The Next Time You See Me
Between a special Fifties Chix project (that I will be unveiling soon!), the release of the 5th Fifties Chix book: Till the End of Time, 
planning Petalwink the Musical, traveling to see my family in California and fawning over the flowers in my garden, it’s been a busy summer so far. I’ve managed to squeeze in a few books that are outside of the genre I’ve been writing for. I’m currently reading Flight Behavior by one of my three favorite authors, Barbara Kingsolver. Love it and can’t wait to review it! In the mean time, here’s the last book I read as I reviewed it on Goodreads. Happy reading! Hope you’re getting a lot of it into your summer.
The Next Time You See Me by Holly Goddard Jones
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
*Goodreads Giveaway*
“The Next Time you See me,” by Holly Goddard Jones is premised upon the disappearance of a small town troublemaker. We get an intimate peek into the thoughts and dreams of: two middle schoolers (one, a bullied, shy girl; one the popular pretty boy she’s crushing on); a couple of nearly middle-agers (one, a white married teacher; one the black detective cop she’s crushing on), and a couple of close-to-retirement characters. I was so excited that I won this book from Goodreads, but was apprehensive that it was blurbed by Gillian Flynn (I loved “Gone Girl,” written by Flynn, but wasn’t as pleased with the super dark “The Dinner,” which Flynn blurbed. I was worried “The Next Time you See me” would be too dark for my taste).
This was an enormously fascinating, absorbing, and satisfying read and I recommend it to adult readers who enjoy complex story lines that grow out of rich character development. The note from the author that came with the book indicates that when she was a girl, “the body of a woman was discovered in an abandoned shack about half a mile away from [her] home [and] was the first memory of a violent crime.” The violent crime in this book, however, was secondary; it seemed like just an excuse to delve into humanity and all its intricate complexities, shades of moral gray–our universal wants and needs, those things that we publicly shy away from, or deny we have because they are not always pretty. Jones was masterful at creating empathy for each character, each of whom I might have initially dismissed in the book and in real life for being fundamentally unlikable. But I saw something of myself in every character…and saw people I knew, too.
I don’t want to say too much more about the plot because it is fun to read not knowing too much (though Jones doesn’t seem to intend for this to be a twist-and-turn mystery). So I’ll just say that it was an enthralling read that is ideal for book clubs.
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