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Title: The Lost Girl of Astor Street
Author: Stephanie Morrill
Published By: Blink (2017)
Synopsis: Lydia has vanished.
Lydia, who’s never broken any rules, except falling in love with the wrong boy. Lydia, who’s been Piper’s best friend since they were children. Lydia, who never even said good-bye.
Convinced the police are looking in all the wrong places, eighteen-year-old Piper Sail begins her own investigation in an attempt to solve the mystery of Lydia’s disappearance. With the reluctant help of a handsome young detective, Piper goes searching for answers in the dark underbelly of 1924 Chicago, determined to find Lydia at any cost.
When Piper discovers those answers might stem from the corruption strangling the city—and quite possibly lead back to the doors of her affluent neighborhood—she must decide how deep she’s willing to dig, how much she should reveal, and if she’s willing to risk her life of privilege for the sake of the truth.
Review: ( ** Spoilers ***)
I’ve had a while to think about this book and have spent a lot of time trying to discern whether or not I liked it. On one hand, it was incredibly compelling, strongly plotlined, had amazing characters and an unique storyworld…but on the other hand…UMM, the whole synopsis is about her finding her missing friend…it would be great if she actually found her!!
Basically…the synopsis was incredibly misleading, which led to, ultimately, my disappointment in the book. It was a fantastic book, but it was set up with the wrong expectations. To me, this is the worst thing you can do to a book: destroy its beauty by misleading the reader to think it’s a different type of beautiful. The reader misses out on its beauty and leaves feeling disappointed.
It was a great book. But it was a huge letdown. The entire synopsis revolves around Lydia. There’s so much hype on Lydia, that when Mariano tells Piper Lydia is dead, I didn’t even blink an eye. I did not believe it. Not out of denial or love for characters; I simply just did not think it was possible with the type of story it was presented to be. I suspected Lydia would show up at the end. It’s what all the readers are rooting for!
Now this is not me saying “You killed my favorite character!! WHY!!” That isn’t what’s going on here. This is me saying You promised me a story about a heroic rescue of Piper’s best friend, so obviously I’m not going to believe it when said friend is “killed”. That’s not what you told me the story was about!
I wanted to read about the power of friendship saving a friend. Not a friend fighting justice in the name of her dead best friend. If that’s the deal, then just tell me from page one. Don’t trick me and mislead me to believe I’m getting something I’m not.
Just my scatterbrained, weird opinions…
Giving it four stars because it was a quality book.
Negative Content:
None.
Rating: 4.0 / 5.0