Gone Without a Trace by Mary Torjussen

After a very successful day at a work conference Hannah can’t wait to get home and tell her long-term boyfriend Matt that she’s up for a promotion for work. After walking in the door, she realizes he’s not home…and neither are any of his things. All of his clothes, pictures, and belongings are gone. Hannah starts to panic and goes to call him only to realize his phone number has been deleted from her phone. When she tries to call it, she finds it’s been disconnected. All of his pictures are also gone from her phone, and his social media accounts have all been deleted. He’s also quit his job.

With no answers and no way to contact Matt, Hannah begins to spiral downward and lose her grip. She starts receiving notes and other items in her house…are they from Matt, or from someone else? Why did Matt up and leave her with no explanation?

I really loved the premise of the book and totally loved the first 30%. I can’t imagine the emotions I’d feel if I came home one day to find my significant other just gone without a trace with no explanation or reason. I really felt Hannah’s heartbreak and pain…in the beginning. Then, Hannah starts to drive me insane after about 30% in. As much as I wanted to know what happened, I had a hard time reading because Hannah was so hard to relate to. After months have gone by, she’s still so obsessed with finding Matt that she isn’t even doing her job anymore. She goes to work late and unkempt, spends all day on her computer googling Matt’s mother, former co-workers, hotels in the area, etc. in an attempt to find him. This causes her to miss deadlines, turn in incomplete work, and forget about some projects all together. For someone who prided herself on her work in the beginning of the book, I found it hard to believe that she would completely have a meltdown and let her life go to shreds because of a man. It just didn’t seem to match up. It was all she could talk about with her friends, all she could think about, and she made zero effort to start moving on with her life and get back on track. While I completely understand how heartbreaking break-ups are, there comes a point where you have to move forward.

I also struggled with the relationship between Hannah and her “best friend” Katie. Supposedly they were best friends since they were kids, but Katie was horrible to Hannah, and Hannah wasn’t great to Katie in return. They had a really unhealthy relationship that involved one upping the other, and constantly copying what the other one had. Katie was even dating one of Hannah’s ex boyfriends.

Without spoiling anything, I will also say that I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending. It seemed way too unrealistic to me, and I feel like the author was striving to hit the same note that Gone Girl did, but did so unsuccessfully in my opinion. I had a hard time believing that the reveal at the end was true. There was also a small storyline with Hannah’s co-worker Sam that I felt didn’t get tied up as well as I would have liked it to. I was left with some questions about it and I feel like the resolution there was rushed.

All in all, the story was interesting and definitely made me want to get to the end so I could figure out what happened, however because I hated the main character and found so much of the book unrealistic, this was a low 3 star rating for me. Thank you to Netgalley, Mary Torjussen, and Berkley Books for an advanced copy of the book. It was my pleasure to provide an honest review. Gone Without a Trace hits shelves on Tuesday April 18.

**What are your thoughts on unlikeable main characters? Do you love them or hate them? Let me know down in the comments!**