I have often witnessed a child having a tantrum leaving a store or in the parking lot of a store, Chucky Cheese's Pizza, the zoo and various other fun places. I'm sure you have too. I have also been the parent or grandparent trying to get the child out of there. So when I read this book my mind went into overdrive. I flashed back on many of those incidents. I was trying to determine how I knew it was a parent or relative, babysitter, etc. who was taking the child. The sad truth is I have no way of really knowing. That was brought slamming home when I read of Amanda's abduction being witnessed by Molly. Melissa Foster did an excellent job with this book. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a good horror/mystery. Full review available on my blog at www.alasknbookcafe.com ( )

Although there were plot twists that I didn't expect, I found this book rather slow moving. All loose ends were tied up at the end of the book which explained the secretive behaviours of almost all the characters in the book. ( )

Every time I picked this book up, I had trouble putting it down. Not a bad book at all. ( )

An interesting premise, but way too long. I found myself wanting to skip chapters just to get done with it. ( )

A Confusing Muddle of a Mystery

Like so many other reviewers, I was lured into buying Chasing Amanda by Melissa Foster by the many 5-Star Amazon Reviews and low $.99 Kindle price. Actually, I don't believe there were as many 1-2 Star Reviews when I bought this book a few months back as there are now. But maybe I just never noticed them.

After finishing Chasing Amanda, I went back to read the reviews again, and I couldn't believe I'd read the same book as all those 4-5 Star Reviewers. How on earth did this book win the 2011 Reader's Favourite Award?

This novel needed more skilled writing and a good editor. I have numerous issues with the story, but the main ones are:

The plot was clumsy with too many over-detailed extraneous subplots thrown in as filler. I love a good mystery and to be kept guessing, but a reader shouldn't feel confused and uncertain after the mystery is revealed. In addition, I felt the "secrets" were actually a little boring and undramatic.

A quarter of the way through Chasing Amanda, I noticed the meandering plot contained a lot of repetition of the same scenarios, situations and internal/external dialogues. It began to seem pointless and tedious.

The voices of all the characters were written exactly the same, with no differentiation, from seven year-old Tracey, to teenaged Eric, to 40-somethings Molly and Cole and right on up to the "old" mid-50's Pastor Lett & Hannah.

I like paranormal fiction as well as mysteries but the "Knowing" of our obsessed protagonist, Molly, seemed more like hysteria.

Now, on to Molly.....in spite of her previous psychological trauma revolving around the Amanda situation and for all her good intentions, I would describe Molly as shallow, emotionally unstable, narcissistic, obstinate, reckless, irrational and unthinking. Not really a likeable character you can relate to, unless you like bi-polar protagonists. I don't think that's what the author had in mind.

Molly's behaviour is fuelled by her obsession and she suffers from huge emotional swings, which aren't believably written. She overreacts to her husband and the police doubting her unpredictable psychic powers, for which she offers perfunctory proof. Her unbelievably rash and dangerous actions would appear very suspicious to the police and she has no care about compromising the investigation into Tracey's abduction.

Other reviewers disliked her husband, Cole, and thought he wasn't supportive of her. In view of how often he tried to reason and reconcile with her, I really couldn't fault him for being protective of her and concerned for her safety. Their unrealistic relationship (as evidenced by their badly-written dialogue) seemed contrived to elicit sympathy for Molly. In fact, Molly was secretive, argumentative and stubborn and never took his advice or counsel when offered.

There are too many psychics, too many children held underground and too many secrets in this book. The plot, and especially the ending, is a mishmash of a bunch of ideas all thrown in together.

I was shocked at the 60% point with the introduction of ghosts to the story; by 80% I was skimming to get to the end (especially the religious passages); and when at the 95% point new characters and a new subplot are introduced I was speechless.

From now on, I vow to myself to read the reviews more closely and be more discriminating in my Kindle choices. Chasing Amanda was a disappointment for me and quite possibly one of the worst books I've read in a long while. ( )