told from Julia's POV, and you learn her history and her different identities. But the ending will leave you second guessing everything you thought you knew about Julia and what happened that fateful night that she went missing 8 years ago.

Rating: 8/10

Author: Amy Gentry

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller