nerd girl's bookclub

Honestly I quite liked this one, contrary to everyone else in my book club. I'm very easy to appease, though, so I guess it can't be that impressive.

Our protagonist is Kerry, a fun introverted feminist with a love for staying home and reading/watching romcoms. On paper, she should be very relatable to me, but i didn't find myself connecting to her to be honest. Her inner monologue was funny and she works well as a main character, I don't dislike her or anything, she just didn't feel like a protagonist that will stick with me for more than a week.

Our love interest is Scott, the intelligent new boy in town with a dead mum and (spoilers) not-Actually-dead dad. Scott is actually quite likeable, placing right below Annie on my top 3. He's nothing special in terms of romantic or mystery plot, but he's charismatic enough that I enjoyed pretty much every scene he was in.

I wasn't particularly moved by the Kerry/Annie feud, but that's likely due to the overuse of the trope in general. Loser duo are best friends, Character A is content being a loser and Character B isn't and wishes to be popular, conflict ensues when Character B finds their way through the ranks and seemlingly leaves Character A behind. A tale as old as time. I've enjoyed it on some occasions (Like Be More Chill -- the musical, I haven't read the book -- a personal favourite of mine) but it's not always done well or differently, or just doesn't stand out and that's how I felt here.

"If you are a plot driven reader, it probably won’t bother you, but if you are a character driven reader like me, you’ll understand the struggle you have to face when a character is not bad, but it isn’t good either." user lapetitepritt on Goodreads says, and I agree wholeheartedly. The cast is enjoyable, but there was no meaningful connection to any of them for me.

The part where Annie texted Kerry to make sure she still got home safe even when they were upset with eachother was sweet, though.

The other girls in my club weren't a fan of the crudeness and humour in the book, but personally that was a highlight for me. I'm not a very "laugh out loud" person, the most Movies/Shows/Books get out of me is a snort or a chuckle but many times throughout the story I found myself giggling at dialogue and sharing my amusement with friends and family. It's hard to find media that is unafraid to touch on sensitive teenage topics the way Kate did here, and even more uncommon to find ones that do it well and with good humour. It got repetitive at times but not enough to annoy me that much, and I only ended up rolling my eyes once.

Bel Price is the opposite of a Mary Sue trope. Throughout the book the reader is forced to sit with her as she insults and steals from her peers, pushing her friends and family away from her as she is entirely engulfed by the mission she’s set out for herself. Watching as she ignores the truth in favour of her own bias. Growing frustrated with a character and still being able to sympathise with them is a balance that was achieved excellently in my opinion, and connected me to Bel’s character fast in a way it has taken other books the entire runtime to. Whether it’s her struggle with kleptomania or her guardedness, or even her tendency to make rude comments, Bel strikes you down with how flawed she feels. A true depiction of how subconscious childhood trauma affects people as they grow up.

The Reappearance of Rachel Price is a beautiful telling of what it’s like to live in a story that they talk about on the news. To have your whole life on display for the world to see, criticise, and mischaracterise. The Price family is a spectacle to the American world, a story full of stakes and mystery that leaves room for people to theorise, as if it’s a TV show. Like our cast are characters – which they are, but in the universe of the book, they’re not. Our main character has lived by this narrative of exhibition since just 2 years old, living in the shadow of her mother’s mystery, but by the end she takes the freedom of privacy for herself.

16 years ago, Rachel Price disappeared twice.

The plot of the story unfolds awesomely, keeping the reader intrigued and wanting more right to the very end. We open with our Price family in a film setting for the documentary Charlie Price (Bel’s father) signed everyone in the family up for in order to pay for his own elderly father’s carework. Right away, old wounds are being irritated by probing questions Bel doesn’t want to answer, or rather, can’t. “I don’t know” is her saving grace of a phrase, because she doesn’t. Despite being there with her mother at both points of disappearance, she was too young to remember the events at all. Poor memory or repression, it hardly matters to the people who want answers.

16 years later, she returns.

Bel runs away.

After storming away from an offensive filming set, Bel finds herself in a truly unbelievable scenario. In front of her stands her mother, Rachel Price, 16 years older than Bel saw her last, reappeared. Muddied and unkempt, dazed and squinting away from the summer sun, seeing her daughter again after so long and opening her mouth to croak out something to say when–

Rachel and Bel’s relationship is nearly nonexistent at the start of the story, Rachel is Bel’s mother, but that word feels strange on Bel’s tongue because she doesn’t know this woman. The only recognition she has for Rachel is through stories and videos her family presented to her during childhood. There’s this dissonance, present throughout the development of the plot, in regards to Bel’s feelings for Rachel. Any intimacy or care for her is tainted by the unfortunate fact of her not being there for most of those early formative years, her disappearance – while not her fault – still began the mindset that haunts Bel through her life and the book, “everyone leaves.”

That subconscious feeling of betrayal and abandonment, perhaps, is what causes Bel’s immediate distrust of Rachel the moment there’s a small hole in her story. That distrust spirals as more and more inconsistencies reveal themselves into her working theory for most of the book: that Rachel left on purpose, and has come back to ruin the family.

Which, as you might have guessed, if you know how mystery books work; ends up not being the case.

Bel and her dad, Charlie, were incredibly close. Bel thinks the world of him, thinks that they’re the only ones who will never leave each other, the exception to the rule. But with Rachel’s return, Charlie has been spending less and less time at home, avoiding both his daughter and her mother. When Bel informs him of her suspicions, he brushes her off – gets mad, even. Says that her mother has been through a lot and to just give her a chance, to stop digging. Bel’s cousin, Carter, says the same. These events cause Bel to become even more resentful of Rachel.

With the disdain growing and the evidence of deception piling up, she sets out and adopts Ash Maddox, a London boy Camera Assistant from the documentary crew, into her plan. Having him film any more clues she comes across so that when the truth is revealed, the whole world will know. Rachel will be ostracized just like her Dad had been, and Bel’s life can return to normal. Or, her family’s own messed-up version of normal.

    Ash is a colourful character; dressing himself like a low maintenance clown and not taking Bel’s mean remarks very seriously, able to send retorts right back like their own little “game” as described. Their banter leads to some very charming interactions between them both and a very sweet and concise romance over all.

The real villain of Bel’s story

When Charlie goes missing overnight, tensions between the Price family rise and Bel’s vindication towards Rachel grows. But Bel’s uncle Jeff lets it slip that Charlie has held a drastic lie from her for years now, and this unravels the axiom in Bel’s mind that she and her dad don’t lie to each other. This realisation has her discovering more of the deceit her dad had her trapped in for all of her life. Small, seemingly meaningless things like saying she left windows open or taps running all collecting together to map out a web of gaslighting like you’ve never seen before. Charlie had Bel and his whole family wrapped around his finger, that not even being the worst of it.

Reinspired, Bel sets off to find the truth once and for all. Following a trail of clues she arrives where her mum and dad had been while separately missing: a red truck in the Price family logging yard. It’s there she finds a chained Charlie, Rachel following closely behind. Rachel explains to them that this is where she spent 15 years, revealing that back then she had been trying to run away from home, in fear of Charlie, with the baby she was expecting and Bel. She was right to be scared, because on that same day, Patrick kidnapped her. 

He was meant to kill her, blackmailed by his son, but instead kept her there. Giving her food and books, stealing her baby from her and giving her to Aunt Sherry and Uncle Jeff – meaning Carter was not Bel’s cousin, but her sister.

Charlie calls this story crazy, telling Bel to get the key from her mother and free him. Rachel does not fight this, allowing Bel to make the choice in a moment I'd like to think of as an allegory for divorce.

“ Take the key or don’t. Choose Charlie or Rachel, Mom or Dad. Her lies or his. ”

Bel has to face herself here, face what she truly believes – where her own morals lie. During this whole investigation she has turned a blind eye on any evidence that didn’t lead where she wanted it to, she ignored the advice from people to just give her mother a chance, she pushed everybody who contradicted her away in hopes to find the truth. Her truth, the truth she needed it to be. But now the real truth was in front of her, and it was beyond horrifying. She had no choice, she couldn’t ignore it this time.

Her dad; her beacon of light for so many years, who she’s used her sharp wit to defend through all the allegations he faced. Who has been with her right until the end, thick and thin, problem after problem. Her dad; who was a monster, a psychopath. Who has lied to her for years, secluded her from her peers with the promise of them. Just them, father and daughter, being there for each other no matter what while he hid secrets from her and manipulated her.

Or her mum; a woman who up until a couple months ago was just an idea. A vacant spot in her memory, a person everybody said she should have known but didn’t. Who showed up, set her life ablaze, ripped her family apart. Her mum; who spent years trapped in this dark truck, scrawling down messages to her on paper that she could never send, reading the same books but not being able to talk about them with her. Who tried to run away with her, to have a better life with her – to be there. She wanted to be there, this whole time, she wanted nothing more.

Bel chose her.

Things kick off from there. Charlie escapes with the help of his brother, chasing after them both with the intent to kill. Bel and Rachel run away hand in hand into the forest until they reach a cliff, where Rachel tells Bel to leave her, that Charlie’s only after Rachel and she’s just slowing Bel down. Bel does run, for a moment, frantic and scared. But she makes the choice to turn back, to choose her mum again, to fight it. To fight for the truth, the real truth this time.

The scrapping of Rachel and Charlie is seized by Carter appearing, making everyone pause. Jeff, who was holding Bel back from her mother, lets her go to run to Carter. He reaches her, who reaches Charlie and pushes, taking Jeff down off the cliff with himself.

Bel, Carter and Rachel stand at the edge. Bel and Carter catching their breaths, staring off into where their dad fell to their demise. Mother and daughters. Alone together, finally.

They devise a plan to cover the evidence. Rachel disposes of the bodies properly, Carter destroys the clues that led them here, and Bel destroys the recordings she and Ash took.

Ash, who was sent away so Bel and Charlie could talk originally, comes around to Bel’s house after he finds his camera and files ruined. He asks what she’s doing, why she’s doing it. She replies, “I’m protecting my family.”

At the end of the night mother and daughters lie in the same bed and hug until the sun comes up. And that, I think, is the perfect example of how to deal with a hard day.

Overall, the story told is one of fame and family. Not a perfect one, not the one we expect, but a family who will learn to love one another in a deeper way than ever before. Who will heal together, make memories together, grow and fight with each other before making up at the end of the day.

“ ‘Family first,’ Bel said. Not a threat, but a promise. ”

One of the most common complaints fans had about this book was the predictability of the twists. And while I found this to be somewhat true myself, thinking of Charlie as untrustworthy from the start, I still found myself enjoying how all the puzzle pieces fit together at the end. I’d also say as a criticism of my own, the true story being explained by a character through a long monologue is not my favourite choice, it felt like a lot of information was dumped on both the reader and Bel, with us barely getting any time to dive into how she felt about it all. There was a significant lack of reaction to her Dad’s death, and his involvement in any of the events really.    It would have felt a bit more fulfilling if there was time to unpack the betrayal – while her and Carter were waiting for Rachel to come home after it all, perhaps – and/or to just explore the complication of Bel’s relationship to her dad by having her break down, the emotions that had been brewing since the start reaching a boiling point.