Review: How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found

5 stars. Okay. Thinking through things, I guess it's fair to say that the end of 2022 got really challenging and I really lost my mojo, so to speak. I'm exhausted. My brain is still kind of in recovery mode, operating in fits and starts and not at all at full capacity. I'm still reading Wounds and loving it, but in a moment of sheer panic I picked up this throwback and absolutely loved it.

For many recent years, this book flew around in the back of my mind, but I couldn't remember any specific details. Finally I Googled something like "young adult novel comic book uncle rat margaret" and the internet delivered. I bought a second-hand copy from a library immediately. Between Top Gun and Willow and National Treasure, there's a lot of delicious nostalgia to go around, and this was no different.

This is kind of a classic coming-of-age story about a girl named Margaret and her younger sister Sophie. After their father died in a horrible drowning tragedy a few years ago, their mother sunk into a deep depression (depicted fairly and sensitively) and the family exists on a sort of quiet, day-to-day survival basis. Then, one day, their mother piles them in the car and they drive to an old mansion in the middle of nowhere and stick a for sale sign on the lawn. Margaret and Sophie are spooked and curious and decide to follow the clues to find answers about the house and their dad, and end up making a few friends along the way.

Like I said, I loved it. It's vivid and funny and creative and fresh, with wonderful characters and unpredictable plotlines. I think it stuck with me for all these years because it's really spooky, too. It obviously tickled my interests back then as it would now. I adored the ending. The book contains a few comic book illustrations and they are delightful. Little Kelly had excellent taste.

How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads