Island of Lost Girls: A Novel

Summary:Rhonda is just waiting for her gas to be pumped when Peter rabbit appears in the Volkswagen Beetle and takes little Ernestine away. She doesn't know what to do she just watches, Trudy the girl's mother is furious that she just stood by and did nothing. She has an enormous amount of guilt and begins to pour herself into finding the little girl. Rhonda works phones at the call center and starts her own detective work to find out what happened to Ernie. Her childhood friend Peter is acting awfully strange and is beginning to look very guilty of being involved in the girls abduction, and the clues Rhonda find just lead back to Peter. All this brings Rhonda back to a time when she was younger and Peter's sister Lizzy, who also went missing, Rhonda wonders are the two connected and what exactly happened in 1993 when everything changed.Review:I have to say I really enjoyed this book, lots of action and a ton of suspense. This is the 2nd book I have read by Ms. McMahon and this book did not disappoint me at all. It is a well written and easy to follow through all the twists and turns. I really could understand Rhonda and the dilemma she carries of loving her childhood friend and not know who to trust. I would definitely give this book 5 stars out of 5.

I started reading McMahon books with Night Sister and The Winter People, which have a very different, but at the same time similar element. This is the first of her earlier books that I have read and her style is very evident throughout. Without spoiling, the elements that she added into Night Sister and Winter People have perfected her style. I still enjoyed reading this one though.As usual for McMahon, she crafted an intense story that deals with multiple generations of people and the story weaves back and forth through time. I've read some reviews that say this book was predictable but I didn't find that to be so. I had my suspicions about events taking place in the book, but then she surprised me and threw in plenty of twists and turns. It's so much fun to read McMahon because you are constantly guessing and that makes you want to continue reading. To me, she's the type of author who writes books that I want to stay up all night reading, just so I know the outcome.Even though I really enjoyed the book, I didn't care for the main character, Rhonda. She came off as a weak woman. She flip-flopped her loyalties, and even though she was missing a lot of information, it was sort of infuriating to listen to her piece things together. She was naive and weak and those aren't characteristics that are likable in a main character. She spent her entire life pining away for a man who doesn't want her, has a degree in a STEM technology and yet, blows off interviews. Who's paying for your apartment and groceries, Rhonda?!Overall, it was a very entertaining book and if you can get over the weak main character, it's well worth the time.

Her books are effing terrible, BUT engaging. They all have a great story, and it keeps you hooked, but then, she just throws a Stephen King-like ending out of nowhere at you and it's hard not to swear in anger.Although I talk smack, I will probably continue to buy these when they are dirt cheap on Kindle because I do like a good tale. I would, however read Gillian Welch---she is pretty awesome. Same sort of story-lines, but much better endings.I think where MacMahon lacks is her ability as a writer to slow down. It all feels like she writes it fast, and writes it before she knows what to do with it, and I can see how not only an Agent, but a Publisher could be easily duped into buying her books.She also knows she can do it---we allow it. Island of the Lost Girls had me hooked from the very beginning to the end when I went, "Wah wah---made no sense", but whatever, it was a decent read for a Saturday afternoon under the covers when my mind felt like mush. All her terrible books are.

This book was a hard one to put down until it was finished. Anyway there were so many things going on with different people, one needs to read it to make sure you remember where you were when you put it down. It was an excellent read and shows how desperate a little girl will react to even simple directions when they are so traumatised. And to have a brother that believed in his father so much that his little sister had to prove the abuse again to prove it. Abuse can be so hidden and done by 'trusting' people that it makes it difficult to even report it because it generally is not believed.....so sad!

I was a big fan of Jennifer McMahon's earlier book: Promise Not To Tell, so for the last few months, I've been meaning to read Island of Lost Girls-- it just never happened until this weekend.About the book....One summer day, at a gas station in a small Vermont town, six-year-old is abducted by a person wearing a rabbit suit while her mother is buying lottery tickets. Rhonda Farr is the only witness, and she does nothing as she watches the scene unfold. The incident seemed so surreal, that she hardly realized a crime was in progress, and that the girl was being kidnapped. The little girl gets into the VW Bug with the rabbit , smiling while the rabbit even takes the time to fasten her seat belt.The kidnapping forces Rhonda to face another disappearance, that of her best friend from childhood - Lizzy Shale who disappeared (13) years earlier. A person in a rabbit suit was around at the time of that abduction as well. Rhonda helps join in the search for the latest missing girl, partly out of guilt for her lost friend.This book was one of those creepy, psychological thrillers, that makes some people (like me), a bit uncomfortable--squirming, and feeling a little hestitant to turn the next page. There were just 276 pages, culminating in a somewhat predictable conclusion. The book was still a worthwhile read, but in my opinion, it does not compare to Promise Not To Tell.