The Leaving

The Leaving is by Tara Altebrando.

Six were taken. Eleven years later, five come back--with no idea of where they've been.

Eleven years ago, six kindergarteners went missing without a trace. After all that time, the people left behind moved on, or tried to.

Until today. Today five of those kids return. They're sixteen, and they are . . . fine. Scarlett comes home and finds a mom she barely recognizes, and doesn't really recognize the person she's supposed to be, either. But she thinks she remembers Lucas. Lucas remembers Scarlett, too, except they're entirely unable to recall where they've been or what happened to them. Neither of them remember the sixth victim, Max. He doesn't come back. Everyone wants answers. Most of all Max's sister Avery, who needs to find her brother--dead or alive--and isn't buying this whole memory-loss story.

The Breakdown:
1. I got this book at my book club's Christmas book exchange, and I had heard really good things about it.  Who doesn't like the idea of a good mystery: missing kids that come back 11 years later only one of them never comes back.  For the me, at least, the book fell a little flat.

2. It was strange that Altebrando focused on two of the returned kids and the sibling of the other that never came back.  It left me wondering about the other that were taken, especially since two were hardly in the book at all. Plus the formatting of Lucas and Scarlett's chapters got a little weird at times, strange fonts, disjointed thoughts.  I never quite understood the seemingly random lines in Scarlett's chapters.

3. I did like the unraveling of the mystery of who took them and why, and why Max did not come back.  For me that was the best part the clues along the way.

To Read or Not to Read:
Skip this one.