Book Review: Have You Seen This Girl?

Title: Have You Seen This Girl (Flocksdale Files #1)

Author: Carissa Ann Lynch

Narrator: Samantha Desz

Link: https://www.audible.com/pd/Have-You-Seen-This-Girl-Audiobook/1705241948

Summary

Wendi Wise is a troubled young woman who snorts her breakfast through a straw and spends more time in rehab than in the real world . . .

Her life is seemingly out of control. But now she has a plan. That plan involves a sharp set of butcher knives. She’s going back to where all of her troubles began . . . Flocksdale.

Wendi was lured away from a local skating rink, at the age of thirteen, and held captive in a place she calls ‘The House of Horrors.’ Dumped off blindfolded on the side of a dirt road, Wendi soon discovered that she was addicted to the drugs they fed her while she was captive.

Too scared to go home, and having a new habit to deal with, she hopped on a bus, vanishing from the family she loved. Vanishing from Flocksdale . . .

The town of Flocksdale is littered with fliers with a grainy image of young Wendi, and the words ‘Have You Seen This Girl?’ written below.

Now, eight years later, she’s on a mission-a mission to find the mysterious house from her youth and the monsters who dwell inside it.

My Review

5/5 Stars

When Wendi turns thirteen, she and her friend, Claire, meet two boys. They’re older, and their interest is something that Wendi has never experienced before. After being banned from hanging with them, Wendi and Claire find ways to sneak out and see them anyway. Except their disappearance becomes longer than a few hours. When Wendi finds herself in a sex trafficking ring, she feels too ashamed to go home to her family when she’s released. Instead, she flees vowing revenge on the monsters who turned her life upside down.

I absolutely adored Wendi’s character. Even though she has an immense amount of self-doubt, she is strong and ruthless. She did what she needed to do to take down the monsters who nearly destroyed her, fighting through her own demons to do so.

I was so caught up in Wendi’s story, that I found this book nearly impossible to stop once I’d started. By the time it came for Wendi to get her revenge, I thought I had the ending of the book figured out, but I was so wrong. Every chapter of this book has its own twists and turns. The ending was beautiful.

Overall, I thought this was a good cautionary tale about what can happen when a girl isn’t careful about who she picks as her “friends.”

Narration was wonderful.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.