Kim's Booklife

I was really excited to read this book. I thought it was going to be fantastic. Disappearing parents and a couple of murders thrown on the side. But the blurb on the back of my book described a story that NEVER happened. I was told notebooks were going to be found that might point to Rose and Joshua (step-siblings desperate to find their missing parents) stumbling on a secret disappearance that could put their lives in danger. Well, the only danger I saw to their lives was that Rose was an idiot who kept jumping into dangerous situations and yelling at people when they told her she was stupid, reckless and irresponsible because she thought she was smarter than she actually was. Rose was the biggest disappointment in this book. She couldn't quite make up her mind about whether she wanted to find her parents or not. Every time Joshua told her he found a new lead, she'd basically bite his head off for thinking they could possibly uncover something and to trust the police - I wonder why she didn't follow her own advice? Rose was witness to two murders, pretty much the main focus of the novel - not the search for missing parents. But not satisfied with the police investigating the murders, she has to get involved herself. I think I would have liked this a whole lot more if she wasn't digging up graves to find evidence and withholding information because she didn't think the police would do a good enough job with it all - and the she'd get offended when the police told her she should really stop being an 'amateur Nancy Drew' because she was contaminating evidence and destroying any hope of actually solving the murders.I was interested in the search for the missing parents and I thought Joshua had a more sound plight than attempting to solve random murders, but then he went all crazy-stupid at the end and started to protect a murderer, so he lost my respect. I bought the sequel at the same time as this one, but I don't think I'll be reading it any time soon.