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Cemetery Girl

David Bell (Goodreads Author)

3.34 · Rating details · 9,571 ratings · 1,336 reviews

Four years after Tom and Abby's 12-year-old daughter vanishes, she is found alive but strangely calm. When the teen refuses to testify against the man connected to her disappearance, Tom decides to investigate the traumatizing case on his own. Nothing can prepare him for what he is about to discover. ...more

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Paperback, 389 pages

Published October 4th 2011 by NAL

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Published in 2011

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· 9,571 ratings · 1,336 reviews

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Mar 28, 2012 Melani rated it did not like it

Shelves: fiction

I should clarify first and say that I am not the target audience for this book. These types of novels, thrillers/real life sadness whatever, bore me unless they are very well written. Add that fact to the very major problems I had with the themes and plot of this novel and I think I'm being generous with one star. The only reason I finished this book is because I have a goal number to reach by the end of the year.

The major problem I have with the novel is that the rape and kidnapping of the daug ...more

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Dec 30, 2011 Sara the Librarian rated it did not like it

Shelves: phoning-it-in

See here's the thing. You aren't writing anything new or amazing just because your protagonist isn't Dudley Do Right. Tom Stuart is a kind of a jerk college professor and his wife is a born again Christian looney tune and their distant twelve year old daughter is...umm...distant? I don't know. Anyway the daughter disappears only to reappear four years later as a bitchy teenager who curses a lot and is in love with her abductor because Stockholm Syndrome or something. But this makes no sense beca See here's the thing. You aren't writing anything new or amazing just because your protagonist isn't Dudley Do Right. Tom Stuart is a kind of a jerk college professor and his wife is a born again Christian looney tune and their distant twelve year old daughter is...umm...distant? I don't know. Anyway the daughter disappears only to reappear four years later as a bitchy teenager who curses a lot and is in love with her abductor because Stockholm Syndrome or something. But this makes no sense because the abductor is really ugly or something! Tom sets out to find out the truth! But he's kind of a jerk about it. Oh and there's a half brother with a gambling problem and Tom may or may not have been beaten as a child. Its not remotely relevant to anything, except perhaps Tom's jerkitude, but we certainly hear about it often enough.

Wow, how very new and different.

What's particularly wonderful (everyone get out your sarcasm detectors!) about this book is it's non-ending. I have no trouble with an author deciding to leave things on a precipice where the reader remains unclear of the ultimate outcome. In this case its nothing short of ridiculous. It seems Bell simply thought it would be really cool to end the story on a "who can tell what happens next" note not because it actually serves the story.

My big problem here was that I didn't know what or who I was supposed to care about and consequently I didn't care about anyone or anything. All the characters are so vague and poorly developed and I had so little feeling or understanding about what the family was like BEFORE the abduction and Bell commits that most horrendous of thriller novel crimes, everyone is at exactly the same point they were when the book started. I seriously hate that. It's so unsatisfying.

The lesson I learned here is "DO NOT BELIEVE THE REVIEWS ON THE BACK OF THE BOOK!!!!" which assured me that I would not believe the ending, I would not be able to put this book down, and that Bell has totally turned the kidnapped kid genre on its head.

There's nothing new here kids, its all been done before and I might add, much better. ...more

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Dec 16, 2011 Cynthia rated it liked it

At first I really like this book--the story clipped along at a good pace, but not too fast. The idea of the missing child returning home, changed and unwilling to discuss what happened seemed so good. There was so much that could have been done with it. Sadly, in the end it just came off as a creepy look at violence against young women by every man in their lives.

I felt the Caitlin character was done well and seemed realistic. However, Tom and Abby were far too Lifetime Movie of the week charac ...more

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Nov 15, 2013 Rebecca Peck rated it really liked it

This is the first review I've written on here, but i felt some of the reviews of this book were unfair, so I felt compelled. Some people gave this book a bad rating because, "None of the characters were likable." I guess that's what makes people different, because that's exactly why I enjoyed this book. The characters were well-developed and this was not the fairy tale ending of a family reunited with their child who was ripped from their lives by a crazy pedophile. When traumas happen we all co ...more

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May 17, 2011 Molly rated it it was amazing

I love a book that I cannot put down, and I could not put down Cemetery Girl. But this novel wasn't only a page turner; it was also a story that let me feel deeply connected to the characters, especially Tom, the father who so desperately wants to re-connect with his sixteen-year-old daughter, a lost girl-woman who is found alive four years after her disappearance. A novel that so brilliantly weaves character development with such a tense plot deserves serious attention.

This would be a great bo ...more

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May 22, 2012 Jenelle Eager rated it liked it

This book captured me at the book store by the cover and the premise, and it's definitely in my genre, maybe an edgier Jodi Picoult with the family dynamics and missing girl plot. I would say I liked a lot of the book, and I am just shy enough of 4 stars to have to give it three because, as others have mentioned, about half to three quarters of the way through the father's behavior was really disturbing and his obsession was difficult to stomach as the decisions he made became less about his dau ...more

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Apr 15, 2013 Bill rated it did not like it

Shelves: thriller

Sentimental Abduction (2012)

Bell, David (2011). Cemetery Girl. New York: New American Library.

A 12-year old girl goes missing while walking her dog in a cemetery. There are no leads. She is presumed abducted, and after a year or so, presumed dead. The story is told, first-person, by the father, who never gives up hope on her. The mother, on the other hand is “ready to move on” with her life. The marriage is on the rocks and the mother now has a romantic interest with the pastor of her church w Sentimental Abduction (2012)

Bell, David (2011). Cemetery Girl. New York: New American Library.

A 12-year old girl goes missing while walking her dog in a cemetery. There are no leads. She is presumed abducted, and after a year or so, presumed dead. The story is told, first-person, by the father, who never gives up hope on her. The mother, on the other hand is “ready to move on” with her life. The marriage is on the rocks and the mother now has a romantic interest with the pastor of her church who helped her grieve.

Much later, after many pages of self-indulgent angst, an informant appears who claims to have seen the girl alive, four years after the disappearance. Very slowly, over hundreds of pages, clues develop and the police find the girl, now 16, but she is uncommunicative and hostile toward her parents. She wants to go back to her captor, a man in his 50’s, who she says she loves. The father and his brother attempt to find him, since the police aren’t doing much. Finally there is a confrontation, in the cemetery, with the father, brother, girl, and captor. The big scene.

The story of child abduction is oft-told, likewise its effects on the grieving parents. Far from providing fresh insight, the author wallows in the unself-aware emotions of the parents. Long tracts of such material give “page-turner” new meaning. The characters are mercurial in the extreme, reacting arbitrarily, showing little internal consistency, and no development over time.

The fundamental psychological flaw in the story is the presumption that an abducted child would turn against her parents because she was not rescued promptly. In fact parent-child relations grow slowly over many years, not as the result of any one incident. Even children who were physically and sexually abused by parents usually want to be reunited with them.

These are ordinary, mild, polite, middle-class parents who ostensibly love their daughter and never harmed her. One flashback scene describes the pre-abduction relationship between father and daughter, and it reveals the father as emotionally stunted and interpersonally alienated, but that’s about the extent of his crime.

The best part of the book is the perplexing question it poses, what would you do if your teenage daughter no longer loved you and wanted to rejoin her captor? Psychologically implausible though that scenario is, it is interesting. Alas, the question is not explored well here. The father beats people up, and in turn, gets beat up, several times. That is his “method” of exploring the question, apparently.

The writing is competent but mundane. Dialog is full of deadwood that neither advances the story nor reveals the characters. The scenery is vanilla suburbia. The characters are bland middle-class white people with little self-awareness. The story is largely cliché. So overall, there is not much to attract readers who eschew maudlin sentimentality. ...more

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Oct 20, 2015 Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin rated it it was ok

Shelves: own, mystery-thriller-etc

www.melissa413readsalot.blogspot.com

I just didn't get into this book at all and that makes me sad. I always try to pick books I think I will like or love and I hate giving anything under three stars, but that's life.

Tom and Abby's little girl of twelve years old goes missing one day when she is taking her dog Frosty for a walk at the park. First off, who in the hell lets their kids go off on their own!

After four years Abby wants to put up a headstone and have a memorial for Caitlin. I understa ...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Ashley rated it did not like it

Half way through this book it had the promise of being great, the description of events and mixed powerful feelings was incredible. It was heart-wrenching, and horrible.

As a parent, there is no way in hell you could be in the presence of the man who kidnapped and molested your child and not kill him. It just isn't possible. I can't understand wanting to know the details that badly its kind of sick, and a little disturbing. I think Freud would have some choice views on that one. Who wants to kno ...more

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May 02, 2013 Lee Rene rated it liked it

I'm torn regarding this book. It is a page turner, a very fast 389 pages that I finished in one sitting. The novel earned stellar reviews, was even whispered as a potential nominee for a Pulitzer for fiction and the author, an English professor at Western Kentucky University has real credentials. Despite all the pluses, I had real issues with this work. It lacked the descriptive power that I expect in first-rate writing. The prose was tight and efficient, but missing both a sensory and emotional ...more

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Jun 13, 2022 For The Love of books rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Tom and Abby his wife spend 4 years devastated after their 12 year old girl goes missing walking the dog in the park. Abby turns to the church and organises a funeral to let go. Tom however at the same time finds a witness that believes she has seen their child now 16 years old. Then the unthinkable happens. The story was strong and I would have given 5 stars but I felt let down by the ending. Perhaps the final way the story went just wasn’t for me personally, I would have liked to have read som ...more

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Jan 24, 2015 Michael rated it it was ok

Shelves: mystery, winter-reading-2015, read-in-2015

Cemetery Girl has been languishing on my to-be-read shelf since I picked it up at a bargain book sale a couple of years ago. I'd heard some buzz about the book and was excited to get my hands on a copy of the book since my local library didn't have a copy at the time.

I'm guessing that initial enthusiasm wore off or else I got distracted by other books either that I purchased, received as ARCs or checked out from the local library. And so it was that I was getting ready for last weekend's World R Cemetery Girl has been languishing on my to-be-read shelf since I picked it up at a bargain book sale a couple of years ago. I'd heard some buzz about the book and was excited to get my hands on a copy of the book since my local library didn't have a copy at the time.

I'm guessing that initial enthusiasm wore off or else I got distracted by other books either that I purchased, received as ARCs or checked out from the local library. And so it was that I was getting ready for last weekend's World Read-athon day that I stumbled across the book in my to-be-read pile and decided maybe it was time to move it up in the rotation.

Four years ago, Tom and Abby's 12-year-old daughter Caitlin disappeared from their local park while walking their dog. In that time, Abby and Tom have grown apart as Tom continues to follow up any lead or shred of evidence that he thinks could bring Caitlin back and Abby turns to more spiritual means to find comfort and acceptance that their daughter has vanished and may not come back. Just as Abby is ready to close the door on Caitlin's return and Tom chases down what he feels is the promising lead they've had in years, Caitlin is returned, dirty, bruised and refusing to discuss where she's been the past four years.

Caitlin's return isn't necessarily the happy ending that Tom imagined it would be. Her return only fuels his anger and determination to find out what happened and who took her. And Caitlin refuses to give away any answers to her parents or to the authorities.

Cemetery Girl is a fascinating but ultimately frustrating novel. It's a suspense thriller whose pages turn by quickly and where a new development or red herring comes up at a nice clip. This is a good thing because it doesn't allow the reader to slow question things taking place in the novel or certain developments. At least until the novel's final third when David J. Bell begins to pile on absurdity on top of the next as the dominoes begin to fall and we find out what happened to Caitlin and some of her motivation for staying silent.

Bell sews a seed of doubt about Caitlin early in the novel as Tom relates an incident from early in her life where she lied to him to his face. I kept expecting this incident to have more of an impact on things or to imply that Caitlin was somehow involved in her disappearance but these seeds never bear any fruit. Instead it feels more like one more red herring in a novel that has one or two red herrings too many.

There's also a subplot about Caitlin's uncle that never quite pays off as it should or could.

Cemetery Girl is a novel with a lot of potential and yet I couldn't help but come away feeling dissatisfied by it. The twists and turns of the final third don't seem quite exaggerated enough based on what the plot threads and details Bell includes in the first third of the novel. There's also a lot of questions I had about characters and their motivations in the final third that aren't adequately addressed or explained. And the ending feels a bit abrupt and pointless. After spending three hundred or so pages with the story, I wasn't necessarily looking for a "happy ending" but I was hoping we'd get something more than what Bell gives us.

This novel had a lot of potential. It's just too bad it didn't live up to all of it. ...more

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Sep 06, 2013 Karen Bonilla rated it did not like it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 30, 2011 Rae rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery, contemporary-fiction, literary, advance-reading-copy, fell-on-its-face-at-the-end

While there were some parts of the book that were very good and realistic, such as the interaction between the main character and his wife, there were other parts that weren't. I could see what the author was trying to do, but that was the problem. It was too obvious, to blatant. Some of reminiscences felt too much like tangents. I also felt like the book fell on it's face in the last couple of chapters. You're at the climax of the story and all of a sudden it's the epilogue. It doesn't transiti ...more

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Nov 07, 2020 Jayne rated it it was amazing

This is an unputdownable "OMG!" book, from beginning to end.

I have read other David Bell books and, to date, this was my favorite. I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator was superb.

Author David Bell did a superb job with the character development of the book's entire cast of characters: the father, mother, daughter, father's brother, kidnapper, .....and even the family dog.

Throughout the entire book, I felt like I was right there in that family's home, experiencing all of the family's e ...more

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Nov 18, 2011 Alison rated it did not like it

Disappointed. Frustrated. The author had an opportunity to delve into the grief and turmoil of a father who lost his daughter, a father who never gave up his search for her and who faced many consequences for that choice. Instead, the author gave us an idiot. An idiot named Tom. Many times throughout the book I found myself actually laughing at loud at this character and the stupidity of the choices he made. I would've rather read this book from the point of view of the wife, because she at leas ...more

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Oct 16, 2011 Chris Wolak rated it liked it

This is one of those books that I almost stopped reading once or twice, but then something surprising would happen and I'd find myself reading later than planned, negotiating with myself that after I read just one more chapter then I'd do xy and z.

With it being October, I was hoping Cemetery Girl would be a creepy book, learning more towards horror, but it is a psychological suspense novel, mainly about Tom, the father of a twelve year old girl named Caitlin who goes missing for four years. No c This is one of those books that I almost stopped reading once or twice, but then something surprising would happen and I'd find myself reading later than planned, negotiating with myself that after I read just one more chapter then I'd do xy and z.

With it being October, I was hoping Cemetery Girl would be a creepy book, learning more towards horror, but it is a psychological suspense novel, mainly about Tom, the father of a twelve year old girl named Caitlin who goes missing for four years. No clues, no ransom note, no nothing. Caitlin's Mom, Abby, is trying to move on and has turned all her energies toward her church, including her sexual energy, it seems, as Tom believes she's having an affair with Pastor Chris.

At first you think Abby is a real schmuck and that the husband, Tom, is the good guy, trying to keep the candle of hope lit for his daughter's return. But then his likeability is thrown into doubt early on for dumping the family dog at the pound. And then you learn he did it as a last ditch effort to save his marriage. Still, not forgivable (not for me, anyway), but perhaps understandable for some. Then you learn that it was that nasty Pastor Chris who put the idea of getting rid of the dog into Abby's head as a way to 'help' Tom move on and that just made me think of Pat Robertson recently telling a caller to divorce his wife with Alzheimer's and move on, but that's a whole 'nother story. Let's just say the situation left me wondering whether or not to go on reading a 389 page book with characters that I didn't particularly like from the beginning. One of the things that kept me reading was the character of Tom and how my feelings about him weren't easy to pin down.

If you plan on reading Cemetery Girl and don't like spoilers, you might want to stop reading now.

It dawned on me fairly early that perhaps Tom isn't exactly a reliable narrator. He is, after all, an English professor writing a book about Hawthorne. Eventually you start to question just about everything going on in the novel, especially everyone's motives, as well as their IQs and their emotional intelligence. It got to the point where I thought a good alternate title for the book would be Parents Behaving Badly. Or just Bad Dad.

If I had to sum up Tom in one sentence, I'd say he's a narcissist loner with anger management issues probably suffering from PTSD stemming from childhood abuse at the hands of an alcoholic step-father and a mother who just can't handle the truth. First he's obsessed with believing against all odds that Caitlin is still alive and will come home. All he wants is for her to come home. Its okay that this part of the novel is all about him and his feelings. But then when Caitlin does come home he becomes obsessed with learning not so much about what happened to her, but about why she stayed with the man who abducted her. In other words, why she chose her abductor over him.

At a time when his daughter most needs his attention, it's still all about him. This is when you really start to think something's wrong with the guy. Is should be all about his daughter now. Maybe he never really was a good father. The prologue sorta makes you wonder about that. And other things happen. Such as the fact that he makes and then promptly breaks a promise to Caitlin on her first day back, yells at her, slaps her, and grabs her arm so tightly that he doesn't care if he bruises her just days after her return. He feels bad about spitting into another man's face, but justifies hitting his daughter as an attempt to help her. He's also judgemental of just about everyone else. It is always about him and is feelings. In fact he pesters Caitlin with this whiny rant:

"What made you stay?” I asked. “Why, after all that, did you stay? People saw you with him in public places. You could have screamed and cried. You could have run away. Why did you stay with him? Why did you do that . . . ?” I resisted for a long moment. I tried to swallow it back, but finally I couldn't hold it in. “Why did you do that to me, Caitlin? Why?” (355).

I have no idea if David Bell set out to write a bad dad novel. Tom wants to have a family, but it seems like he wants to have it without having to work at it. He sits and laments about Caitlin's hygiene, table manners, and cursing and says, "All the things we could have helped, the disciplinary battles we could have fought, were lost. What was left?" (350). What? She's only sixteen and has just been through four years of sexual assault and mind control and Daddy Dearest is ready to throw in the towel after just a few days?

In the Epilogue Tom says to his brother, "In the end, my instincts as a father are stronger than anything else" (387). Some readers may feel like that's a nice wrap up. It might make them feel warm and fuzzy about Tom and fatherhood. But it creeped me out. Tom made many rash and irrational decisions, put his daughter in harms way, was abusive towards her on more than one occassion, and lied to everyone in his life. Is he carrying on his family of origin's legacy of abuse and silence? Wraping himself up in the protective cloak of 'parental instinct' that outsiders don't dare question? That's what it seems like to me.

David Bell does a great job holding it all together. I didn't like any of the characters in this novel, yet I kept reading, wondering what was going to happen next, even when some of the characters, as seen through Tom's eyes, do some pretty unrealistic things and make seriously poor choices. Issues of trust abound in this novel, as do those of power, control, parenting skills, and family ties. I am impressed with Bell's skill at weaving only Tom's perspective throughout this tale. ...more

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Dec 24, 2014 Serenity rated it did not like it

Shelves: reviewed, read-in-2014

As someone who loves reading about kidnappings and disappearance I was obviously drawn to this book because of what it offered.

BUT WHAT THE FUCK

I feel like this book was written so poorly. The protagonist is just horrible. I tried to have sympathy for him because his daughter was gone and he seemed to love her, but as I moved forward he was just too annoying and self-absorbed. WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU EVEN PRETEND TO GIVE YOUR DAUGHTER BACK TO THE MAN WHO KIDNAPPED AND RAPED HER.

His returned dau ...more

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May 03, 2011 Christina Dudley rated it it was ok

Shelves: did-not-finish

For some reason I put this on hold thinking it was a ghost story, but actually it's about a dad dealing with the disappearance of his daughter four years earlier. I was turning the pages but decided to jump ship for a couple reasons:

1. His wife gets really into some church with the usual unlikeable church pastor. Pretty tired of running across these stereotypes--or am I the only person who goes to church with lots of cool, likeable, genuine people?

2. Bizarre sentences were sprinkled throughout t ...more

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Jun 20, 2017 Chandra Claypool (WhereTheReaderGrows) rated it really liked it

Tom and Abby's 12 year old daughter goes missing one day while walking her dog. They both deal with her disappearance in different ways which takes a toll on their marriage. Then one day, Caitlin is found.. but those 4 years has changed her. She's sullen, rude and not the daughter they remember. Tom desperately tries to find out what's going on but that's hard when his daughter makes him promise not to ask her about her time away.. and the answers he ends up finding is worse than anything hi ...more

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Nov 12, 2012 Jenn rated it liked it

I read this book based on all of the reviews in the front pages, and they were not wrong. It was suspenseful, and it did keep me up reading late into the night.(I read the whole book in just a few hours)
I was afraid it would be the type of story to leave me hanging on at the end, with some vague explanation of what happened and no real answers. I wasn't far off.
Caitlin Stuart disappears one day while walking her dog, and the resulting story is told by her father, Tom.His wife, Abby, is going thr ...more

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Oct 06, 2011 ☕️Kimberly rated it really liked it

Cemetery Girl was an addictive novel, that kept me up till 3 in the morning to reach the conclusion. Bell weaves a believable tale of a parent’s worst nightmare. He delivers it with an authentic voice in Tom Stuart.

Protagonist Tom Stuart, father of Caitlin and husband of Abby tells this riveting story from his perspective. The story is broken into three parts. The first part deals with events leading up to Caitlin’s disappearance. The second takes us through the aftermath and how it impacts them ...more

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Feb 09, 2013 Holly Robinson rated it liked it

Truthfully, I expected to love this book, because of other reviews and because it's in a genre I love to read as an escape: psychological thriller, parents embroiled in a mystery, missing child, etc. All the right elements for a thrilling, quick read, and indeed, this is a quick read--I finished it in a few hours--but that's part of the problem with it. The story line is fascinating, but the author uses extremely plain language, very little imagery, and every one of the characters is so dislikea ...more

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Nov 09, 2012 Traci rated it did not like it

I read up on the reviews before ordering this book and it sounded pretty solid, words such as page turner, thriller, unimaginable ending, couldn't put it down... I titled this Confused because I honestly don't know how any avid reader could have attached those descriptors to this novel. I trudged through this book and mainly kept motivated by the review of this stellar ending. Good god was I disappointed I didn't put this book down sooner. Lack of character development: the father comes across a ...more

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Dec 18, 2011 Amy the book-bat rated it it was ok

I was disappointed in this book. After reading the description and the blurbs on the back of the book, it really sounded like something I would like. Reading the actual story, on the other hand, made me feel like something was missing. It never grabbed me in the way a "thriller" is supposed to. I found no thrills at all. What I did find was a bunch of characters I didn't like and a pace so slow it was painful. Several times I debated whether to even bother finishing. I would be ready to put the ...more

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Mar 12, 2016 The Sassy Bookworm rated it really liked it

This is the second book I have read by this author in the past week, and both have been fantastic. Abby and Tom's daughter Caitlin goes missing while walking their dog Frosty. Four years later she reappears and we get to see how a family deals with their child's disappearance and subsequent reappearance.

There are some twists and turns, but I wouldn't say it was overly "mysterious" Overall though I really enjoy this one. This author has such effortless writing style which makes his books very re ...more

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Jan 12, 2019 Sherri Thacker rated it liked it

Just average for me.

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Oct 17, 2011 Kaye rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2011-challenge

Well, I am in a quandary as to this one. While I love suspense and thrillers and the first three-quarters of the book had me riveted to the pages just to see how the plot progressed, the last quarter of the book not so intriguing and I'm not sure exactly why.

I think part of it is I didn't really like any of the characters. Oh, sure I could empathize with them but as to liking them, it was a no. At times they acted contrary to their character development at the beginning. Obviously, it's not nec
Well, I am in a quandary as to this one. While I love suspense and thrillers and the first three-quarters of the book had me riveted to the pages just to see how the plot progressed, the last quarter of the book not so intriguing and I'm not sure exactly why.

I think part of it is I didn't really like any of the characters. Oh, sure I could empathize with them but as to liking them, it was a no. At times they acted contrary to their character development at the beginning. Obviously, it's not necessary to like every character but there has to be at least one
you can root for. I didn't find that in this book.

Tom and Abby were going in two different directions after Caitlin went missing. Even though Tom was fanatical in his efforts to find out what happened, towards the end I found some of his actions and thoughts hard to figure out. At times he struck me as entirely self-centered.

Abby seemed convinced Caitlin was not coming back so she turned to her church and Pastor Chris. She had a large monument made and held a memorial service and then said she had "moved on". Hmmmmm . . how does a mother even do that? Needless to say, this had a terrible effect on their marriage.

Caitlin, I didn't like as a sly, lying little six-year old and I still didn't like her when she was returned to her parents as a foul-mouthed, belligerent teen. At first, she was all over Abby while saying she would not talk about the last four years as they didn't know what "happened to her". Sounds like the ordeal was horrible, doesn't it? But, the next thing you know she is sneaking out a window to return to her captor who she says she loves. Which is it, Caitlin?

Tom's brother, Buster, was another unlikeable character; too brash, crass and a little too creepy in his attention to Caitlin. Actually, Buster made my skin crawl. At several points Tom remembers when Buster would shelter him from an abusive step-father which gives the impression he was a caring older brother but later in the story certain rumors come to light which belie this. At one point he's beating Tom to a pulp and then turns around to help him the next day leaving me to think he's an unreliable character. I don't want to give specifics because it would include spoilers.

The unsatisfactory ending left too many unanswered questions for me. A 3* rating to me is I liked the book and it was over all a pleasurable reading experience; 2 is "meh" could take it or leave it. Unfortunately, I think this one falls somewhere in the middle. Of course, this is just my take on the book, you may love it.

...more

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Dec 08, 2013 Christie rated it did not like it

I read the first 192 pages of David Bell’s novel Cemetery Girl lickety split. I couldn’t put the book down. I wondered – how come I’ve never heard of this book or this author? How come the only positive promotion is from other authors? Where has this author been all my life?

And then it all went to hell in a hand basket.

Cemetery Girl is the story of college professor Tom Stuart and his wife, Abby, and their daughter, Caitlin, who disappeared four years ago when she was twelve. Now, Abby has dec I read the first 192 pages of David Bell’s novel Cemetery Girl lickety split. I couldn’t put the book down. I wondered – how come I’ve never heard of this book or this author? How come the only positive promotion is from other authors? Where has this author been all my life?

And then it all went to hell in a hand basket.

Cemetery Girl is the story of college professor Tom Stuart and his wife, Abby, and their daughter, Caitlin, who disappeared four years ago when she was twelve. Now, Abby has decided it’s time to say goodbye to Caitlin and has organized a memorial service for her daughter. It’s caused something of a rift between Tom and Abby because Tom hasn’t given up hope that his daughter will come home to them because her body has never been found. But Tom and Abby’s marriage is on the slippery slope anyway. Abby has found religion and is spending more and more time with Pastor Chris her new ‘best friend.’ Yeah, right.

For the first half of the book I was totally invested in Tom’s story and the novel’s attempt to make him a somewhat unreliable narrator. For example, he and his half-brother, Buster, have different takes on their childhood. Tom remembers his step-father, Paul, as a mean and abusive drunk; Buster claims it wasn’t like that at all.

There are a bunch of minor characters in the novel – Detective Ryan, the one and only cop still assigned to Caitlin’s case; Susan Goff, a volunteer with the police department (who is not a therapist or professional counsellor, just someone to talk to); Liann Stipes, a lawyer whose own daughter had been murdered and who has acted as an advisor to Tom; Tracy Fairlawn, a stripper who claims she saw Caitlin. Then there’s this mysterious blonde girl who keeps appearing near Caitlin’s tombstone or outside the Stuart house in the middle of the night.

Like I said, Bell kept me turning those pages for quite a long time. Then I just didn’t believe it anymore. I didn’t believe the way characters started to speak to each other. I didn’t believe the resolution of the book’s central mystery. I didn’t believe any of Tom’s interactions with anyone – they just all felt artificial. I’m a parent; I wouldn’t behave this way.

Cemetery Girl had a lot of potential, but a book like this depends on credibility and at the end of the day – it just didn’t have any.
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Dec 14, 2011 JeanBookNerd rated it it was amazing

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David Bell’s thriller debut, Cemetery Girl, is the story of the disappearance of 12 year old Caitlin Stuart and how her parents, Tom and Abby, coped with her being gone. Bell starts the story four years earlier after Caitlin’s disappearance. Frantic and besieged, Tom vowed to never give up the hope that she is still alive and will come back home. However, Abby has given up and decides it is time to move on. She planned a memorial service and ordered a headstone as she felt the marriage ended whe ...more

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Oak Grove Cemetery	1	3	Jun 20, 2018 10:25PM
I thought the book had a good premise but lost it in the end due to the father not being overly logicial.	8	69	Jan 22, 2014 03:56PM

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About David Bell

David Bell

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David Bell is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning suspense novelist. His most recent thriller from Berkley/Penguin is KILL ALL YOUR DARLINGS. His previous novels include THE REQUEST, LAYOVER, SOMEBODY'S DAUGHTER, BRING HER HOME, SINCE SHE WENT AWAY, SOMEBODY I USED TO KNOW, THE FORGOTTEN GIRL, NEVER COME BACK, THE HIDING PLACE, and CEMETERY GIRL. He is currently a Professor of English at Wes ...more