Grace is a teenage girl who was taught survival skills by her father who was a wildlife enforcement officer, but who has been missing for 3 months. Everyone else seem willing to write him off as dead, even though his body was never found, but Grace refuses to give up on finding him alive.

"Dad used to always say, nothing is untraceable. Everything that touches this earth leaves a special imprint, a unique mark that proves we existed in some way - no matter how invisible we may feel."

What seems like a pretty simple premise for this book takes off in many different directions, which can seem a bit dizzying at times. I didn't have a problem with the writing itself, I just wasn't sure what type of book this one wanted to be. I didn't really connect with Grace either because she just didn't seem like a very nice girl, although the stress of searching for a missing parent could certainly explain some of that. There were some pretty distressing descriptions of animal abuse that I wasn't able to read, so I just skimmed over those. Again, I feel like this book switched genres a lot.

All in all, the writing was good, I just personally didn't connect with the story much. I felt like the ending went way off course, so I won't be continuing with this series.

3/5 stars. ( )

I read book two first as it arrived before this one. Even so, I found doing so hardly diminished the pull this one exerted on me and I whipped through it in just a few hours. It's extremely riveting as was the sequel. I'm so glad I have the final book in hand so I can find out what happens next. A terrific YA series! ( )

This story is completely different than anything out there that I've read out there on the market right now. First it's about wilderness survival. Secondly, it's about a girl who's mostly concerned with finding her father, not falling in love (even when she manages to find a hot English boy in the Smokies). Grace is strong and smart and refuses to give up on finding her dad even when every person in her life is telling her she should back down and let her father go. I was really surprised at how much this story sucked me end. It was well written and very believable. I recommend anybody looking for a real adventure novel to check this one out. ( )

3.5 - 4 stars

Grace has been searching for clues related to her father's disappearance for three months. For three months she has trekked through the Smokey Mountains trying to find anything that could possibly be related to her father, from foot prints to a bag of Cheetos. There's other suspicious activity taking place in the town and the mountains though and Grace has to investigate. Not only are there suspicious men in the mountains off season, but suddenly there's money in the town and people are spending more than they have in a while. Grace is distracted though, between her father's disappearance, a new guy who knows the mountains like her, and her ex wanting her back she's not prepared when she finds an illegal operation in her mountains.

I enjoyed Grace, she's definitely a sixteen year old, but with a lot more guts than you'd imagine. She's incredibly stubborn, immature, and determined, but her independence comes at a cost. At times I thought she was older than sixteen, but then she'd do something dumb and risky. She struggles with her relationships, full of angst just as I would expect her to be. The plot is unique and the characters are very detailed, even the shop owners and their descriptions weave a story of their own. While I am never a fan of love triangles, I would just barely call Grace's situation one. She's got Wyn, her ex and good friend who won't let go, and Mo, an incredibly good looking geology student living in the mountains for his research. I loved Mo, especially once he tied into the whole story, Johannes wrote his character perfectly. He goes from minor character to major character in seconds and it's written very well. I liked the twist, because it was unexpected and explained everything that had been happening perfectly.

The end of the book was tied up very quickly, there's a cliffhanger that's important, but the rest closes with the end of this book. I didn't completely understand or agree with the Wyn relationship, I feel that Grace made very clear she was needing just a friendship at the time and Wyn had another girl he was with too, so why so angry with Grace all the time, especially with Mo? I couldn't get into that relationship, it felt forced and young, but maybe that works for a sixteen year old. Grace starts to make a lot of mistakes, acting younger and less wilderness girl as the book gets near the end, I feel like she lost a lot of her personality and character that initially drew me in.

I think Untraceable is a very well written young adult novel, different than the other romances, mysteries, and paranormal stories out there right now. I highly recommend it to young adults, both boys and girls. It's a riveting story with a lot of heart. Plus, who doesn't like the idea of saving wild animals?

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. While it was released in 2011, the box set of all three novels is now released through Smashwords Editions. I requested a copy, because this was on my list of books I wanted to read when it originally came out and I just completely forgot about it. I will be purchasing book two and three to complete Grace's trilogy. ( )

Grace's father has been missing for months, and everyone tells her she needs to accept the fact that he's dead. She can't; she spends all her free time searching the woods for traces of what happened to her forest ranger father. Her mother is making her see a psychologist to help her accept what's happened and deal with her grief, but her mother isn't dealing well with her grief either--working extra shifts, never being home for dinner, forgetting such basics about her daughter as the fact that Grace is lactose-intolerant.

Meanwhile, Grace is messing up most of her relationships with her determination, or obsession, to find her father.

Set in small town North Carolina, this is a story about a teenager's refusal to accept the loss of her father, but also about wildlife conservation, the market in bear parts, economic stress, and the still-reverberating effects of the conflict between Native Americans and European-descended white settlers. The daughter of a federal forest ranger, Grace has grown up learning appreciation for wildlife, learning her father's skills, and respecting Indian culture. Her first pet was an orphaned bear cub named Simon, whom they raised and returned to the wild. Her part-time job is in a store run by a venerable old Indian man whom she respects and loves almost as a grandfather.

The local Indian reservation, though, has a bear pit which is a significant tourist attraction and a major source of the tribe's income. Grace's father had opposed the resulting abuse of the bears, but the reservation is sovereign territory and outside his jurisdiction.

When Grace finds Simon, the bear she helped raise, shot dead in the woods, and the body is gone by the time she gets the other ranger out there to see it, she knows something major is going on. When she starts encountering strangers in the woods--first a handsome boy just a year or so older than she is, then two men who may be out-of-season bear hunters--she frantically tries to gather enough information to get the local sheriff to act.

What she doesn't know is that there really is a plot, a bigger one than she imagines, and not everyone she believes is a friend really is. The tension keeps building, and explodes in a totally unexpected conclusion.

Recommended. ( )