Publication Date: October 11, 2022
Rating:
Goodreads Synopsis:
Sixteen-year-old Sayers Wayte has everything—until he's kidnapped by a man who tells him the privileged life he's been living is based on a lie.Trapped in a windowless room, without knowing why he's been taken or how long the man plans to keep him shut away, Sayers faces a terrifying new reality. To survive, he must forget the world he once knew, and play the part his abductor has created for him.But as time passes, the line between fact and fiction starts to blur, and Sayers begins to wonder if he can escape . . . before he loses himself.
Review:
Trigger Warnings: This book has a number of triggers, it focuses on kidnapping, captivity and deprivation, and Stockholm syndrome, it also has themes of mental health, trauma, bullying sexual abuse, suicide, and violence.
I am going to be completely honest here and say, I thought I was going to hate this book. As I began reading this character, Sayers, I just kept thinking that he was a pretentious little jerk, rich white kid, and why should I care that he is kidnapped. I had assumed that the kidnapping would be in some way related to his status but was surprised when that was not the case.
The plot follows said annoying rich kid as he goes about his days leading up to homecoming and then bullying other kids at the school with his 'friends' eventually he is put in a situation where he is abducted and taken to live with a man named Caleb who tells Sayers that he was actually kidnapped from him, and his real name is Daniel. While in captivity Sayer loses himself in Daniel and becomes what Caleb wants him to be until he is unable to see the truth at all anymore.
Sayers is never really a likeable character, I understand that he goes through a very traumatic event but while I found his outcome to be favorable, I didn't really like him ever.
That said this is a very well written book about trauma and how the mind can be molded. The kidnapping scenes had me feeling for Sayers, but it was obviously hard to be in 'his shoes' because it is such an experience. The author did a really good job writing it and it was very believable and I found it eerie in it accuracies. I also really enjoyed that this book took the dive into the aftermath of such trauma but found that it came up a little short in the healing process. I am not sure that Sayer was truly able to come to terms with what had happened to him. The writing of all these nuances were so well done. I applaud the author for doing some a miraculous job with the terror of the situation but also the normalcy of it for Sayers as a captive.
Overall,
if you are looking for something like a thriller but with hope embedded
throughout, this is a good book to grab. However, please look at the triggers,
there are quite a few to look out for and some kind of sneak up on you.
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