Book Review: Who Will Find Her? by Ryan Young

It's been one year since the disappearance of beloved high school track star Melody Anderson. The small town of Hawksboro, North Carolina, has only started to recover from the media frenzy that's being fueled by a self-serving news anchor. As the case goes eerily cold, her suspected captor, a known predator with a history of violence, hasn't been seen in months. On a crisp autumn night, tragedy strikes again.

During a packed high school football game, 14-year-old Cheyenne Holt vanishes from a park bench while spectators cheer on the home team. The sheriff is stunned and incapable of reliving the nightmare of the past year. He immediately labels her a runaway, killing any chances of a public outcry or coordinated search effort.

No one is coming to help.

With the weight of injustice pressing down on her family and friends, those closest to Cheyenne vow to find her by any means necessary. Four friends venture into the vast wilderness searching for answers and willing to face whatever monsters await. Whether it's the lead suspect in Melody's case or someone worse and far more dangerous.

Someone closer to home.

GENRE: Thriller

PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ryan Young is a writer and video producer with nearly twenty years of experience in the creative industry. After graduating from the inaugural Film Bachelor's program at Full Sail University, he fell in love with writing, producing, directing, and editing. Ryan lives in Orlando, Florida with his wife and daughter. When he's not writing or filming, he enjoys cooking, working out, and traveling to places with some elevation. His debut novel, Keeper of the Dead, was released in September of 2022 in paperback and an audiobook is forthcoming.

Review

Content/trigger warnings: murder, pedophilia, violence, racism/racial discrimination, alcoholism, depression. And while we're here, I just have to share something posted by Goodreads reviewer Review Cat:

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) is a movement to combat the very real problem the book outlines. As Native Hope says, “It stands for all the missing sisters whose voices are not heard. It stands for the silence of the media and law enforcement in the midst of this crisis. It stands for the oppression and subjugation of Native women who are now rising up to say #NoMoreStolenSisters.”

On to my review:

Ryan won me over through his debut novel, Keeper of the Dead, and he continues to impress with his latest thriller, Who Will Find Her? — which also happens to be out today! Happy book birthday! 🥳

I love multi-POV stories but this one had more than the usual amount. It worried me at first, because that could get confusing and unwieldy very quickly, but in no time, Ryan proved that he could tell a story just as effectively with an ensemble cast that ranged from children to adults. (I'm doubly impressed because I also write, and I know for a fact that juggling all those POVs is hard.) It was a great way to get to know the different characters (some I loathed more than others, LOL) while moving the story forward. Hawksboro might be a small town, but big things are happened there.

Now, unpopular opinions time: I thought the use of present tense was great. I could really feel the urgency, the tension. And I also liked the ending and how guttingly realistic some parts of it were... which is to say, Ryan made me feel things, as he did in Keeper of the Dead. I was happy and sad and upset and angry and disgusted. I worried about how the story could easily happen in real life — with perhaps an even gloomier, or worse, no resolution — which would really really suck. And I certainly felt that some of the things that happened and how they turned out were unfair. But, hey, I didn't pick this book up for escapism.

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️