Dahl does not hold back in The Missing Hours, opening with a sexual assault. Claudia is on the run as she tries to piece together the night she cannot remember. As her family tries to find her, the story unfolds, exploring toxicity and bias, slut-shaming, rape, and more.
I think because Claudia is such a strong young woman, even in the face of what has happened to her, it helped to make this less of a heavy read than it could have been. She’s focused on making the men pay for what they did to her. But she carries a lot of guilt because of her behavior, which is fairly common. I didn’t want to put this book down because the storyline is addicting. Even when I thought Claudia was making poor decisions, I still cheered her on. Nicely done. Thank you, St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books, for sending this along.
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The Missing Hours is available for preorder on Amazon for $13.99, it releases September 14th.
About the Book:
From a distance, Claudia Castro has it all: a famous family, a trust fund, thousands of Instagram followers, and a spot in NYU’s freshman class. But look closer, and things are messier: her parents are separating, she’s just been humiliated by a sleazy documentary, and her sister is about to have a baby with a man she barely knows.
Claudia starts the school year resolved to find a path toward something positive, maybe even meaningful – and then one drunken night everything changes. Reeling, her memory hazy, Claudia cuts herself off from her family, seeking solace in a new friendship. But when the rest of school comes back from spring break, Claudia is missing.
Suddenly, the whole city is trying to piece together the hours of that terrible night.
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