"Never get in the car."
In Koethi Zan's The Never List, even the greatest of preparation isn't always enough. As children, best friends Sarah and Jennifer were safety experts. If there was a statistic, news report, or old wives' tale about a potential hazard, they had it memorized. Tacked to their bedroom wall was the Never List, a chart of everything to avoid in order to survive. They had it all figured out--until college, when they broke their number one rule and disappeared for three years. Now in her thirties, Sarah is a neat freak with an extreme fear of physical contact. When a ghost from her past threatens to reemerge from his cell, Sarah sets off on a road trip to put him behind bars for good. Doing so will force her to face again the horrors of her abduction and finally deal with Jennifer's ultimate fate, but the real danger is yet to come. For her old enemy has plans to return, and he is not alone.
There's something very disturbing about this novel's atmosphere. Even in the beginning, when we know next to nothing about her captivity, the piece is written through a lens of regret, fear, and resignation as Sarah struggles to cope with her new life of freedom. As her journey takes off, details begin slipping through the cracks: the way she and Jennifer were abducted, descriptions of the cellar in which they lived. Something about Zan's writing makes even the smallest snippets of prose frightfully chilling, yet buried beneath it all is a scrap of hope. If she can find Jennifer's body and convict her enemy for good, there is a chance she can move on at last. It is this hope, shining like a candle in the darkness, that makes the plot so compelling.
Of course, there is also the fact that the characters are so well-rounded. While Sarah and Jennifer were taken together, they were not the only prisoners in that cellar. It is these women Sarah recruits on her quest for answers, and each bears her own set of scars. Perhaps the most striking thing is their wildly diverse methods of coping, each influenced by the way they grew up and what affected them most during their imprisonment. These, combined with their unique personalities and internal arcs, set them apart as individuals, real people with their own issues and solutions--which gives the trials they went through that much more emotional impact.
The exact nature of what went on in that cellar is not left a mystery forever. Information about that time is doled out in very cautious doses, revealing just enough to get the point across without spilling the whole three years of terror at once. Readers going into this tale with a preconceived notion of what happened will likely be far off the mark--and not in a good way. Violence is a huge part of the psychological mess these women have to deal with, so readers sensitive to such subjects should avoid this altogether. Profanity is limited to a few F-bombs, and romance is nonexistent. There are a couple of surprise twists that feel somewhat cheap, but the overall plot is quite strong and easy to follow.
I would recommend this book to adults looking for a fictional tribute to people traumatized by kidnapping and other horrors. Sarah and her companions are a mixed bunch from a wide variety of backgrounds, and their search leads them deep into a chapter in their lives they had all hoped would remain forever closed. Though it is full of potential triggers, contains some profanity, and has a plot twist or two that don't quite fit, this is a strong, absorbing story led by a believable cast whose lives will forever be entangled. Grab a flashlight, because Koethi Zan's The Never List is sure to keep readers up late into the night, from fear if nothing else. It deserves four stars.
There's something very disturbing about this novel's atmosphere. Even in the beginning, when we know next to nothing about her captivity, the piece is written through a lens of regret, fear, and resignation as Sarah struggles to cope with her new life of freedom. As her journey takes off, details begin slipping through the cracks: the way she and Jennifer were abducted, descriptions of the cellar in which they lived. Something about Zan's writing makes even the smallest snippets of prose frightfully chilling, yet buried beneath it all is a scrap of hope. If she can find Jennifer's body and convict her enemy for good, there is a chance she can move on at last. It is this hope, shining like a candle in the darkness, that makes the plot so compelling.
Of course, there is also the fact that the characters are so well-rounded. While Sarah and Jennifer were taken together, they were not the only prisoners in that cellar. It is these women Sarah recruits on her quest for answers, and each bears her own set of scars. Perhaps the most striking thing is their wildly diverse methods of coping, each influenced by the way they grew up and what affected them most during their imprisonment. These, combined with their unique personalities and internal arcs, set them apart as individuals, real people with their own issues and solutions--which gives the trials they went through that much more emotional impact.
The exact nature of what went on in that cellar is not left a mystery forever. Information about that time is doled out in very cautious doses, revealing just enough to get the point across without spilling the whole three years of terror at once. Readers going into this tale with a preconceived notion of what happened will likely be far off the mark--and not in a good way. Violence is a huge part of the psychological mess these women have to deal with, so readers sensitive to such subjects should avoid this altogether. Profanity is limited to a few F-bombs, and romance is nonexistent. There are a couple of surprise twists that feel somewhat cheap, but the overall plot is quite strong and easy to follow.
I would recommend this book to adults looking for a fictional tribute to people traumatized by kidnapping and other horrors. Sarah and her companions are a mixed bunch from a wide variety of backgrounds, and their search leads them deep into a chapter in their lives they had all hoped would remain forever closed. Though it is full of potential triggers, contains some profanity, and has a plot twist or two that don't quite fit, this is a strong, absorbing story led by a believable cast whose lives will forever be entangled. Grab a flashlight, because Koethi Zan's The Never List is sure to keep readers up late into the night, from fear if nothing else. It deserves four stars.
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