Synopsis
from Goodreads: In
2003, sixteen-year-old Rebecca Winter disappeared.
She'd
been enjoying her teenage summer break: working at a fast-food
restaurant, crushing on an older boy and shoplifting with her best
friend. Mysteriously ominous things began to happen—blood in the
bed, periods of blackouts, a feeling of being watched—though Bec
remained oblivious of what was to come.
Eleven
years later she is replaced.
A
young woman, desperate after being arrested, claims to be the
decade-missing Bec.
Soon
the impostor is living Bec's life. Sleeping in her bed. Hugging her
mother and father. Learning her best friends' names. Playing with her
twin brothers.
But
Bec's welcoming family and enthusiastic friends are not quite as they
seem. As the impostor dodges the detective investigating her case,
she begins to delve into the life of the real Bec Winter—and soon
realizes that whoever took Bec is still at large, and that she is in
imminent danger.
Stats
for my copy: Trade paperback, Mira Books, per the cover it goes
on sale October 2016; per Goodreads the expected publication date is
September 20, 2016.
How
acquired: Won in a Goodreads giveaway.
My
thoughts: Normally
I'm not a fan of first person present tense narration, but I barely
even noticed it here, which I assume is a testament to the author's
writing. ONLY DAUGHTER opens with the narrator getting busted for
shoplifting, and then announcing to the police that she is Rebecca
Winters, and was abducted eleven years ago. The narration then
switches back and forth between our first person narrator telling us
her story in 2014, and third person narration giving us Bec's story
in 2003, shortly before she disappeared. The writing flows and I
bounced through this book quickly. Bec's disappearance, of course,
was never solved, and still haunts the detective in charge of the
investigation, as well as her family and friends.
As
the impostor settles into Rebecca's life, her home, her old bedroom,
her family, she teeters between staying one step ahead of the
detective and convincing everyone she is Bec, and the growing feeling
that someone is watching her, that whoever took Bec is going to try
to take her also. We, the reader, think we are figuring out what
happened to Rebecca, how she disappeared, but then some new little
tidbit of information will come to light, pointing us in another
direction.
Even
knowing that the impostor is not the real Rebecca, she becomes a
sympathetic character. She may be lying to everyone around her, but
she is still a reliable narrator, and I began rooting for her, while
very much wanting to know what became of the real Rebecca.
I
think I saw somewhere that ONLY DAUGHTER is a Young Adult book, and
it reads quite easily without any dumbing down. It was interesting
the see the contrast between the supporting character's personalities
(Bec's family, her best friend Lizzie) in 2003 and then eleven years
later in the wake of Bec's disappearance, and how it affected some of
them. It's grim, and I cant even imagine how horrible it would be to
have your child suddenly gone and to never know where to or why.
And
as the end of the book looms, the tension ramps up. Following the
real Rebecca in the days and hours leading up to her disappearance,
following the impostor as she becomes more afraid for her own life.
And then a twist, followed by another twist, which I never saw
coming. A truly gripping and captivating book.
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