You Were Gone – Tim Weaver

Link to book – https://www.goodreads.com

Rating – 4 stars

I want to start by saying this book was an absolute MIND F**K from start to finish, it’s not something that I’d recommend you picking up if you want something easy to read that you don’t really have to concentrate on.

Also, I didn’t realise until after I’d finished reading that this book formed a series, but I didn’t need to have read the other books for this one to make sense. Sure it would have added some background to characters and things mentioned within the story but it didn’t have a huge impact on my understanding.

Character wise, I found Raker quite difficult to like… But I did start wondering if that’s the way he was meant to be written. He came across as super tough on the outside, but it was clear the situation within the book was taking it’s toll on him and I found it easy to sympathise and pity him for the situation he ended up in. It wasn’t that he was a bad character, just that his very nature was prickly.

The other characters though were pretty nondescript, they didn’t stand out or really make an impact on the story, which disappointed me as I feel the author could have done more to bring them to the forefront.

However, any disappointments I had with the book ended there… The atmosphere that Weaver created was, at points, incredibly chilling, I was creeped out, paranoid and on the edge of my seat for a good chunk of this book.

Props to the writing as well, as this really helped to hammer home that feeling of unease. The writing was excellent at getting under your skin and leading your into so many rabbit holes, bringing us to the wrong conclusion time and time again.

One of my notes on this book commented on how it was almost addicting, I couldn’t put this book down.

Until the very end of the book (more on that in a second) I could not get enough of this plot. It was cleverly woven to draw you in and the red herrings that the author threw at us only enhanced the plot, leading you to the wrong conclusion on multiple occasions and throwing a shock twist at you.

The ending did let it down though. The reveal of who it was and what was going on felt very anticlimactic and I was left feeling as though a part of the story was missing and needed to be completed.

On the whole, I really enjoyed reading You Were Gone and I would definitely recommend it if you wanted a bit of a thrill!

Em xxx

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