My name is Anna was my first book by this author and If I'm being honest I enjoyed the first half much more than the second.
Telling the story of the aftermath of a young girls abduction and the effect this has on the people impacted by these tragic events we pick up the story fifteen years after the fact.
Told from two sisters POV Anna/Emily currently residing with her Mama in the USA and Rosie younger sister of abducted Emily living with her mum dad and brother in the UK.
This is mainly the sister's story and as we switch seamlessly from girl to girl we start to get a sense of the differences that from the same instant in time have impacted both there lives so dramatically and while for the most part, I did enjoy this: It started to get slightly monotonous the further I progressed.
I just wasn't fully on board here and I'm not sure quite why that was.
It almost had a slightly anti-climactic feel to it especially the finale which for me felt a bit flat.
On a sidenote, I did enjoy the Carrie references included with Anna and noticed the parallels included here almost instantly.
This, in conclusion, was for me an OK read that never really took flight: hoping its a better fit for you.
I voluntary reviewed an Arc of My name is Anna.
All opinions expressed are entirely my own.



Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
https://www.facebook.com/beckiebookworm/
www.beckiebookworm.com ( )

My name is Anna was my first book by this author and If I'm being honest I enjoyed the first half much more than the second.
Telling the story of the aftermath of a young girls abduction and the effect this has on the people impacted by these tragic events we pick up the story fifteen years after the fact.
Told from two sisters POV Anna/Emily currently residing with her Mama in the USA and Rosie younger sister of abducted Emily living with her mum dad and brother in the UK.
This is mainly the sister's story and as we switch seamlessly from girl to girl we start to get a sense of the differences that from the same instant in time have impacted both there lives so dramatically and while for the most part, I did enjoy this: It started to get slightly monotonous the further I progressed.
I just wasn't fully on board here and I'm not sure quite why that was.
It almost had a slightly anti-climactic feel to it especially the finale which for me felt a bit flat.
On a sidenote, I did enjoy the Carrie references included with Anna and noticed the parallels included here almost instantly.
This, in conclusion, was for me an OK read that never really took flight: hoping its a better fit for you.
I voluntary reviewed an Arc of My name is Anna.
All opinions expressed are entirely my own.



Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
https://www.facebook.com/beckiebookworm/
www.beckiebookworm.com ( )

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Two women – desperate to unlock the truth.
How far will they go to lay the past to rest?

My name is Anna is one of those books that captures your attention from the moment you look at its cover. Then, it drags you into a story, makes you bite your nails throughout, lifts you up in the air with the amazing writing and than smashes you back into the ground with the incredible twist at the end. Exactly what you want and what you need from a thriller.

The story is being told by two girls:

Anna, a girl raised with a religious mother, where everything is forbidden and everything is a sin. And when on her 18th Birthday, Anna decides to disobey her mum and go to a theme park, she feels like she has been here before. And then random events lead to her realising that she was taken away when she was a little girl. And her real name is not Anna at all…

Rosie, a girl whose big sister has been missing for fifteen years. And when the media is ready to let the story go after the fifteen years anniversary, Rosie is determined to do whatever it takes to discover the truth of what actually happened on that day at the theme park.

The first thing I noticed in this book, that makes it different than all the stories about the kidnapping is – that the plot is being revealed in the first chapters. I was not expecting to immediately know that Anna and Rosie are sisters and Anna was kidnapped as a girl, but this was stated in the first chapters in the book. I personally thought that this would be the big twist, but the twist came to be so much better than that.

I loved how you could relate to both girls, for different reasons, and how even though they were sisters, how one little moment changed their lives completely. How Anna was raised with different beliefs than Rosie, and how they grew up to be so different, but the same…

This was a great story that give you thoughts about ‘’what could’ve been…’’ and it makes you wonder – if certain things didn’t happen, would our lives be the same?

The end for me, was particularly meaningful. The last moments, the realisation, the conclusion, the story that ended, or the one that never begun, all the things we could’ve been, but are not, and all the things that we wish we could have changed, but we can’t.

If you, like me, are into kidnapping stories, amazing twists and thriller stories that take your breath away, this will definitely be the perfect book for you. This will be a hit at the beginning of 2019, and it will hit the top shelves. I know it hits my favourite shelf – for sure!

A huge thanks to Penguin Random House UK, for providing me with a hardback copy, in exchange for an honest review of this book. The opinions in this review are entirely my own, and completely unbiased. ( )

Where is Emily?

The story centres around two sisters who really don't know each other; Rosie was just a toddler when her three year old sister disappeared from a Florida theme park. Rosie's family has been searching for her ever since and Rosie has lived constantly under the shadow of her perfect older sister. When the funding for the search dries up after 15 years, Rosie decides to see if she can unearth anything that others have missed, before she has to stand by and watch her mother disintegrate.

Meanwhile, Anna is living under the watchful eye of her overbearing, fanatical mother. 'Mamma' is obsessed with cleanliness and insists that Anna scrub her hands and arms in hot bleach to ward off the awful germs found outside the home. Anna is dating the vicar's son, hard for Mamma to object to that. When her date takes her behind her mother's back, to a large Florida theme park, Anna starts to have flashbacks of a place she's sure she's never been.

Anna and Rosie both go behind their parents' backs to try and get to the bottom of an unsolved mystery that has haunted the State for over a decade. Gradually we manage to piece together what happened on that fateful day, and why. It's a dark, disturbing tale.

This was an enjoyable read, a good start for 2019. It was fast paced and kept my attention to the end. It made me think about how an older sibling who is missing from a family, for whatever reason, affects the children under them and how it would never be possible to fully live up to these lofty expectations. ( )

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Two women – desperate to unlock the truth.
How far will they go to lay the past to rest?

My name is Anna is one of those books that captures your attention from the moment you look at its cover. Then, it drags you into a story, makes you bite your nails throughout, lifts you up in the air with the amazing writing and than smashes you back into the ground with the incredible twist at the end. Exactly what you want and what you need from a thriller.

The story is being told by two girls:

Anna, a girl raised with a religious mother, where everything is forbidden and everything is a sin. And when on her 18th Birthday, Anna decides to disobey her mum and go to a theme park, she feels like she has been here before. And then random events lead to her realising that she was taken away when she was a little girl. And her real name is not Anna at all…

Rosie, a girl whose big sister has been missing for fifteen years. And when the media is ready to let the story go after the fifteen years anniversary, Rosie is determined to do whatever it takes to discover the truth of what actually happened on that day at the theme park.

The first thing I noticed in this book, that makes it different than all the stories about the kidnapping is – that the plot is being revealed in the first chapters. I was not expecting to immediately know that Anna and Rosie are sisters and Anna was kidnapped as a girl, but this was stated in the first chapters in the book. I personally thought that this would be the big twist, but the twist came to be so much better than that.

I loved how you could relate to both girls, for different reasons, and how even though they were sisters, how one little moment changed their lives completely. How Anna was raised with different beliefs than Rosie, and how they grew up to be so different, but the same…

This was a great story that give you thoughts about ‘’what could’ve been…’’ and it makes you wonder – if certain things didn’t happen, would our lives be the same?

The end for me, was particularly meaningful. The last moments, the realisation, the conclusion, the story that ended, or the one that never begun, all the things we could’ve been, but are not, and all the things that we wish we could have changed, but we can’t.

If you, like me, are into kidnapping stories, amazing twists and thriller stories that take your breath away, this will definitely be the perfect book for you. This will be a hit at the beginning of 2019, and it will hit the top shelves. I know it hits my favourite shelf – for sure!

A huge thanks to Penguin Random House UK, for providing me with a hardback copy, in exchange for an honest review of this book. The opinions in this review are entirely my own, and completely unbiased. ( )