REVIEW: Isabella's Not Dead by Beth Morrey

Every time someone asks Gwen about her best friend – you know, the one who ghosted them all fifteen years ago – this is what Gwen tells them.

But where is Isabella? Why did she leave, just when Gwen needed her the most?

Setting out to solve the mystery, in an adventure that takes Gwen across the country then across Europe; that tests her friendships and strains her marriage, Gwen searches for Isabella.

But Isabella's not the only one who's lost. Is Gwen also searching for… herself?

“I was on my third gin and tonic and thinking about sneaking off for a bath when Rachel produced the Ouija board and Amanda announced she was leaving her husband.”

Review:

Breakups are hard, but we don’t recognise just how devastating the end of a friendship can be - especially if you never know what happened.

Gwen lets us into her life and shows us a tableau of normal life - friends, drama, tiny acts of rebellion, work, marriage — but just a touch of absurdity, popping up amongst scenes of mundanity that gave it something so charming and fresh.

I adored watching how Gwen’s friendships had changed in forty years, both the beautiful comfort it can bring, the familiarity or the distance but it also gave me this strangely timeless, nostalgic feeling - a wistfulness about how much time can go without you really knowing.

Which of course, leads us to Gwen wondering about where her best friend could’ve been in the fifteen years since they last spoke — and a nervous, erratic energy starts to build as she starts to investigate, think, and conspire about where her friend could be and why she left. What starts as genuine curiosity becoming consuming, bordering obsessive as her life falls to the side and we see her tunnel vision form

I’ll admit, the reveal wasn’t the best for me - very tell no so how but there was just so many feelings that I still welled up a little. A love letter to friendship with a dramatic edge, this is a grow up version of paper towns for grown ups with criminal twist.

⭐⭐⭐

Isabella's Not Dead releases today with Harper Collins.
I was gifted a reviewers copy of this title in return for a review.

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