Shauntel AnetteRecensioni

Childhood friends Cleo, Sarah, and Milton are freshmen at Kensington University. They are guided by their unspoken motto, “Always stay close and never be apart long enough to miss each other.” The three are inseparable until Sarah vanishes. As they set out to find out what happened to Sarah, Cleo and Milton discover that they didn’t know Sarah as well as they thought they did or each other for that matter.

I enjoyed the mystery and investigation which forms the central plot of the book and it kept me reading until the very end. What I found difficult was the number of characters, and the relationships among them. The characters were not well-developed and plot threads were often left dangling. I found I had to keep going back and re-reading parts in order to remember the characters and what role they played in the mystery. Better editing and plot development would have made this book much better.

"One of Us Is Gone" by Shauntel Anette is a riveting journey into the shadows of friendship, secrets, and the chilling truth that lingers beneath the surface. Cleo, Sarah, and Milton's unspoken pact unravels when Sarah mysteriously disappears, leaving Cleo to navigate a web of deception and hidden lives. Anette skillfully weaves a tale where loyalties are tested, and the line between friend and foe blurs. The ominous undertones add a spine-tingling thrill to the narrative, making it impossible to put down. For fans of dark mysteries and tales of conditional loyalties, this book is a must-read. Buckle up for a rollercoaster of emotions that will leave you questioning the very essence of trust.

Thank you LibraryThing for allowing me to win a copy of this book. This book was interesting. Things get a bit crazy when a friend in the group goes missing. Slowly you start seeing things unravel and how much trust or well distrust is in the group. The different events play a part as to giving motive and towards the end you can figure out where it was going to go but over all it was a fun quick read. Was it a masterpiece, no? Did it keep me interested at least? Yes. I did wanna see the over all outcome and when I got it, it left me going huh.½

I really wanted to like this book but the entire time I felt like something was missing. Towards the end of the book I realized I needed more back story on the friendship between Cleo, Sarah and Milton. How did they become friends and why were their parents always saying "have each others back." Also would have liked some more background on Cleo and why her parents sent her to camp and what Sarah did all the years ago. The entire time I felt like I missing pieces to a story and it just didn't all come together.

I kept reading this hoping the whodunnit mystery would come together. The quick changes between perspective (every 5-6 pages) and the casual and intertwined sex lives of several college students was hard to keep track of. No explicit scenes, just hard to keep track of who was who's friend, who liked who, and who did what with who. For a while I would flip back pages to try to keep on track but after a while I just gave up and put the personal relationships aside and read for the mystery. I think the author also got bored and confused and just decided to pick somebody and set up an completely unbelievable reveal and aftermath. The book kept me engaged but thoroughly let down when I finished it.

As much as it scares me to be alone, I'm learning that nothing is worse than being surrounded by people who hate you."

I was really excited to get a copy of One Of Us Is Gone from LibraryThing Early Reviewers (woo!) because the premise sounded interesting: three lifelong best friends are inseparable... until one of them goes missing. Then it's up to the other two to find out what happened to their missing friend, even though it means unearthing secrets perhaps better left buried.

Sadly, this wasn't the book for me after all. I get the feeling that the author had a very clear vision of who the characters were, their backstory, and their motivations, as well as what the story should be... but it doesn't translate to the actual book I read.

You hit the ground running as the book opens, which can be confusing but ultimately pays off when you loop back around and fill in the blanks only we never quite do that. We're introduced to Blaze/Cleo, Mellow/Milton and... Sarah, who begs not to be called Sarah at every turn, even though I swear to god, we don't find out her group nickname is Shiv until nearly halfway through the book. This trio has been friends since elementary school and are now in college, along with their friends Max, Mika, and Aubrey. Thing is, none of the original trio seems to very much like Aubrey, and Mika maybe described as neutral in the war between the two halves of the group, but she picks Aubrey every single time so... not that neutral.

I'll throw anyone I need under the bus. I've spent too long beneath it myself.

Sarah and Cleo's friendship is supposed to be the anchor for the story but to call this friendship toxic would be an understatement, though it definitely feels like there's more to the story that we never find out. It's not helped by the fact that Cleo's been in love with Milton for a good chunk of their friendship, but the group made a no hooking up kind of pact so that the fallout wouldn't break the group up when things turn south. Alas, it seems like only one or two members of the group stuck to that pact and things get about a messy as you'd expect.

Just want to clarify that I don't mind interpersonal drama in a story. When done well, it'll propel things forward and can also be entertaining because I am a nosy, messy bitch. Nope, my issue with the book is something else.

Sarah goes missing and Cleo is shaken to her core. We're told this in various different ways, and for a little while I can kind of believe it... but then Cleo realizes she also feels free without her best friend around. Which is an interesting turn of events, but it never feels like it's fully dealt with and is just there to be one of the neverending cliffhangers to end every single chapter as we toggle between Cleo of the present and Sarah counting down the days to her disappearance in the past.

I was sold on this as a book about friends looking into their best friend's disappearance. Yeah, no. Cleo halfheartedly looks into Sarah's disappearance and Milton gets dragged along but not for a second does it feel real. Even with Cleo's complicated history with Sarah, I expected to feel something between them, even if we only see their friendship in flashback from Sarah's side. I've expended more emotional energy looking for a lost hamster than Cleo and Milton do looking for Sarah, and it's mindboggling that Max and Mika don't seem to give half a shit at all.

I read another review that described this one as underbaked and I think that fits. There's an interesting story and premise here but it just isn't done yet. The chapters zip along at such a speed that you never get a chance to breathe, and so any stakes that have been momentarily built, immediately crumble before there's any emotional impact. I don't really care all that much about Sarah until maybe 4/5 of the way through the book, and at that point I'm screaming internally for the girl to get a halfway decent therapist. Cleo also seriously needs a good shrink because she needs more than just a change of friend group, k? Milton... wtf, man. He's such a non-entity in the book to an infuriating degree. You, my dude, are a shitty friend and given this group, that says A LOT that you're the one I'm calling out.

I made notes in my reading, and I'm trying to avoid spoilers so we'll be vague but mention a few of them here:
Nearly at the end of the book, Cleo comments that she didn't initially think any of her "darling friends would do anything wrong." Yeah, no. She's been shit talking them the ENTIRE book and has admitted, on more than one occasion, that she doesn't even particularly LIKE these people and yet now, now they're darling friends.

Milton in the Middle himself my least favorite when he says, "Friends come and go, but if you find someone who you're serious about, who you might spend the rest of your life with, it's all worth it." Dude. What kind of friends do you have? Oh. Wait. Shitty ones. And you're also shitty so...

Speaking of Milton, there's a scene in the book where Cleo and Milton are talking (after Sarah's disappearance, obviously) and Cleo doesn't quite lay all her cards on the table, but it's really obvious, even to Milton, that she's been into him for forever. It's a frickin' plot point that he knows now, and then later Cleo thinks, "Milton isn't stupid. He must know I'm attracted to him." No shit, we've been over this already.

We've got a few cases of phrases that just made absolutely no sense, but it's possible that this is an ARC thing and didn't make it into the book itself, or maybe it's a me not being quick enough to follow the train of thought.

I kept reading in the hopes that things would finally come together in a satisfying way and because I did genuinely want to know what happened to Sarah. Sadly, they didn't and what happened to Sarah is uh... wow. Just wow.

There's a huge, gaping plot hole though, and it's the fight Cleo and Sarah had right before Sarah disappears. When we finally hear what happened, there's no fucking way SOMEONE on that floor didn't report the hysterical screaming and crying to the cops when Sarah disappears. No way. The absolute fit we're told Cleo has is something that would've gotten her questioned while Sarah was MIA because this is the moment Cleo sounds the most unhinged to me. Which I guess says something about me given there's at least one other instance where I think I'm supposed to think she's gone way over the line but we don't really get enough detail and also fuck that guy.

This is very much a case of everyone sucks here: the book. I will say I am curious about what the author will do next, but this one just wasn't for me.

Turns out, forever isn't as long as I thought.½

Disclaimer: An electronic copy of this book was provided for review by the author, via Library Thing.

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Not every book is going to ring the bell for every reviewer, and this is one of them. Part of the problem may be that the reviewer and the target audience here are miles (and decades) apart.

Basically, this is intended to be a whodunnit dealing with the disappearance of a college student, and the attempts of her two best friends to figure out what happened. In reality, it’s a whole lot of who is sleeping / who has slept / who would like to sleep with whom, larded throughout with a great deal of middle school Mean Girl padding. There's also a fair amount of psychological drama going on close to the surface, as each member of the trio is dealing with some heavy-duty issues of their own.

Sarah, Cleo, and Milton have been friends since elementary school, but at this point in their lives, the friendship has become more toxic than supportive. Sarah’s disappearance brings an unrelenting and unforgiving microscope to bear on the complex relationships among them. The author’s decision to split the narrative between two timelines and two POV characters was doubtless intended to draw out the suspense, feeding crumbs of information to the reader. What it does in reality is to slow the action to a crawl as Cleo plods around the same dreary circuit of frenemies, trying to put together the disturbing and depressing truth.

The whole thing is capped with an utterly bizarre ending that will leave most readers perplexed, though not necessarily uninformed.½

The suspense build up, the plot, everything about this book was perfect, although a few character really made me mad through out this, the writing was just to perfect to rate under 5

A YA urban mystery set on a college campus, this novel has lots of potential, some of that potential was delivered and some needs a little more development and focus.
4 Stars for the mystery and overall plot. The author managed to carefully plan out the puzzle pieces using multiple POVs, two timelines, and well-timed small revelations. The author notes at the end correlated to what I thought was going to happen so well done here because there were plenty of plausible endings.
2-2.5 for most of the characters. The two MCs were more developed and complex than the rest of the group of characters (especially Cleo), but it was hard to really relate to or care about most as they just seemed rude and juvenile (which granted these are college freshman, and in theory a good idea and portrayal but something was missing).
Overall, if you want to try out YA urban mystery, this one is worth a read. It's good enough to check out another work by the author in the future.

LibraryThing Early Reviewer

Cleo, Sarah, and Milton - an unbreakable trio woven together by their unshakable bond - find their lives hurled into disarray when the unimaginable occurs: Sarah inexplicably disappears. In a narrative that unfolds with gripping intensity, we join Cleo and Milton on a relentless quest to retrace Sarah's final moments, an odyssey that thrusts them into the shadows of a chilling enigma brimming with secrets and treacherous facades.

Told through the prism of a dual point of view and timeline, the story not only places us in Cleo's shoes but also offers an intimate window into Sarah's fate. We are immersed in the intricate tapestry of Sarah's world, witnessing the pivotal choices and connections that ultimately pave the path to her mysterious vanishing. As the puzzle pieces fall into place, the tension escalates, holding readers captive from the very outset.

"One of Us Is Gone" emerges as a bona fide nail-biter that clutches your attention with an unyielding grip. The narrative's magnetic pull is unrelenting, compelling you to resist tearing your eyes away from its pages. The profound sense of immersion is unparalleled; seldom have I encountered a narrative that places me so palpably within the drama's heart.

This Young Adult mystery transcends its genre, leaving an indelible mark on its readers. As the final page is reluctantly turned, the insatiable hunger for more lingers in the air. With anticipation, I eagerly await further literary offerings from the talented wordsmith Shauntel Anette, confident that they will weave the same enchanting magic that made "One of Us Is Gone" an unforgettable read.