The Return

by Rachel Harrison

A group of friends reunite after one of them has returned from a mysterious two-year disappearance in this edgy and haunting debut.

Julie is missing, and no one believes she will ever return—except Elise. Elise knows Julie better than anyone, and feels it in her bones that her best friend is out there and that one day Julie will come back. She’s right. Two years to the day that Julie went missing, she reappears with no memory of where she’s been or what happened to her. 

Along with Molly and Mae, their two close friends from college, the women decide to reunite at a remote inn. But the second Elise sees Julie, she knows something is wrong—she’s emaciated, with sallow skin and odd appetites. And as the weekend unfurls, it becomes impossible to deny that the Julie who vanished two years ago is not the same Julie who came back. But then who—or what—is she?

• ISBN10: 0593098668
• ISBN13: 9780593098660
• Publish Date: 24 March 2020
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780593098660

Reviews

[Joni Reads]

Thank you to Edelweiss for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

First off- This cover! Gah! So gorgeous!

Now the book- it fell flat for me. I enjoyed it but I also didn't feel wrapped up in the story. I wanted to know what happened but I didn't want to have to actually read the book to find out. Had this been a physical copy I would have skipped to the end to find out what the heck was going on. But because I was reading an ebook I couldn't do that so I slowly made my way through to the story.

Overall it felt very repetitive. Elise, Molly, Mae and Julie are four friends who met in college and have stayed in touch even though they live in different parts of the country now. Then one day Julie goes missing. Elise- the closest of the friends to Julie doesn't believe it when the others assume Julie is dead. Then two years after she disappears Julie returns with no memory of what happened to her.

To reunite Mae invites everyone to a hotel in Catskills for a girl's weekend. While there it becomes clear that Julie is much different then she was before she left.

So much of the book consists of the friends talking about Julie behind her back and trying to decide if they should confront her on the increasingly disturbing things that are happening to her.

I wanted to know but I wish it would have been revealed in a different way. Once the twist was revealed it got so garbled together that I wasn't even excited to have figured things out. I just wanted to get to the end.

Overall it's a unique storyline but I wish it would have been done better.

[maggiefan]

4.5
It's terrifying as hell, and that was exactly what I wanted from it.
rtc