Next Time You See Me (Jones) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Have you turned the last pages of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl and don't know what to pick up next? Try Holly Goddard Jones' debut novel, The Next Time You See Me, which Flynn herself has called "simply mesmerizing."... Like Flynn, Jones] not only creates young women with troubles, she also vividly depicts a part of the country often obscured from view.
Chicago Tribune


When Ronnie Eastman disappears from a small southern town in 1993, the residents start revealing their true characters, in Jones’s transparent debut novel (after Girl Trouble, a short story collection). Ronnie’s sister, Susanna, disappointed with her marriage and life, regrets not pursuing her teenage crush because of her father’s racism. That crush, a local baseball star named Tony, is now a detective assigned to find Ronnie. Tony and Susanna’s close proximity to each other for the first time in years brings the old feelings rushing back. Paralleling the story of the search is the story of Emily, a local teenager, awkward and teased, who finds a body a few days before Halloween. Emily is nursing her own crush, on a boy who just moved to the school, and rather than reporting her gruesome find, she uses it as a way to get closer to him. And Wyatt is a local factory worker, living a lonely life until he meets Sarah, a nurse he thinks he might be able to love. All of these lives connect through the search for Ronnie, with consequences for them all. Jones ties together the narratives effectively, cycling point-of-view between the three main players, but her characters are underdeveloped and there’s little doubt about the identity of the killer.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) This first novel by award-winning Jones (Girl Trouble) is going to be hot. In the vein of Gone Girl, last summer’s runaway smash, Jones’s tightly written Southern thriller will be one of spring’s sizzling titles. Jones brilliantly weaves together story lines from unexpected angles. Her writing is fluid and she keeps a pace that will have readers lacing on their running shoes. And what a suspenseful, emotional, addictive run it is! Buy it now, read it now, share it now
Library Journal


The residents of a small Kentucky town react to the disappearance of a local woman in this first novel by short story writer Jones (Girl Trouble, 2009)... Susanna Mitchell...becomes increasingly concerned that she hasn't heard from her hard-drinking, slightly disreputable older sister Ronnie for longer than usual.... The police detective assigned to Ronnie's case is Tony Joyce, an old classmate of Susanna's.... Susanna is...excited to work on the case with Tony, whose reappearance in her life underlines her dissatisfaction with her marriage.... There's not much suspense about the possible crime, but Jones builds intense tension surrounding the choices her flawed but compellingly sympathetic characters make as they fight against lonely isolation within the tight confines of small-town America.
Kirkus Reviews