Book Review: The Leaving

The Leaving by Tara Altebrando

Goodreads Summary:
Six were taken. Eleven years later, five come back--with no idea of where they've been.

Eleven years ago, six kindergarteners went missing without a trace. After all that time, the people left behind moved on, or tried to.

Until today. Today five of those kids return. They're sixteen, and they are . . . fine. Scarlett comes home and finds a mom she barely recognizes, and doesn't really recognize the person she's supposed to be, either. But she thinks she remembers Lucas. Lucas remembers Scarlett, too, except they're entirely unable to recall where they've been or what happened to them. Neither of them remember the sixth victim, Max. He doesn't come back. Everyone wants answers. Most of all Max's sister Avery, who needs to find her brother--dead or alive--and isn't buying this whole memory-loss story.




My Review:
3.9/5 Stars
This book was daunting at first, any book over 400 pages I contemplate not wanting to commit myself to such a potentially large task. But this book truly was a page turner and only took me a day. The way the writing is done was truly attempting to make the reader understand the point. For instance is the sentence was "my head was spinning in circles" the words would be typed in a large circle. At first I liked the added touch, but the excessive numbers of times things were done like that or took up a whole page for 3 words started to annoy me.
The Leaving is told from 3 different perspectives Avery, the sister of Max who did not return, and Scarlett and Lucas, both of which did return. You never hear perspectives from the other 3 who came back, which I understand may have become confusing to keep up with, but I wanted to know their thoughts about the strange events as well.
The book takes you through the few memories they have while trying to put the pieces together of who would do this. I never even had a guess, and honestly am still sort of confused as to who and why the disappearance happened as it did.