I borrowed this audiobook from the library.
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: January 18, 2022
Summary:
The disappearance of a young internet celebrity ignites a firestorm of speculation on social media, and to find her a detective will have to extinguish the blaze.
Chloe Cates is missing. The 13-year-old star of the hit YouTube series CC and Me has disappeared, and nobody knows where she’s gone – least of all ruthless momager Jennifer Scarborough, who has spent much of her daughter’s young life crafting a child celebrity persona that is finally beginning to pay off. And in Chloe’s absence, the faux-fairy-tale world that supported that persona begins to fracture, revealing secrets capable of reducing the highly dysfunctional Scarborough family to rubble.
Anxious to find her daughter and preserve the life she’s worked so hard to build, Jennifer turns to social media for help, but the hearsay, false claims, and salacious suspicions only multiply. As the search becomes as sensational as Chloe’s series, Missing Persons Detective Emilina Stone steps in, only to realize she has a connection to this case herself. Will she be able to stay objective and cut through the rumors to find the truth before it’s too late?
Told from multiple points of view including Jennifer, Emilina, and pages from Chloe’s lost diary, Chloe Cates Is Missing is a suspenseful novel of a child pushed to the brink, and of the troubled family that desperately needs her back.
My thoughts:
I had had this on my tbr for a while and was so excited when my friend Bethany selected this as her buddy read for her August #BuriedInBookBuddies buddy read. I love that she selects backlist reads for this group!!!
This book was so wild! I mean I love reading about crazy families, but this took it to the extreme! I felt such strong emotions about these characters – good and bad and I love when that happens. It makes for such good reading because I become so invested in the characters and the storyline. I just couldn’t get enough of this one, needing to know how it was all going to play out and let me just tell you, the twists just keep coming here all the way until the very last page. Some I saw coming, but quite a few I was totally blindsided by and I loved that!
The story is told from multiple perspectives and I think that was such a smart decision. It alternates between both parents, the detective and journal entries from Chloe herself. This allows us as the reader to try to piece together what is happening. I also loved the flashbacks to the past, where we see how the mom is linked to the detective. It’s both chilling and so eye-opening. We learn so much about why she is the way she is.
This book really shows the dark side of social media and the effects it can have on our lives. The author does such a great job highlighting just how it can overtake everything if we let it. I flew through this one because it was such an engaging, intense read that captured my interest from the start. This was my first time reading Mandy McHugh but it certainly will not be the last!
Audio thoughts:
This book was great on audio and was narrated by a full cast. The narrators – Hillary Huber, Jess Vilinsky, Eileen Stevens, and Alex Boyles – all did an amazing job bringing this book to life.
