17 & Gone, by Nova Ren Suma

17 & Gone, by Nova Ren Suma

Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Mystery/Murder/Thriller, Ghosts

Rating: 1.5/5 stars

Book #: Standalone

Publication: March 6 2014, by Speak

Format: Paperback

Pages: 384






First Line: "Girls go missing every day."


Goodreads Summary:  Seventeen-year-old Lauren is having visions of girls who have gone missing. And all these girls have just one thing in common—they are 17 and gone without a trace. As Lauren struggles to shake these visions, impossible questions demand urgent answers: Why are the girls speaking to Lauren? How can she help them? And . . . is she next? Through Lauren’s search for clues, things begin to unravel, and when a brush with death lands Lauren in the hospital, a shocking truth changes everything.

With complexity and richness, Nova Ren Suma serves up a beautifully visual, fresh interpretation of what it means to be lost.

Review:

   

    But certainly not this one.

    I'm usually not into mysteries, but the synopsis of this one just caught my attention. A girl seeing missing girls' ghosts? Her having some sort of psychological problem? Okay, I'm in. But, this was just... unexplainably dumb.

     Okay, so this is about Lauren, who "sees" ghosts of missing girls. They are all 17, and some have been abducted, some have ran away, and one is still alive. There. And Lauren questions herself, "Why are they talking to me?" and "What's so special about me?" and "I'm not crazy, right?" the whole entire time. Oh, and she ends up in the hospital, where she'll find out the truth about everything.

       I didn't try to over-exaggerate on my little recap there, it's the truth of how everything was laid out to be. 

       First of all, what was the point in this book? Second, why switch from girl to girl and have short mini-stories about each girl? And third, why so slow-paced?

        I seriously didn't see any moral or point in this book. It was just complete nonsense and I think we all have some common sense in our brains to know what's going on with Lauren. By the end, it was no surprise to me. I was just sitting there with my mouth open, because I was hoping for a huge complete plot twist, but all we got was "meh." Okay, I see that this is about somebody with a psychological problem, that's absolutely fine, but at least have some romance or something fun in between. I overall think that this was too much mystery for me to handle, and maybe that's why I disliked this so much.

        I didn't like how this book was formatted into mini-stories. Every girl that Lauren mentioned in the prologue got their own mini-story about their lives before they went missing, how they went missing, and when Lauren sees their ghost. That's all how the book was set up until the last few "chapters," or whatever you'll call them when Lauren ends up in the hospital and finds out the truth about everything and when the sucky ending forms. That's the book, yay, congratulations. It should've been all of them put together somehow, or just one girl. Why make so many characters that are all the same, basically? Although, I did have my favourite girls, which I'll get to in a second.

        This plot was utterly horrible. It was just so slow, and like I said, it didn't get to anywhere. I was just sitting there, forcing myself to read it to find out what would happen, but nothing, NOTHING AT ALL HAPPENED. I seriously regret finishing this book.

         Did you hate Lauren? Did you think she was (a) Dumb (b) Crazy and (c) Useless? If you circled all three options, then you are correct.

               "I don't dream. I don't wake up coughing, and I can't smell smoke."

                NO, DUH! It's like she was Captain Obvious. I couldn't stand this girl. In the beginning, when her situation wasn't too bad, I was okay with her. But after she started seeing too many things, I realized that she was getting dumber and dumber every page. For a book with a concept like this, you need a protagonist that's strong and is somewhat able to handle this situation carefully. But no, we got this one, who didn't know what was real or not, when it was sort of real. She's the whiny type we all hate.

                Oh, and look at this quote, ahah:

               "Oh. Oh no. The mirror. It had been shattered. It was beginning to look like I'd broken the mirror and sliced myself with it. Did I?"

                LOL, Lauren, please stop or else you'll kill me with laughter.

                The positive? The only positive? The missing girls. Although I didn't like how the story was formatted with their short stories, I actually really liked them, and Madison and Abby probably would have to be my favourite characters with their personalities and story and such. That's why I gave this a 1.5. Because of them, because their stories truly touched my heart.

                 In conclusion, this book really disappointed me. It's honestly the worst book I've read in a while. Recommended? Absolutely not.

Mini-Review:

-I hated Lauren. Ew, she was so dumb and useless.

-The plot was very slow and there was no point in this book at all.

-The only positive was the missing girls. I liked a few of them and their stories.

-Not recommended.