Never Missing, Never Found

Starred review from April 4, 2016
Seventeen-year-old Scarlett Contreras is excited about her first summer job at Five Banners Adventure World—she’s a huge fan of the Skywoman comics that are also the theme of the park. But Scarlett has a secret. When she was eight, she was kidnapped and held for years in a basement before she escaped, finding her way home to her father and younger siblings, Melody and Matthew. Settling in back home has been hard, but Scarlett’s new job is fun, and she’s smitten with her coworker Connor. When another employee goes missing and an oddly familiar coworker says things that Scarlett remembers from her awful past, she’s terrified anew. Scarlett is determined to hang on to her newfound happiness, but at what cost? Writing from Scarlett’s perspective, Panitch (Damage Done) tells a harrowing story of captivity, survival, and the pursuit of hope; readers’ hearts will break as Scarlett tries to find her place in a world that left her behind. A jaw-dropping final twist gives way to a surprising, satisfying conclusion to this tense, clever thriller. Ages 14–up. Agent: Merrilee Heifetz, Writers House.

March 15, 2016
An abduction survivor encounters a girl who reminds her eerily of her five years as a prisoner. Scarlett was swiped from the side of the road by a stranger when she was 8 years old and became the housecleaner in a brothel. There, she was beaten and cowed (but not prostituted) by a vaguely Eastern European woman, her only ally a fellow enslaved girl named Pixie. It's been four years since she came home to her family--without Pixie. Now she's got a summer job at a superhero-themed amusement park in New Jersey (Five Banners Adventure World, featuring such superheroes as Skywoman and Wonderman, cognates so thinly veiled as to be constantly conspicuous). Scarlett has friends for the first time since her escape, especially an attractive white boy with an inconvenient girlfriend. Most of her co-workers are cool, but who is the mysterious Katharina? She's friendly enough, but is Katharina, dark-haired and olive-skinned like Latina Scarlett, truly a friend? With her similar coloring and familiar sayings, Katharina reminds Scarlett of nobody more than long-lost Pixie. With flashbacks that slowly reveal the terrible secret of Scarlett's escape and Pixie's fate, this psychological thriller evokes well-paced fear. Although it participates in many of the tropes and cliches of kidnapped-kid stories, it also overturns certain narrative expectations, making for a pleasantly bumpy ride. A few unexpected twists and turns hold the contrivance all together for a pleasurably disturbing climax. (Thriller. 12-16)

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May 1, 2016

Gr 8 Up-Scarlett Contreras was once a missing child. She was stolen and forced to live in a basement with another girl her age. They were made to clean house for the cruel proprietress of a brothel. But she escaped and now, at 17, has her first summer job at the local theme park. She doesn't like to talk about her past, so she avoids getting too close, but she wants this job and is determined to try fitting in. Scarlett's first day at work, however, is marked by an ironic tragedy. The teen who interviewed Scarlett for the job goes missing after her last shift, and almost everyone on staff seems to be in shock. Attractive assistant manager Connor takes Scarlett under his wing, making sure she isn't left to fend for herself. But it is recent employee Katharina who designates herself as Scarlett's trainer, and there is something oddly disturbing about her. When Scarlett's estranged sister Melody strikes up a friendship with Katharina, bizarre events leave Scarlett (and readers) fearing for her sanity. The story evolves in a series of shifting perspectives that alternate between Scarlett's life now and her life during her abduction, with each perspective markedly different in tone. One is occasionally frightening but mostly a pedestrian romance, while the other evolves into an intriguing psychological thriller. Both lead to a surprising plot twist that readers will not have seen coming.

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2016
Grades 9-12 Seventeen-year-old Scarlett has worked hard to rebuild a life after the years she spent in captivity following a childhood abduction. Still, she needs to periodically remind herself to react how normal people would. Scarlett looks to her popular and poised sister Melody as the consummate normal person and wonders why they haven't been close since Scarlett's return. Her new summer job at a superhero theme park illuminates just how deep Scarlett's scars run when an employee goes missing and Katharina, a new hire, exhibits an uncanny resemblance to Pixie, the girl Scarlett spent years with in a basementthe one she thought she killed. As Scarlett comes to grips with past and present peril, she tries to maintain the facade of normalityflirting with her young boss, hanging out at summer bonfiresbut all of it is undermined by the vague yet terrifying threat that Katharina poses. This layered, satisfying read brims with spine-tingling psychological suspense and plays on themes of identity, loyalty, and loss.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)