Before She Was Found

Three 12-year-old girls become caught up in their small Iowa town's urban legend about Joseph Wither, a supposed killer who lured children to their deaths in the 1940s. During a sleepover, the girls sneak out to an abandoned rail yard, and one ends up brutally attacked while another goes missing. The aftermath of that night ripples through the community as police try to piece together what happened, complicated by conflicting stories and mounting questions. The narrative moves between multiple viewpoints - including the girls, their parents, and the investigating detective - through journal entries, text messages, police interviews and traditional prose. The book examines how social media, peer pressure, and childhood obsessions can intersect with dark consequences. Through its exploration of truth versus fiction and the power of suggestion, it raises questions about the stories we tell ourselves and others - and how those stories can take on lives of their own.

Readers found this suspense novel captivating but had issues with the ending. Many note the book keeps them guessing through multiple perspectives and timelines, with one Amazon reviewer saying "I changed my mind about what happened at least five times." Readers liked: - Fast pacing and short chapters - The exploration of social media's impact on teens - Use of different formats (texts, police interviews, journal entries) - Complex relationships between characters Common criticisms: - Ending feels rushed and unresolved - Too many characters to track - Some plot points remain unexplained - Middle section drags Ratings: Goodreads: 3.9/5 (23,000+ ratings) Amazon: 4.3/5 (2,800+ ratings) Barnes & Noble: 4.1/5 (300+ ratings) Multiple reviewers compared it to Sharp Objects and Pretty Little Liars, though some found it less polished than those works. As one Goodreads reviewer noted: "Great build-up, but the payoff doesn't match the suspense."

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The Broken Girls by Simone St. James A journalist's investigation of a boarding school connects a modern murder to unsolved disappearances from the 1950s.

🔍 The novel was inspired by the real-life 2014 "Slender Man" stabbing case in Wisconsin, where two 12-year-old girls attacked their classmate to appease a fictional internet character 📚 Heather Gudenkauf wrote much of the book in local coffee shops around Dubuque, Iowa, where she lives and where many of her novels are set 💻 The book explores how social media and online urban legends can blur the line between fiction and reality for impressionable young minds, a growing concern in modern child psychology ✍️ The author incorporated multiple narrative styles in the novel, including diary entries, text messages, and police interviews, to create a more immersive and modern storytelling experience 🏆 Before She Was Found was selected as an April 2019 LibraryReads pick, a monthly list of top ten books chosen by librarians across the United States