Young Adult Book Reviews

Genre: Suspense, Realistic Fiction

Age Level: 14 and up

# of pages: 310 p.

RAC Book: Yes

The story begins when Alice who has just left her two week old baby for the first time ventures out for two hours and comes home to find she does not know the baby in the crib. She believes that someone has come into her mother-in-law’s house, where her and her husband live, and snatched her baby only to replace it with another newborn. Her husband becomes angry with her as she refuses to accept that this is her baby and insists on calling the police. The police have a difficult time deciding how to proceed since no babies have been reported missing and there is a baby present at the house.

The story alternates between Alice and one of the police detectives. He is generally accepted to be a really good detective and feels that this case is not as innocent as it first appears. He does not know if he believes Alice about someone switching the babies, but believes something is amiss. His colleagues all believe Alice is crazy and suffering from depression and psychosis from her difficult delivery.

The mystery was intriguing all the way up until everything is explained.  The resolution is not as good as one would hope after such an intriguing mystery has been set up.  There are moments where Alice’s husband shows tortuous feelings toward her for casting doubt on their family. It is never fully explained why she allows him to do this to her. The ending is satisfying, but unbelievable. The details provided weave together to form a good pace and some surprises as details are revealed, but again the motivations of the characters in their actions is not always fully explained. Readers who enjoy mystery and suspense will enjoy this, but anyone who has difficulty with people undergoing very degrading and difficult situations will find it troubling.