Book Review: “Then She Was Gone” by Lisa Jewell
Håfa adai! Welcome to my review of Lisa Jewel’s Then She Was Gone; a mystery about obsession, secrets, manipulation, and the things people will do to get what they want.
This book review consists of two parts: a spoiler-free plot summary and my thoughts on the story. In the second part, I give my personal rating and break down the setting and worldbuilding, storytelling, cast of characters, and themes. There may be some lightweight spoilers—such as how characters interact with each other and the world around them—but I will not give away any major plot twists or endings. I want to share my opinions of the book and maybe encourage you to purchase a copy of your own.
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Spoiler-Free Plot Summary
Parents shouldn’t have a favorite child, but many do. For Laurel Mack, her golden child is her youngest daughter, 15 year-old Ellie. And everyone loves Ellie. Watching her grow into such a brilliant girl has been the light of Laurel’s life, and she adores the thought of seeing where Ellie’s future goes. But one day, Ellie walks to the library—something she’s done on her own countless times before—and never comes home.
Ten years pass It looks like everyone has moved on but Laurel. Her now ex-husband moved in with another woman only a year after Ellie’s disappearance. Her eldest child lives with his eccentric and introverted girlfriend. Her middle child lives alone. Laurel’s relationship with each of them is strained, completely lacking in warmth or closeness. Her daily routine is monotonous and uneventful. Until she meets Floyd.
Floyd is a handsome single father who has published multiple books on mathematics. And he is just as into Laurel as she is into him. After ten years of living in the fog of Ellie’s disappearance, she’s finally going on dates, laughing, and having fun! Floyd introduces Laurel to his daughters, 21 year-old SJ and 9 year-old Poppy, and Laurel’s reality begins to spin. Questions she had about Ellie’s disappearance flood through her and she can’t let go of her suspicions.
Lisa Jewel’s Then She Was Gone is a story of obsession, secrets, manipulation, and the terrifying things some would do to obtain what they want.
My Thoughts on Then She Was Gone: 4 stars
Then She Was Gone takes place in a modern London community following two series of events in two timelines: the first in 2005 and the second in 2015. Lisa Jewel does not require the reader to memorize complex mental maps of where events take place. The locations identified throughout the story are not so obscure or hidden gems that only Londoners would be aware of. This makes it easy for the reader to keep track of where the characters and events are without feeling lost.
The story’s two timelines consists of Then and Now. Then is the period immediately preceding and following Ellie’s disappearance. Now is what occurs ten years later. We see the series of events and decisions leading up to Ellie’s fateful encounter with her kidnapper, how the relationship between Laurel and her other children has dissolved into nothing, and Laurel’s efforts to finally move on with her life.
Lisa Jewel expertly creates very different emotional settings between the two timelines. Then feels anxious, desperate, and sadly hopeful. Laurel refuses to believe that Ellie is gone until she receives absolute irrefutable proof, even at the detriment of her family structure. Lisa Jewel’s narrator at the beginning of the story does, in a way, phrase things as if Ellie’s choices led to her kidnapping. But that would never have been Ellie’s fault. Ultimately, the culpability of her kidnapping lies entirely with her kidnapper. Now feels exhausted and defeated, yet also cautiously optimistic. Laurel is presented with evidence that both breaks her heart and gives her permission to move on. The complexity of decisions and actions of Then and Now are braided together in such a way that causes you to feel for the players of this story.
Then She Was Gone contains a small but complex set of characters. Laurel Mack is the mother of Ellie, Hanna, and Jake. Her emotional neglect of her two older children is palpable. Jake, the eldest child, lives with his introverted girlfriend who claims to sense people’s auras and—upon sharing this information with Laurel—states that she does not trust Floyd because his aura is dark. This gives Laurel a reason to blame Jake for not wanting to talk to or spend time with her; which allows Laurel to avoid the truth as to why her relationship with Jake is so strained. Hanna, the middle child, is a busy professional who lives by herself. Laurel goes over to clean Hanna’s apartment on a weekly basis. When she asks Hanna questions about her personal life informed by things she observes in her daughter’s apartment, she is met with Hanna’s emotional detachment. Just like with Jake, Laurel comes up with external reasons for her strained relationship with Hanna. Paul Mack is Laurel’s ex-husband and father of her three children. Laurel describes him as not being a bad man, but his response to Ellie’s disappearance caused a rift in their already-declining relationship that Laurel could not reconcile.
With Paul’s help, Laurel comes to understand that her emotional neglect of Jake and Hanna is the cause of their non-existent relationships. She does a complete turn and suddenly showers Hanna with positive affirmations. This part of the story felt rushed. If there was anything I wish Lisa Jewel could have expanded upon, it would be the contentious dynamic between Laurel and Hanna. Instead of a quick realization of her neglect due to Paul’s gentle communication, I would have preferred a type of confrontation between Laurel and Hanna where Laurel pushes for more—blaming Hanna for their own pseudo-estrangement—and Hanna responds by letting her feelings on the matter be known.
Floyd is the single father who ended a toxic relationship with Noelle Donnelly, the mother of his 9 year-old daughter Poppy, just before she was born. Noelle Donnelly was also briefly a mathematics tutor to Ellie before her disappearance. Both Floyd and Noelle experienced forms of abandonment, neglect, and emotional abuse as children. Their feelings for each other were not mutual. While Floyd only ever viewed their arrangement as a casual thing, Noelle was immediately obsessed with Floyd. It would have been interesting if their early relationship was cemented by bonding over these similar traumas—with Floyd’s abandonment issues manifesting as an inability to commit while Noelle’s manifest as desperate attempts to baby trap Floyd by any means—instead of as outright obsession on Noelle’s part from the very beginning.
Floyd’s daughters are Sara Jane (or SJ), from his previous marriage, and Poppy, from his relationship with Noelle. SJ primarily lives with her mother. She does not hate or resent her father, but she is also not close with him either. The pain of her parents’ divorce results in SJ seeking the affection and approval of unavailable older men. Poppy is very much Floyd’s favorite child. They are incredibly close, do almost everything together, and spend almost every day together as Floyd chooses to strictly homeschool Poppy. Although Floyd is Poppy’s only parent and legal guardian, he still makes a choice that results in her abandonment by the end of the story.
Lisa Jewel does a fantastic job of mapping out a complex story between multiple characters across two timelines. With the way Laurel is written as an example, Laurel is a bad mother to Jake and Hanna after Ellie’s disappearance; but she doesn’t see or believe that she is a bad mother until it is explicitly laid out for her.
The overall message of the story seems to be that obsession and entitlement lead to secrets and deception, which results in tragedy. Obsession and entitlement are the driving forces behind many of the characters’ actions and decisions. Noelle is obsessed with Floyd and feels entitled to do horrific things to keep him in her life. Floyd is obsessed with having a second child—one who is more like him—so that he can make up for the ways he feels he failed his first child and thus feels entitled to keep stringing Noelle along. Laurel is obsessed with the idealized version of her favorite child that she lost yet feels entitled to relationships with Jake and Hanna after ten years of emotionally neglecting them.
Although Ellie is the one who is kidnapped, there is a second victim in this story: Poppy. Poppy experiences a failure to bond with the only mother she knows, is abandoned by that mother, and is later abandoned again by the man she knew and loved as her father. By the time we meet Poppy, she has already experienced trauma. In getting to know her, we learn that she is not given the opportunity to socialize with children her age, which prevents her from seeing how normal relationships and ways to communicate are formed. By the end of the story, Poppy’s world is completely unrecognizable from only a few months earlier. In this respect, I feel that another message to take away from TSWG are the consequences of family secrets resulting from obsession, entitlement, and unresolved trauma. In short, trauma begets trauma.
The overall rating I give to Lisa Jewell’s Then She Was Gone is 4 out of 5 stars. Although there are elements I wish were handled differently, Then She Was Gone was a thoroughly entertaining read with an unexpected and horrifying twist. For those wanting to pick up a mystery that focuses on the later experiences of the victim’s family, I would definitely recommend buying a copy of this book!
Dångkulo' na' saina ma'åse'! Thank you so much for reading my review of Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewel.
Rating Cheat Sheet
4.75 - 5.00 stars: Everyone should read this book! (If you’re into that sort of thing.)
4.00 - 4.50 stars: I appreciated many aspects of this book. I recommend it!
3.00 - 3.75 stars: I liked some aspects of this book. I won’t revisit it, but someone else might really like it.
2.00 - 2.75 stars: There were some things I appreciated about this book, but I do not recommend it.
0.25 - 1.75 stars: I do not recommend this book. I did not enjoy or appreciate the experience of it.
Post Date: 22 July 2024
Published: 27 July 2017
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
