Lost Girls by Merrie DeStefano

Lost Girls by Merrie DeStefano

Expected Publication: January 3rd 2017 by Entangled: Teen

Yesterday, Rachel went to sleep listening to Taylor Swift, curled up in her grammy’s quilt, worrying about geometry. Today, she woke up in a ditch, bloodied, bruised, and missing a year of her life. 

She doesn’t recognize the person she’s become: she’s popular. She wears nothing but black. 

Black to cover the blood. 

And she can fight. 

Tell no one. 

She’s not the only girl to go missing within the last year…but she’s the only girl to come back. She desperately wants to unravel what happened to her, to try and recover the rest of the Lost Girls. 

But the more she discovers, the more her memories return. And as much as her new life scares her, it calls to her. Seductively. The good girl gone bad, sex, drugs, and raves, and something darker…something she still craves—the rush of the fight, the thrill of the win—something she can’t resist, that might still get her killed… 

The only rule is: There are no rules.

Note: I received an ARC of this book through Netgalley in return for an honest review. This in no way influences my opinion.

This has got to be the best YA Contemporary Thriller that I have read so far this year. It is a unique book that tackles subjects that I have never seen in a book. It is also a retelling of Black Swan, but done in its own way and I LOVED it!

This book starts off with our MC crawling out of a ditch, with no memory of the last year or so. As the book continues, she begins to see her dark side (enter the Black Swan) and she learns things about herself that both excite her and scare her! I loved watching our MC and the things that she learns throughout the book. She comes a long way personality wise.

What I loved most about this book is the fact that it tackled the subject of underground fight clubs and human trafficking in this sense. It is something that I have never seen in a book before, which makes this book extremely unique in my eyes. I loved the way the issue was shown and dealt with throughout the book and I also love the fact that it was calling to our character. It showed the other side of underground fight clubs like these because it showed the characters mixed feelings toward it. Rachel loved the adrenaline that it gave her, but she also knew that it was wrong and against the law. There were many mixed feelings and I was interested to see how the MC was going to deal with these.

I loved Rachel as a character. It was great to watch her memories slowly coming back. We could easily see as readers her personality changes from when she was found throughout the book as the book went on. I love watching her dark side coming out like the Black Swan and watching her try to fight it and the eventual ending that we got from it. I was not expecting the book to go in the direction that it did!

An issue I did have with this book is that I felt like her memories could have trickled through maybe a little bit earlier. The mystery from the past year was definitely there from Rachel’s muscle memory and her ability to fight etc. But I wanted a little more. I felt like the memories of the last year dragged on a little too much and could have definitely been introduced a little bit earlier and may a bit more frequently throughout.

I LOVED the ending! The final scenes were the perfect ending for the book and I am so glad that her dad came through. I loved Rachel’s mixed reactions from her memories finally coming through and the betrayal she felt from her so called friends. I’m glad that she ultimately made the right decision, but I also loved watching her think it through.

I really enjoyed this book and it is definitely unique! I will definitely be checking out more from this author! I gave this book 4/5 stars.