When Amelia Ashley, a popular social media influencer, travels to Rome with her boyfriend Josh, she posts everything on the internet for her millions of followers to see - whether it’s the beautiful views or the glamorous restaurants, she’ll describe it all for everyone to hear. 

But after Amelia vanishes on the day of their departure, and Josh returns home by himself, the media begins sinking its teeth into every aspect of his life. Headlines and hashtags materialise, each of them wondering where Amelia is. One of Amelia’s friends, beginning to despair, enlists the help of seasoned hacker, Harper Delago, in the hopes that she can find out what really happened.

As Harper digs deeper into Amelia and Josh’s pasts, she unearths a startling connection between them and another missing girl, one who disappeared two years ago without any hashtags or headlines. And with every new detail she discovers about the two, she slowly realises that neither of them are at all what they seem on the surface - for better or for worse. 

I think Josh and Amelia were well-developed characters whose motivations were fully fleshed out throughout the story, and I don’t have many complaints about how they were written. The other missing girl, whose perspective appears in the middle of the book for a period of time, was a good insight into mental disorders and the effects that they can have on someone’s life, as well as hope that recovery is possible. I wish the story had focused more on her as a character, as her section feels slightly rushed - her chapters progress much faster than the other characters’ perspectives, and her motivations are not explored in as much detail as I would’ve liked. 

I personally took issue with Harper’s perspective being included in the story. Her presence didn’t contribute much to the plot that wasn’t already implied or confirmed through the other narrators’ points of view, and she didn't see much character development as the story progressed. Some of her decisions during the story are borderline nonsensical, and even by the end, she doesn’t feel like a particularly believable character. I think the story may have been easier to digest if her perspective was left out. 

The twist, while shocking, was both predictable and confusing to me. The book was influenced heavily by the case of Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito; the events at the beginning of the book mirror what happened immediately after Petito’s disappearance. For instance, the story receives media coverage due to the victim’s status as a popular social media influencer, and the main characters have an altercation prior to the victim’s disappearance, leading to suspicions being cast on the victim’s significant other. The twist steers the story in a completely different direction, abandoning these parallels for a different angle altogether. While I do appreciate how the events in the second half of the book lend a sense of complexity to the main characters, I really wish the book had stuck with its initial discussion of the “missing white woman syndrome”, as it is called on the internet, rather than veering in another more mystery-oriented angle. 

As for the ending, it left a lot to be desired for me. One character in particular irritated me, as they started making decisions that didn’t line up with their motivations or personality at all; another character seemed to completely discard their previous goals in favour of another set, with almost no foreshadowing or hinting beforehand. Again, this ties in with my feelings about the twist - I really wish the author had stuck to their message rather than subverting it for the sake of writing a mystery novel. 

Overall, I’d give this book a 5/10 - the character development for certain characters is great, and the concept of the book overall has a lot of potential. The execution could’ve been better, especially near the end, but I was still hooked for the entirety of the novel and I found it a good discussion of how missing people who are part of minority groups are not adequately covered in the media. Fans of mysteries and people interested in true crime would likely enjoy this book, as it bears similarities to well-known cases over the years.