Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Stephanie

Kyle Kirby blames the popular, wholesome Cass McBride for his younger brother Davids suicide. To retaliate, he kidnaps her and buries her&alive. Now, Cass is hanging onto life by a thread, a small hose of an opening in which she breathes and tries (without desperation) to wrangle her freedom with Kyle, and to understand why he blames her.

Both teenagers histories are revealed through multiple POVs non-chronologically. We discover that Kyle and Davids mom is verbally abusive, believing David to be the cause of her misfortunes. On the other hand, Cass fathers love for her is conditional, so she feels like she must always strive to please him by being smart, popular, and tactical in her (usually successful) attempts to get what she wantsjust like her father.

The ending crashes into you with the force of a 40-mile-per-hour gale. Kyle realizes who is really responsible for Davids death, detective Ben Gray scrambles to find the missing girl before 48 hours are up, and Cass brushes against death with fingers and toes scraped down to the bone.

This novel is really an exploration of the characters psyches, motivations, and personalities. It has less suspense than I expected, which was sort of disappointing, but the concept is certainly very interesting. Overall, Gail Giles does an excellent job of portraying the complexities of family lives.