Watch Me Disappear: A Novel

An interesting book, with very honest characters. However, the obvious lack of God in every person's life is quite sad. The author tried way too hard to be seen as so open minded, that the beauty of the story got lost in liberalism.

Overall a decent book. If you're listening to the audio book, just a heads up, the guy narrator likes to use his tranny voice when he's talking as his wife and it is AWKWARD. My wife and I were on a long roadtrip and couldn't help but die laughing when he did this. The book was fairly slow, with some weird supernatural stuff that didn't really flow with the story at all. Predictable ending, but overall not a waste of time.

Very enjoyable book that had you in suspense as to what was going on and how everything was going to be sorted out. I was not expecting the ending but I am pleased with how it did end and it keeps me wondering. Interesting dynamics on relationships and has you questioning if you really know the people in your own life and the secrets that they may keep
Enjoy!

The book has an interesting plot line supported by characters who seemed shallow or superficial. It was mostly predictable; however, the author wove in sufficient details to make me wonder if I really had it figured out (which I did).

I liked that characters were fooled even if I was not.

I loved the twists and turns that Watch Me Disappear tskes. The book was very creative. It proves that what you believe to be true is not necessarily the case! What about a sequel Janelle Brown? I "feel" it in the works ?

A year after Billie disappeared Jonathon and his daughter Olive are still reeling from her loss and trying to find a way for them to move forward with their lives. Billie had gone hiking by herself and never returned and after more than a week of searching the authorities called off the search finding evidence that suggested Billie may have died in those woods.

Now Olive is having visions of her mother and thinks that she just might be still alive out there and waiting for her family to find her. Jonathon is trying to get a death certificate issued so they can move on with their lives but at Olive's insistence finds himself also questioning his wife's fate. The two begin to investigate and uncover the secrets Billie had hidden.

Watch Me Disappear is another book that I struggled with deciding how I really wanted to rate this one. After much deliberating I decided to just stay down the middle with my rating as there were some things in here that I just kept thinking about that sort of bothered me with this mystery. However, even with my doubts I still got engaged and would definitely pick up another read by this author so in no way did I find this one bad at all either.

The first thing I found odd about this mystery/thriller read was that quite honestly for me as a reader it lacked the thrilling part for the most part. Taking place a year after Billie's disappearance perhaps left out that beat the clock discovery for me. At that point I thought to myself if she is alive then there's like a 99% chance she's left on purpose so perhaps you guys should just move on and leave the secrets buried.... although as a fan of mystery/thriller I was still curious as to what happened, just not as intensely.

But also, I found Olive's "visions" to be a strange addition to this type of book. Thinking to myself while reading these parts and how that gets played out later that this type of thing really didn't fit this book in my mind. Somehow that whole part of the read made the story progress but it just had an odd feel to it being included, although that is just my personal opinion and it may not bother others. So these things left me scratching my head a bit but thinking I'd try this author again because I saw a lot of potential to the writing.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

3.5 stars. Solid enough mystery (not a thriller) about when the Manic Pixie Dream Girl grows up and realizes everybody is over her schtick. (Even the guy who came up with that catchphrase said he's tired of it, btw). So she goes solo-hiking and winds up missing, either intentionally or unintentionally, leaving her family behind to piece together clues. The real mystery is why Olive and Johnathan didn't push her off that mountain many years before and then go home to play video games and collect insurance money. Billie was just that irritating.

We're not really supposed to adore Billie, but a whole book of Billie Canon is just too much. Each new chapter reveals how slyly unlikable she was in a new and different way, including her supposedly inspirational "concern trolling" of her family with fun little sayings like, "don't be average!" In fact, good grades disappoint her, and Johnathan actually quits his good-paying job because Billie found security bourgeois or whatever.

My favorite part is that a woman who constantly demanded everyone notice how spectacular she was, is to be memorialized herself in a book so banal her husband actually titled it, "Where the Mountain Meets the Sky." *snicker* It would be more poetic to call it "We Met at a Denny's." It's not explained how Johnathan gets a publisher for this thing (maybe it's Mitch Albom's publisher?); that was one of the bigger stretches of imagination involved.

So here's how I wish the book had ended (no spoilers yet.)...once the family started getting a truer picture of Billie, and realizing how she'd messed with their heads to their own detriment for years, I wish they'd decided to declare Opposite Year and do everything conformist that Billie would have hated. Not just sleeping with Harmony but going completely all-out in defiance of her memory: Wall Street job, cheerleading, honor roll, that revolting gay conversion therapy...the whole demented works. That would have been a fun, dark turn I could get behind reading, kind of like that movie Commandments where the guy decided to break all ten. As it was written, though, the family keeps trying to be cool, and Billie's personality is bad, but her secrets just aren't enough to justify her possibly leaving over or getting murdered for. For that reason, with all this lead up, the book sadly fizzles out well before the end.

spoilers:
I don't think there is any way for an author to surprise a pregnancy in a book. No matter how tiny the clues are, we instantly know what they add up to, because women of a certain age in books/movies never throw up except for pregnancy, not even once.
Also, they don't let you drive until you're like six-months seizure free.
And finally, the book would have been better if the last chapter had been scrapped. There was no reason to wrap that up except to give us another reason to roll our eyes regarding Billie.

WATCH ME DISAPPEAR contains some of the components present in GONE GIRL. This time the disappeared is one Billie Flanagan, a Berkeley mom living what appears to be the perfect life, who went on a solo hike in Desolation Wilderness and vanished from the trail. Is she dead or has her “soccer mom” life been just another lie hidden among a plethora of lies and is her sudden death part of some bigger plan? Her body was never found and the only proof of her death is a shattered cellphone and one hiking boot.

Now, one year after Billie’s disappearance the husband and daughter she left behind are coping with her death in their individual ways. Her husband is writing a tender memoir about their life together bolstered by a bit of booze and daughter Olive has begun having visions intimating that her mother is still alive. She has withdrawn from her father and her friends at school dwells on the visions and what they are telling her. Slowly, father and daughter begin to learn who Billie really was and how little they really knew about this woman they loved.

Part mystery and part relationship tale, this thought provoking tale will have you staying up into the wee hours to learn the truth about Billie and the family she left behind

Both GoodReads and Netgalley have this book listed under mystery and thriller. Which is why I chose to read it. I received an e-mail from Random House, because this is the type of book I seem to like.*

And the premise is kind of amazing. A wife and mother goes missing. A husband and daughter are grief stricken and desperate for answers. The daughter starts having supernatural-y visions of her mother.

"Why aren't you looking for me?"

Y'all.

I can't think of a single person I would recommend this book to. It's not a real mystery/thriller. It's not. This is a story about grief. Do you ever really know someone? The person who should be the closest to you is often times hiding secrets so big they can't be seen until you dig and dig and dig and get hurt in the process.

Which is also a fantastic premise! I love stuff like this!

But I didn't get this book for that. I got this because I wanted a mystery.

I'm so frustrated. This is two books smushed into one, and the mystery portion gets squashed into holes where it's not supposed to be. It's not until literally the last two chapters we get ANY kind of twisty mystery/thriller action, and by this point, it's like

I don't hate this book. But I didn't request this book. What's on the tin doesn't match, and I find that more frustrating than anything else. Labeled appropriately, I'm sure this is going to appeal to...someone.

* It's because I read and reviewed The Luckiest Girl Alive and my review got a lot of traction. Now I get e-mails about all of 'em. I'm not complaining, but I'm not special, let's be clear.

I was given the opportunity via NetGalley to read an electronic copy of Watch Me Disappear. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

In the year since Billie Flanagan vanished during solo hike in Desolation Wilderness and was presumed dead, her husband Jonathan and daughter Olive have been trying to put the pieces of their shattered life back together. When Olive starts having visions of her mother, still alive, Jonathan starts digging into Billie's past. As father and daughter embark on a quest to put the missing parts to Billie's past together, while searching for her whereabouts in the present, will they finally become a family again?

There were portions of Watch Me Disappear that I really liked, especially when the author places all of the pieces of the puzzle together. The main plot had just the right amount of intrigue and would have been more compelling had the story not been disjointed. The inclusion of Jonathan's writing throughout the book only helped to pull the focus away from Billie's disappearance and the investigation into her past. Olive's personal life was not necessary to the plot and it served only as a distraction. Watch Me Disappear was a good story overall and I would recommend it to readers who enjoy mysteries.

Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown develops a bit slowly in the beginning but quickly becomes an intriguing mystery about what happened to a Berkeley, CA housewife who had disappeared almost a year before, leaving her bereft husband and teen daughter in a strange kind of grieving limbo. Her body was never found, though a single hiking boot by a remote creek was, leaving little hope that Billie could still be alive.

As the details are revealed about who Billie was in her life before she disappeared on a solo hiking trip in the wilderness, a very strange picture emerges. Previously involved in radical environmental protests, then a wild singer in a band, it seems that the author is describing an entirely different character than the one who later fell in love and quickly settled down as a housewife and mother. And that is the point at the heart of this mystery: who was Billie, really?

As husband, Jonathan, and daughter, Olive, struggle each in their own way to make sense of what happened (or didn’t happen) to Billie, clues emerge that cause doubts for the characters, as well as the reader, about what actually did happen both leading up to and during that fateful hiking trip the year before.

Jonathan, a writer, has contracted to write a book about his experiences with his wife, based on an article he published. Excerpts from the book appear within the novel, intertwined with new discoveries about Billie. As his doubts about the woman he loved compound and build, his writing reflects his confusion. To top it all off, he is in a financial bind that is set to be resolved with the impending legal declaration of death after a year of disappearance, which will result in a substantial insurance-policy payoff.

Then there are teenage Olive’s apparent visions of her mother, which suddenly begin out of the blue and lead her to believe that Billie is still alive and in need of rescue. Her father, however, becomes more and more convinced that it is likely that Billie ‘disappeared’ herself and may even have been conducting a clandestine affair in the months leading up to her hiking trip. As father and daughter eventually begin communicating about their beliefs with each other, their relationship deepens and they begin trying to figure it out together, though still at odds with what they believe.

Although it may seem obvious at certain points where the story is headed, there are several surprises in store and one of them is revealed at the very end. I have very mixed feelings about the ending. Part of me wanted to know more details about the abrupt twist in perspective. It did seems to wrap things up, though, in a satisfying, if chilling manner.

The writing is very good throughout. I was a little frustrated with some aspects of the character and plot development. Some of the characters introduced in the book could have been fleshed out a bit more, starting with Billie’s long-time best friend, Harmony, whose motives are never really explained to satisfaction. As for plot, I was impatient at times because it seemed like the same things were happening over and over without adding a lot to understanding and eventual resolution.

I enjoyed this story overall and recommend it as a good summer read, in spite of some minor flaws. I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you netgalley.com and librarything.com for sending me an advanced copy of Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown.

Watch Me Disappear is simply a great story. The novel centers around the mysterious disappearance of Billie Flanagan and how it affects those that love her. Billie is a wife to Jonathan. She is a mother to Olive, and she is a friend to Harmony. But, Billie is much more complicated than she first appears. She has secrets that are starting to unravel and now even her disappearance is in question. How did this athletic, competitive, nature-loving woman vanish from a wilderness trail on a solo hike? Is there something more sinister going on or was there an accident and the body has not been found yet? As Billie's family searches for the truth, their discoveries make them reevaluate all that is precious to them.

I liked the slow revelations and unwinding of the mystery. My attention was held throughout. The interactions of the characters felt real. The novel, however, was a little too long and there was one storyline concerning Olive that I felt was unnecessary.

It is definitely worth the read and I look forward to reading more by this author.

A year ago, Olive's mother, Billie, disappeared from a mountain trail with barely a trace. Olive begins having waking dreams about her mother and soon convinced herself that Billie was still alive. Olive and her father Jonathan decide to uncover what happened, which leads them down a twisted path into Billie's history.

I'm not sure what to say about this book. It was a bit much, a bit farfetched. Rather than trying to include every unlikely scenario, the author should have focused on a handful of more believable circumstances. Overall, a bust.

What a fantastic novel. As always, Janelle Brown has written complicated characters--both infuriating and intoxicating, wavering, as we all do, between drivenness and being caught adrift. At the center of the narrative is the missing Billie. Her daughter Olive is its driving heart as she presses forward with a child's single-minded need to recover her mother. It's Jonathan though, the devoted father, the grieving (presumed) widower, whose stumbling journey toward a clearer grasp of the wife he thought he knew who brings us all uncomfortably close to seeing how tenuous our own imagined truths.

3.5 stars

** I received an advanced readers copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!**

Almost a year had passed since Jonathan and Olive lost their beloved Billie. She went hiking alone and when she didn't return home a week long search indicated that she probably died in the woods even though a body was never recovered. Jonathan was struggling to get a death certificate and parent his teenage daughter Olive.

One day at school Olive got a strange vision that had her believing that her mother was alive and that she needed to find her. As events played out and different things were discovered, she was able to convince her father of the possibility as well.

Sound good? I thought so!

I had to let a little time go by to think about this book before I wrote my thoughts on it. I wasn't one hundred percent certain of how I felt about it. Let me try and break it down.

The family aspect of this book was thoroughly enjoyable. It showed how a broken family worked their way through hard times in order to achieve the kind of relationship that they both desired. They struggled a lot but you could feel the progression of their relationship as the story unfolded. I believe at the heart of this book although it was technically a mystery, there was a beautiful family drama. From Jonathan's use of alcohol and his lack of money management to Olive's struggle to know who she really was, it was a joy to watch them grow.

Was Billie really dead or was she alive? If so, what happened to her? These were the questions that kept me reading in order to find answers. More things were discovered about Billie as each page was turned. She wasn't the person that Jonathan had always thought she was. In fact, he found himself angry at the person that he thought was the love of his life. So this is where I had to take pause. I had some early guesses as to how it would play out. Unfortunately for me it played out exactly how I thought it would, to the very last page, which took a bit of the excitement and shock value out of it for me. I was trying to decide if I made some really good guesses or if the plot was that transparent to everyone. This was partly why I couldn't decide how I felt about the book. On top of that, Olive's visions felt slightly out of place in the grand scheme of things and didn't really make the most sense when it came to the final outcome of the book.

In the end I felt like Watch Me Disappear was a good and enjoyable read even though I had it figured out early. I don't think it was that easy to figure out and I just had some lucky guesses. Besides, the evolution of Jonathan and Olive's relationship was enough to keep me engaged anyway. I will definitely be watching for more work from this author.

This story follows Olive and Jonathan, dealing with life about a year after Billie's disappearance. Olive is having visions of her mother and Jonathan is trying to make sense of everything. His marriage, his wife's past, who his wife, and her friends, might really be, and then worrying about his daughter, Olive, on top of that. One thing that really struck me with this book was how the characters, even if they did something unscrupulous, managed to keep you on their side. 

You want to hate Jonathan as he starts having doubts over his presumed dead wife. You find yourself angry at him for being naive, but then you also feel heartbreaking compassion for him. Olive is trying to find herself. Others see things in her that she herself has yet to discover. You find yourself annoyed at her chasing these visions, but at the same time, you can't blame her for running headfirst into this mystery. 

This is the first book that I can say I actually popped in a post-it note. There were so many pieces that I wanted to remember and hold onto myself. 

Billie's character is exceptional. I don't know if I mean that in a good or bad way yet. Her character is one that has stayed with me and I can say I'm still thinking about her. When we start to get a deeper look at her life, it makes you question how you feel about her. Is she cruel or was she doing the best she could? Should we love her, hate her? 

Anyone who loves a good thriller will love this book. Moreover, anyone who enjoys a good mystery, while also on a search for self-discovery, would adore this novel. I really cannot say enough amazing things about this story. 

Billie Flanagan decided to go hiking alone and it has been almost a year since she has disappeared. Her body was never found. The only thing which remained was her hiking book. There appears to have been no foul play - she just disappeared leaving her husband and daughter to mourn her loss.

Almost a year after his wife's disappearance, Jonathon is struggling financially and has decided to write about his wife's disappearance and life without her. He is in the process of having his wife declared legally dead. He begins to drink a little more than he should and also begins to worry about his daughter Olive. Olive has been "seeing" her Mother. Olive begins to believe that her Mother is not dead but just "missing". Does Olive have psychic abilities? Is her grief causing her to see things that are not real. Is it wishful thinking that her Mother is still alive?

How much do your really know your spouse? After her disappearance Jonathon begins to find things and learn things about his wife. Things she had kept from him, things he never knew, things he did not want to know. As Olive and Jonathon go on a journey to learn the truth about Billie's disappearance, they learn about themselves, others and of course about Billie herself.

I went into this book with high hopes. The description sounded very promising. I started this book a couple of times and would put it down to read other books. It just didn't grab me as I had hoped it would. That is not to say that this is a bad book. I liked it - I just didn't love it. I wasn't too shocked by the ending. It did not shock me. I actually expected it.

The writing is solid in this book. The author did a good job describing this dysfunctional family. Jonathon busy at work doesn't notice the money coming out of the bank account, in fact, he really doesn't pay much attention at all. Their daughter attends a pricey private school that Jonathon struggles to afford after Billie's disappearance. Their "perfect" family isn't so perfect after all.

I really wanted to like this book more. As I already stated....I liked it - I didn't love it.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau in exchange for an honest review.

It’s been a year since Sybilla “Billie” Flanagan disappeared while on a solo hiking trip. Missing and presumed dead, her grieving husband and teenage daughter have been left to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives. Then one day at school, Billie’s daughter has a vision: her mother is alive, somewhere out there, and needs Olive to come find her. Jonathan, Billie’s husband, initially dismisses the idea that Billie is still alive. After all, he has just recently been able to accept the fact of her death. But then a chance encounter with one of Billie’s friends reveals that his wife has been keeping secrets from him for years. The deeper he digs into his wife’s mysterious past, the more uncertain he becomes about the woman he married, and whether she did actually perish a year ago.

This is a tight, subtle thriller. We know Billie, former wild child turned Berkeley super mom by the holes she left in the lives of those around her. While Olive and Jonathan work in their own ways to find out what happened to Billie, we see her surface persona slowly scraped away, and something different and darker start to show through underneath. Every revelation about who Billie was adds more mystery, rather than less, to her ultimate fate. Through the course of the book, you find yourself very smugly sure that so-and-so knows what happened to Billie, only to have that assumption ripped away a few chapters later, and your focus moved on to a new suspect.

Fans of mysteries and thrillers will probably enjoy this book. The story has several elements in common with Gone Girl. If you’ve enjoyed books in that vein, this is a good pick for you.

An advance copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is advertised as "riveting, seductive, poignant and captivating." My experienice was quite different. I was intrigued by the plot description, but this was one of the slowest reads I have encountered in a long time. It was not just the slow pacing that made the book difficult to embrace; the characters were not engaging or particularly likeable.

There are four primary characters: Billie, her husband Jonathan, her daughter Olive and her best friend Harmony. The story begins with Billie's presumed death in a hiking accident. There is circumstantial evidence, but no body was ever recovered. Jonathan and Olive are struggling to cope with their grief, which is complicated by emerging visions that Olive has about her mother. These visions convince Olive that her mother is alive and drives the story forward in a search to determine the truth. Overtime this search uncovers many secrets Billie kept and reveals a rather unsavory nature to her past. Billie comes across as a potential narcissist - perhaps even a sociopath. Jonathan is a befuddled, if naïve spouse who alternates between sadness and anger. Olive is most credible character, a teenager trying to make sense of these visions while simultaneously dealing with school, friends and her sexual identity. Harmony, the best friend, is a complex character who holds many of the keys to Billie's secrets, yet her mixed motives often muddy the waters factually and emotionally.

The book raises the question: "do we really ever know another person or do we just know the person we want them to be?" It is an interesting premise, but the plot, character development and pacing did not do it justice. The ending does provide an interesting twist and a satisfying resolution.

I cannot recommend this book as it did not fulfill the promotional promises and proved to be a somewhat arduous task to complete.

Sybilla (Billie) Flanagan disappeared a year ago while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail alone. Her body has never been found but her husband Jonathan is going through the legal process to have her declared dead so that he and his daughter can get the life insurance money and move on. To make money in the meantime, he has accepted a publishing contract to write a book about their love story entitled, "Where the Mountain Meets the Sky: My Life with Billie Flanagan."

His sixteen-year-old daughter Olive suddenly starts having hallucinatory visions of her mother which make her think Billie is still alive and is trying to reach out to her. Billie has left them before, so it's entirely possible. Jonathan learns something on his own that makes him think she might be right, so he starts digging into Billie's past actions. What follows is a fascinating trail of clues: one thing for certain, he didn't really know his wife of seventeen years; he is finding she was a woman of many different personas.

The story is told from both Jonathan's and Olive's point of view, with chapters from the book he's writing interspersed. There is also a surprising twist at the end which was very satisfying. I enjoyed the steady pace of the story, the way in which the layers of Billie's personality were slowly revealed. Interesting plot, well conceived and executed!

Jonathan Flanagan met wild child Billie "Sybilla" Thrace and immediately fell head over heels in love with her. They were engaged six weeks later and married for sixteen years.

But lately Jonathan has been working long hours as the senior editor at a tech magazine he's worked at for years. And Olive, their teen daughter, is going through growing pains and wants nothing to do with either her mother or her father. So Billie decides she's going on a solo hike along the Pacific Crest Trail in the Desolation wilderness area. And she never comes home and her body is never found.

It's a year later and Jonathan and Olive are trying to put their lives back together.

The premise of this story was promising. I really looked forward to reading it. But it was dry and downright boring in spots. And it was filled with narcissistic characters that were impossible to like.

The story is told partly by Jonathan, partly by Olive, and partly through chapters of a memoir Jonathan is writing about Billie.

All the pieces were there to make this a decent story but they just didn't mesh.

I received this book from Spiegel and Grau through Net Galley in exchange for my unbiased review.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview Watch Me Disappear.
Jonathan, Olive, and Bilie live in California - they are living a good life. Jonathan works as an IT guy, Olive attends a private school and is doing well, and Billie is a renagade mom who doesn't follow or live by the rules. All in all they have a good life. But Billie is restless and distant. She needs some alone time. One day, Billie goes on a hike and she never returns.
A year later, Jonathan is prepared to go to court to have Billie declared dead. One day, Olive starts to feel strange and gets and image of her mother telling Olive to "find her". The quest to find Billie begins, but in this search, Billie's life and past is disected by Jonathan. He starts to find that Billie was living a secret life and it is one he is not sure he wants to know about.
The book goes back and forth with Jonathan, Olive and Billie's POV. I like that type of writing as it lets you become engaged with the characters. This is a book about family secrets, reality, and the past and how it impacts personal dynamics. This is well written and I really liked the ending. Recommend.

A compelling tale of a Berkeley mom who mysteriously disappears, and her young daughter’s quest to find her.
SUMMARY
Billie Flannigan vanished on a solo hike in California’s Desolation Wilderness a year ago. Her husband, Jonathan and daughter, Olive, are still reeling from her disappearance. Had she been abducted, or murdered, or had she accidentally fallen into the ravine? The police had searched for nine days, they found her shattered cell phone and a hiking boot, but her body was never recovered. Olive, 15, was at school one day, standing in the middle of a hallway, when she had her first vision of her mom. Her mom was wearing a dress and was standing on a beach, and was beckoning Olive to come find her. Olive begins a hopeless quest to find her mother.

“You’re going to be just fine. Her mom was always right about that, wasn’t she? Right up until the day when nothing was fine all.”

Jonathan and Billie had been married for sixteen years, and it had been love at first sight. They married only six weeks after they met and after sixteen years, Jonathan thought he knew everything there was to know about Billie. He was wrong. He had recently, uncovered secrets from her past that sent him on his own quest for the truth.

“Maybe this is why they say love is blind: Who you want people to be makes you blind to who they really are.”
REVIEW
What an enthralling and quick read! WATCH ME DISAPPEAR is a meticulously woven family drama of a search for answers to Billie’s disappearance. Alternating perspectives of Jonathan and Olive makes the story robust and compelling. Just when we think we know everything about Billie and her worldly and colorful past, we are surprised again and again. A stunning story about the secrets we keep from those we love the most.

“All memoirs are lies, even those that tell the truth. They can’t help it, because the longer we live the more our fixed past keep changing.”
-Gregory Cowles, New York Times Book Review of a Mary Karr book
as quoted in Watch Me Disappear

The three main characters in this terrific puzzle are Jonathan, his wife Billie, and their teenage daughter Billie. In the Prologue, we get a hint about Billie’s adventurous nature as she comments to Jonathan as they are watching Olive at the beach: “She’s going to need to grow a thicker skin or she’s going to spend her whole life being too afraid to try anything.”

In the novel, Billie has gone off hiking solo and has disappeared. As months go by, Jonathan is trying to cope with the mysterious loss when Olive begins having vivid dreams that have her convinced her mom is still alive. While Jonathan doesn’t actually wish her dead, he has an interest in having her declared legally dead in order to collect insurance money. It really isn’t possible to tell much about the story without spoiling it, but it is well crafted and kept me guessing until the end (although, admittedly, I am the worst at figuring things out in terms of mystery plotting). So I’ll just try to convey why the experience of reading this was so enjoyable, with some examples of Ms. Brown’s narrative skill.

Olive is revealed to be quite a sensitive teenager. She attends a pricey prep school in the Bay Area, and as she observes some girls who are a couple of years behind her in school, she “wishes she could tell these girls that things get easier, but in her experience they don’t…you just discover that there are even bigger, more complicated problems that you have to solve.”

I love the way Ms. Brown describes teenaged girls, saying they “…are like skittish forest creatures that dance away at your approach, snarl if you dare to confront them head-on. You need to wait, patiently, for them to come to you.”

Brown also captures the upper-middle-class soccer moms whose daughters attend Claremont Prep with Olive. As Jonathan takes on the after-school pickup duties following Billie’s exit, and is suddenly an available male, the”…Claremont Moms are circling. They flutter around Jonathan, a flock of predatory birds in lululemon and boyfriend jeans.”

Not a fast-paced action thriller by any means, but an unraveling story that was a pleasure to read. I appreciate having a copy made available by Random House/Spiegel & Grau and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Four enthusiastic stars.

Berkeley wife and mother Billie Flanagan has been missing for one year. She disappeared during a solo hiking trip on the Pacific Crest Trail, leaving nothing but a boot and a grieving husband and daughter in her wake.

Since Billie’s disappearance, her husband Jonathan and daughter Olive have struggled to find closure with the “missing, presumed dead” label plastered across her case. At the same time, they have found themselves unable to fully move on, as the various legal proceedings involved in a missing person’s case --- namely, the lack of a life insurance payout --- continue to affect them on a daily basis. For Jonathan, this means many late nights with a bottle of bourbon and the memoir he has begun to write about his life with Billie. Sixteen-year-old Olive, who was already introverted before her mother’s disappearance, has retreated even further into her shell. At her stuffy prep school, unfortunately, this behavior only serves to draw more attention from her snobby, judgmental peers.

As you can see, the Flanagans are more or less falling apart without Billie. As the anniversary nears, it appears that they are both on the edge of a precipice. The time has come for them to make decisions about how they will move on, but neither of them are willing to speak about Billie or truly examine their lives with her. When Olive begins having hallucinatory visions of her mother, it seems as if they finally have an answer regarding Billie’s fate, but the visions are too real and she starts to believe that her mother is alive.

Jonathan is terrified of Olive’s visions at first. He worries that the stress of Billie’s disappearance has finally pushed her over the edge. But then again, they never did find a body. Under the guise of conducting research for his memoir, Jonathan begins to investigate the last year of his wife’s life. When details start to conflict, he wonders if Olive is right and, more importantly, if the Billie he has discovered is one he even wants to find again.

As Jonathan and Olive butt heads and learn to reform their familial bonds, they finally begin to examine their relationships with Billie more thoroughly. Several characters from her past return and with them come several different versions of Billie, some of which are very unlikable. What emerges is the portrait of a complicated, perhaps dishonest woman --- a woman who was fiercely headstrong and independent, yet deeply insecure; bossy and detached, yet easily hurt. The only thing that is clear is that neither Jonathan nor Olive truly knew Billie --- and perhaps no one else did, either.

Author Janelle Brown weaves a complicated yet evenly paced mystery with a satisfying ending. Though she throws in plenty of red herrings, the plot is developed enough to carry them without distracting the reader. Her characters are well written, with their motives clear and understandable. Olive is the true star of WATCH ME DISAPPEAR, and her growth was wonderful to track throughout the novel. Jonathan, meanwhile, was the perfect grieving widower. Although I did not always agree with his actions, I understood them and enjoyed Brown’s careful handling of him.

That said, I wish Brown had devoted just a bit more time to her supporting cast, namely Harmony, Billie’s best friend who steps in to help her grieving family. I feel that there is much to be explored with Harmony, although she often came off as a bit archetypal. I would be remiss to avoid discussing Olive’s visions, the only vaguely paranormal aspect of the story. Unfortunately, these passages just did not work for me. Brown has shown that she is able to craft a well-paced mystery with strong characters, and I often found that these visions distracted me from the plot rather than adding to it.

Overall, WATCH ME DISAPPEAR is an easy, well-conceived summer suspense story. Brown’s writing is lovely, and her use of figurative language often made me wonder if she has ever written poetry. The fluidity with which she creates her story combined with the stark coldness of Billie provide the reader with some truly beautiful passages. At the same time, the well-paced reveal of Billie’s true path makes for an intriguing mystery with plenty of dramatic reveals along the way. Those who loved books like THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN and GONE GIRL but want a more family-friendly main character will thoroughly enjoy this book.

Reviewed by Rebecca Munro

Tantalizing and twisty, this literary suspense is a clever meditation on what it means to be a family, to really know someone.

Billie (Sybilla) Flanagan, a beautiful, charismatic Berkeley mom goes on a solo hike in the Desolation Wilderness never to return. It's been a year and...where is she? Picking up the pieces are her husband and 16 year-old daughter, Olive who are seeking a death certificate as she is now presumed dead (all that's found of her is a lone hiking boot).

Olive and Jonathan do the best they can, but they are shattered, confused, broken. Jonathan is a writer attempting a loving memoir about his wife and death, Olive attends a prestigious all-girls prep school. But then Olive starts having visions/hallucinations/waking dreams of her mother. Jonathan's concerned about her emotional stability and schleps her to doctors trying to find the source of the problem. But secrets from Billie's past surface, leading both Jonathan and Olive the person they once shared a life with.

Just who was/is Billie Flanagan?

Together--and somewhat reluctantly--Jonathan and Olive embark on a quest to discover the true Billie Flanagan, while at the same time, learning important truths about themselves.

I found the storytelling exceptional; Brown's writing is eloquent and shimmery. The pace is a bit slower than your typical suspense/thriller--it's much more literary. (If you're looking for a fast/beachy sort of read, this might not fit the bill).

For me, I was definitely intrigued in the character of Billie and so kept reading (but I didn't especially *like* her). Tension is definitely there; I cared and was curious.In many ways, WATCH ME DISAPPEAR is a study in relationships and marriage, how well we really know ourselves, and how well we think we know others.

I liked that Jonathan is a writer and is working on a memoir about his life with Billie, but the excerpts of his work thrown into the narrative didn't really add a lot for me; it felt slightly gimmicky, but it *did* give a sense of who Billie was without really 'hearing' directly from her (because, she's missing).

The mystery of where Billie is/why she goes missing is satisfied to an extent. Some readers may be frustrated with the slightly ambiguous ending. Or is it crystal clear? You tell me.

In terms of comps, I'm drawing a bit of a blank, but might compare it to the style of Elizabeth Brundage's ALL THINGS CEASE TO APPEAR, a slight California theme in similarity to Edan Lepucki (though I would say her writing is much more edgy than Brown's), a bit of Kristin Hannah's flair, and perhaps Kelly Simmons ala ONE MORE DAY.

Who is Billie Flanagan?

Janelle Brown makes you ask this question over and over throughout this novel. Is Billie the beautiful, devoted wife and homemaker her husband Jonathan and 15-year-old daughter Olive believe her to be? Or do her occasional absences to go hiking alone indicate that she is someone else?

Billie disappeared during her last hike, and now, nearly a year later, Jonathan and Olive struggle to make peace with her death. Jonathan accepts that his wife has died, despite the absence of her body, but Olive's vivid dreams make her think her mother is very much alive and needs Olive's help, demanding to be found. Jonathan is desperate for his wife to be declared dead because he and Olive need the $250,000 life insurance settlement, but Olive cannot let go of the sense that Billie is still alive.

To get some answers, Jonathan begins to investigate his wife, and in the process he learns that he never really knew her. Like, not at all. Billie didn't so much live a lie as she was a lie.

Janelle Brown keeps you guessing. Is Billie really dead, or is she out there somewhere? And if she isn't dead, why would she make it seem that she is? And if she is dead, aren't Jonathan and Olive better off without her? The more you learn about Billie, the less you like her and the happier you are that she didn't return from that hike.

I liked this book, but I had a difficult time really getting into it. The mystery about Billie didn't keep me glued. It's one of those books that, as I read it, opened me up to distractions, if that makes sense. I felt like I should like Jonathan more than I did, but his emotionally selfish response to Billie's death made me want to shout at him. Olive, on the other hand, made me want to hold and comfort her. She's only fifteen. She needs more than her father could give her.

As for the mystery about Billie, I had my suspicions. And really it isn't so much what happened to Billie as why. The why kept me guessing.

Let me start out with a positive - the author has talent. At times, she gets lost in description but overall I could see potential.

Now on to the negatives... This book was marketed as a mystery and a mystery it was not. I think it would have benefited by a general fiction categorization so readers could expect exactly what it was - a character study. Those characters though, oh boy, were supremely unlikable. Jonathan makes so many stupid decisions throughout that it took me out of the emersion of the story. He's supposed to be a highly educated, technologically knowledgeable guy but doesn't think to scour his wife's laptop immediately after she goes missing. Nor does he know how to hack one password protected file. Olive has her own issues as well but they're more forgivable as she's only 16.

The supernatural elements didn't make sense and had no resolution as to why they were happening.

All in all 2.5 stars for the talent.

Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown is a tension filled mystery that will keep you guessing through to the very end.  This is a well-paced, slow burn type of read.  As you read about the disappearance and life of Billie Flanagan you slowly gather the pieces of who Billie might have been.  This is a tale full of deception, grief stricken loved ones and the various emotions one goes through after a loved one goes missing and their secrets are brought to light.  We get to learn about how her husband, Jonathan, and their teenage daughter, Olive, cope with Billie’s disappearance and their struggle to find peace and truth.  There is a suspicion of clairvoyance with Olive, that will keep you confused and curious.  Billie’s husband, Jonathan, is writing a memoir about his late wife.  I am a huge fan of the book-within-a-book concept, this allows you to break away from the present story and get a glimpse into another time with hints as to how the characters possibly ended up where they are now.  I will say that I suspected the ending from the beginning, despite being thrown off course several times.  I really enjoyed Olive’s character simply because I can imagine how difficult it must be to be a teenager without a mom.  I also sympathized with Jonathan’s character as well.  I had a bit of trouble relating to Billie, her past and her more recent self never really impressed me.  What I loved most was that at the end of the book Billie’s fate truly still could have gone any number of ways and it wasn’t until you read the epilogue that you knew with certainty how it played out.  Watch Me Disappear starts off slow but trust me, the suspicion and anticipation will build as the story unfolds. 

If you love tension-building mysteries with an ending that could go more than one way, this book is for you.

I give this one 4 deceptive stars out of 5. 

Billie Flanagan, oh what a messed up selfish person you are! Even is death she is monopolizing peoples lives and driving them crazy. I cannot decide if I feel sorry for her or for her husband and daughter.
This was definitely a page turner for me but the only character in the whole story that I truly liked was Olive, the daughter. Both her parents were a bit messed up; Mom for her selfishness and Dad for his obsession/love for her mom. I felt that Olive was overlooked and as a teenager struggling with her identity and mourning her mother she should have been a lot more lost than she was!
There's not much I can say without spoilers but I will say even though I did guess the "big twist" this was still a compelling thriller with interesting characters. I just wish Billie had been a bit more likable and that through her backstory we could have seen her grow a bit more.

"Watch Me Disappear" is the story about Billie Flanagan's disappearance and how her family grapple with it a year later. She was a beautiful woman who was thought to have a life that many people, including Harmony, her "best friend," clamored for. Everything changes when she goes on a hike and never returns. Only one of her hiking boots is found. Afterward, Jonathan, her husband, and Olive, her daughter, try to put the pieces of their lives back together. Jonathan quits his high paying job to write a memoir based on their marriage. Olive goes back to school, trying to fit in with the rest of her peers, spend time with Natalie, her best (and lone) friend after the accident. A year later, Olive begins pulling away from everything. She spends her time waiting for her mom to return and then begins to experience visions. In one of them, her mom asks, <b><i>"I miss you. Why aren't you looking?"</b></I>This leads Olive to believe her mother is still alive and to go on a quest to discover what really happened.

Jonathan and Billie had been together 6 weeks when they eloped. He was certain that she was the right piece for him. At the time of her disappearance, they had been married for 16 years. He thought he knew all there was to know about her: her difficult childhood, her past boyfriends. As he begins to help Olive piece together her "visions," he starts to wonder if he knew his wife at all.

The book is mostly told in a third-person point of view, occasionally switching focus on a few different characters. Since Jonathan is working on a memoir detailing their lives together, there are a few "excerpts" from that as well. I thought that this was a well-written novel, not necessarily a thriller per se, but definitely character-driven. The characters had their individual strengths but I wish Jonathan was portrayed as less of a nice guy. Though, that makes sense as he had to balance out Billie and her fire, but still. Olive was portrayed as your typical teenager. Not only was she trying to learn more about her mother, she was trying to find herself.

What I enjoyed was that the book captivated you from the early pages. The action unfolded slowly but too much was saved until the end. We could have seen some of that information earlier because once it was revealed, there were only a handful of chapters until the end.

Speaking of the end, I had so many questions about Billie and her disappearance. I had guessed what happened to her (okay, fine, I also read the end first) and wanted more information than what was provided.

This novel was absolutely amazing! I enjoyed the intimate portrayal of Billie and Jonathan’s marriage and the world of their teenage daughter’s life. I really enjoyed the tone of the whole story and the way every time I was settled to the story in one way, something new would happen that would completely change everything. Billie and Jonathan are married and have a teenage daughter, Olive. Jonathan and Billie had a close, special relationship, and Olive and Billie were always extremely tight. Billie has started spending her weekends going on hiking trips. One weekend she is off by herself hiking, and she never returns. Her car is found, along with her broken cell phone and one of her hiking boots. The story begins one year after she disappeared. The search for her has long been called off and her body was never found. Jonathan and Olive struggle with their unanswered questions about Billie’s disappearance. They imagine that she could have been hurt, could have been kidnapped, or maybe she is somewhere and has amnesia. The court date is approaching where Billie will be officially determined to be missing, presumed dead. And then something happens to both Jonathan and Olive that leads them to believe that maybe they don’t know everything about what happened to Billie. They begin to examine their relationships with Billie, and investigate closer into Billie’s life. This begins a chain of events where the two of them learn more about Billie than they knew before. They both must face their feelings towards Billie and come to terms with everything they learn. At the same time, both Jonathan and Olive are dealing with their own personal struggles with the relationship between the two of them, as well as their relationships with others they are close to. Janelle displays a spectacular portrayal of the intimate lives of everyone involved. But most of all, she will tell you a story full of sudden unexpected twists that will leave you hanging on to each word and make it impossible to put this book down!