Book Review: The Vanishing Season by Jodi Lynn Anderson

The Vanishing Season
Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy | Paranormal
Released: July 1st 2014
Review Source: HarperTeen

Girls started vanishing in the fall, and now winter's come to lay a white sheet over the horror. Door County, it seems, is swallowing the young, right into its very dirt. From beneath the house on Water Street, I've watched the danger swell.

The residents know me as the noises in the house at night, the creaking on the stairs. I'm the reflection behind them in the glass, the feeling of fear in the cellar. I'm tied—it seems—to this house, this street, this town.

I'm tied to Maggie and Pauline, though I don't know why. I think it's because death is coming for one of them, or both.

All I know is that the present and the past are piling up, and I am here to dig.I am looking for the things that are buried.

From bestselling author Jodi Lynn Anderson comes a friendship story bound in snow and starlight, a haunting mystery of love, betrayal, redemption, and the moments that we leave behind.

The Vanishing Season was one of those stories that slowly crept up on me. At first it was a little slow, but then all of a sudden I was captivated by the writing and the slow and eerie story. What I expected to turn into a ghost story turned into something more.

The Vanishing Season is about Maggie whose family has to up root their lives from the busy life of Chicago to the quiet, no service, serine town of Door County, Wisconsin. Maggie then meets a girl her age, her neighbor, Pauline who then introduces her to Liam. The three of them become close and hang out all winter. Since Maggie has moved to Door County young girls are abducted and murdered. All while we are witnessing Maggie’s new life and evolutions we have this whisper, a ghost, throughout the story, telling us her view upon the three kids.

This was something I was excited to read, but at first I couldn’t quite get into it, but after I got use to the voice of the story I was completely attached. I enjoyed the eeriness the story had from the very beginning, you knew something wasn’t quite right, but you just couldn’t put your finger on it, or maybe you could and I was just late to the game. Maggie was homeschooled so the only people she was familiar with in Door County were her family, her new friends Pauline and Liam, and Elsa the Emporium owner where Maggie had worked at. Pauline was the obvious beautiful girl who knew nothing of the such but didn’t fall into all the pretty girl stereotypes. Liam the beautiful outdoorsman who has been misjudged his entire life because of his dad’s radical ways. The relationships that are built in this story were true and beautiful; you experience love, friendship, loss, and finding yourself.

If you’re looking for a ghost, or paranormal story you won’t find it here, but you will find a beautiful and raw story about teens coming of age. Maggie is a type of loner, but she learns a lot when she decides to not be alone and sometimes it feels good and sometimes it hurts like hell.