My Review of Dead To You, by Lisa McMann

Dead to You by Lisa McMann

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ethan was abducted from his front yard when he was just seven years old. Now, at sixteen, he has returned to his family. It's a miracle... at first. Then the tensions start to build. His reintroduction to his old life isn't going smoothly, and his family is tearing apart all over again. If only Ethan could remember something, anything, about his life before, he'd be able to put the pieces back together. But there's something that's keeping his memory blocked. Something unspeakable...

What I Liked: From page one, I was engrossed. Any time I had to step away from the book—to drive, to shower, etc—I was thinking about it. The story was electrified with suppressed chaos. And I had no idea where it was going. Well, no, that’s a lie. But I ignored the arrows, because the author wouldn’t do that, would she? No way.

What I Didn’t: Except she did. She totally went there. Which, by itself, isn’t a bad thing. There are few things I love more than staring open-mouthed at a book, gasping and clutching my chest in complete shock. It’s pretty hard to surprise me. But you can’t drop a bombshell like that and then just walk away. Which is exactly what McMann did. The bomb hasn’t even finished exploding, and the book ends. And I’m sorry, but if I’ve walked along with you all this way in the story, you can’t end the book in the middle of the climax and leave me to wonder about what happens to the people you’ve made me care about.

Overall: The book was great. Except for the last five pages, or, rather, the fact that the last five pages were the last five pages. I originally had this book as a four-star, but lowered it to a three after a night of thinking about how the abrupt ending spoiled the entire book. Which is sad, because the first 19/20ths of it was stellar. I wouldn’t recommend that people not read Dead To You…I’m just saying Buyer Beware.

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