I didn't go into this book with any expectations. I was curious more than anything. It sounded so different than what I normally read but I loved it. I felt as if I were the characters and I was nervous and curious and confused and so much emotions. The writer managed to make me feel as if I were in the storyline. It was fantastic.

I don't normally read a lot of thrillers but Laurie Faria Stolarz first Jane Anonymous book was amazing so I knew I had to pick this one up. I am so happy I did. Terra is handsdown one of the most unreliable narrators I have ever had the pleasure of reading. This story was more twisty than shocking though but it didn't make me enjoy it any less. I can't wait to see what Laurie will write next.

I enjoyed this book. I was hooked from the very beginning. There were several twists throughout. Some I predicted but that didn't take away from the plot at all. This was a great lesson to so many people about believing victims and giving them support. Also, there is a great lesson here to be careful about what you find online. You can't always believe what you read or believe what people tell you.

received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve read books by this author before and really enjoyed them. This book was just okay. I liked the story I just felt like it was slow. It was a roller coaster of “the boy who cried wolf”, and that got a bit old by the end. I feel like we were still missing some of the characters stories so I have questions.
Not sure if I would recommend this book or not.

Thrilling!  A page turning roller coaster that does not disappoint. An innovative twist on an abduction and subsequent investigation plot.  Excellent tension throughout the story and well-developed characters. Wonderfully done whodunit that will keep you guessing up to the very end.  If you have been looking for a gripping story to get lost in, then you need to pick up The Last Secret You Will Keep

Imagine that you are trapped for days twenty feet underground, at the bottom of a dried up well, with only a strange book for company. There's no water and very little light. You don't know why you're there, or if anyone is coming back for you.

Now imagine that, against all odds, you escape. You make it back home. You're a survivor.

But no one believes you.

This is the first novel I have read by Stolarz since I was a young adult obsessed with her Blue is for Nightmares series, and I think she is a seriously underrated YA author. Her writing is uniquely dark--give me a dozen similarly plotted YA novels, and I could easily pick out the one written by her. The writing is so descriptive that I felt everything along with the main character, Terra: her confusion, her fear, her anger and pain. Again, this is a dark book, especially for YA.

The only reason that this wasn't five stars is that the climax was a little muddled, and this is something I had noticed with her other books that I have read. This might be preference on my part--I like a mystery where all loose ends up are neatly tied up and explained, and certain minor plot points/details of this book seemed like they were dropped or forgotten. Overall, a very solid YA mystery/thriller that is unique to anything else on the market right now, and well worth the read.

Amazing story. Well developed characters that are in a twisted engrossing thriller. Highly recommended. Super suspense that comes to a satisfying end! Highly recommended . A true roller coaster thrill ride

Mysterious and tense read. Terra was taken for 4 days, but no one noticed she was gone. She escapes but eventually the investigation of her story turns up no evidence to back up her claims and she is blasted for making it up. Still dealing with the trauma of her parents’ death from their house fire, her history of lying, skipping school, not taking her meds, and making up stories makes her unreliable. As a reader we are left to figure out if we can trust her narration or if this is a made up story. Is this all in her head or is there someone out there who is setting her up, who is playing on her weaknesses and is maybe still hunting her?

Terra is on a mission to prove that what happened to her was real. She must find the water well she was kept in and the book her captor left with her depicting a foreshadowing of her captivity. But she questions the reality of everything she finds. It doesn’t help that her own aunt doesn’t believe her and thinks she needs more therapy to deal with the trauma she has endured.

Meanwhile, Terra develops an online friendship with a girl named Peyton in an anonymous chat room for victims of abuse. When Peyton expresses fear of her captor coming back for her, that she’s in danger, and then stops showing up in the chat room Terra feels responsible to track her down and save her.

This book kept me guessing! I kept going back and forth- it must have happened, no it must be in her head, no I think it was real. You become suspicious of every character, questioning if they’re real, questioning their motives, and wondering what part, if any, they played.

I didn’t particularly like any of the characters but I was still invested in the story. The suspense was good and the plot movement compelling. Definitely a book I would recommend!

**Received an ARC via NetGalley **

The premise of this book sucked me right in, but unfortunately ended up frustrating me. While I enjoyed different parts of the book and other parts I just wanted to slap people and say “Snap out of it.” It’s a story of survival and gives a voice to the voiceless when family, friends, even law enforcement refuses to believe them.

My biggest issue with the book was that I struggled to connect with anyone. That being said, once I could put aside the questionable choices made by our protagonist, it was an interesting read.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC!
OVERALL RATING: 2/5 stars. This book started out very good, and I enjoyed the first half. But there were several major faults that ultimately I could not ignore. There were some problematic passages that were enough to knock my rating from 4.5 to 3, but the ending was bad enough to lower my final rating to 2 stars. I really wanted to like this book but I just couldn't.
PLOT: 2/5 stars. The premise of this book was really interesting, and while the first half of the book was good plot-wise, the second half declined dramatically. The major plot twist (that Darwin12 turned out to be Terra's abductor luring her back in) was too obvious, and Terra was way too oblivious. I found most of what happened after that twist to be implausible because it just made no sense that Terra hadn't figured it out yet. There were also quite a few plot holes towards the end. It made no sense that Terra did not recognize Charley's eyes from the moment she first saw them the first time she was abducted, what with the amount of time she spent imagining them and trying to paint/draw them. I also can't understand how she did not recognize the line "You tell me your secret, and I'll tell you mine" from the Forest Girl as being based off of the game she and Charley played. While I can ignore that, she absolutely should've recognized the illustration of two people crouching behind a couch from the bus.
STRUCTURE: 3/5 stars. I enjoyed the way the narrative switched between the past, showing Terra's abduction, and the present, showing the aftermath. The chat room sections were cool, but ultimately caused too much confusion. It was unnecessary to introduce so many chat site users; it was hard to keep them straight since we didn't even find out most of their real names, and I never knew if one of them was going to turn into an important character.
SETTING: 2/5 stars. I wish there was a little more information about Hayberry Park, or even a map, since it is such an important landmark in the book and there's almost no information to help the reader develop an accurate picture of it. I also think it should've been mentioned sooner how far apart Hayberry and Terra's house are.
WRITING: 2/5 stars. This was my favorite part of the book. The author used some beautiful figurative language. However, I did not at all appreciate the instances of ableism. For the first third-ish of the book there's this pervasive narrative that it is bad to be mentally ill or disabled, and the author uses the slur "sp*z" twice. Towards the end of the book, she uses the word "handicapped" twice, which is ableist towards physically disabled people. Lastly, there is also a scene during the climax of the book that is transphobic. When Charley reveals to Terra that he was pretending to be Peyton, he tells her about voice modifiers and says something to the effect of "Males can sound like females and females can sound like men. There are even a few gender neutral options!" This is extremely transphobic.
CHARACTERS: 4/5 stars. Overall, I loved the characters in this story. They were dimensional and interesting and Terra was a very dynamic character. My only complaint is that there were some inconsistencies in Garret's character towards the end - despite his overall understanding and friendly personality, he says a few ignorant and hurtful things.

Thank you so much to the author, Laurie Faria Stolarz, the publishing company and Netgalley for an honest review, in exchange for an ARC.

From the beginning my thoughts were to suspect everyone and everything. Don't ever put your guard down during the story, as what you think has happened, might not have really happened, but things you didn't think happened, actually did.

This book reminded me of the TV show unbelievable, and I truly really enjoyed both equally. While this was a Young Adult novel, I still enjoyed readying it, but did wish I would have read Jane Anonymous before hand from this author, so that I would know what to expect with the writing style.

4 out of 5

Suspect EVERYONE. That is the message I was getting as i read this. Poor Terra was on the edge of her last nerve. She'd been abducted - or had she? - and no one believed her. I remember feeling molten lava level outrage when I saw the TV series UNBELIEVABLE, based on a true story.

Terra suffers from fugue states and loses entire periods of time. Even the reader begins to doubt her. Her parents taught her to be suspicious of everything and sent her to every self-defense class there was, and yet, somehow, she still got abducted.

I felt like we kept backtracking over the same territory, but I suppose the author was trying to let us see inside the mind of a person who is ruminating, stuck in a vicious groove of rage, high anxiety and self-doubt. I had to put this one aside several times, because it was very unsettling. Rest assured that you are not left hanging. The truth to this twisted mystery is revealed and you will find out for sure whether Terra was imagining everything or really was the victim of a very cunning abduction. I'm rating this one a solid 4 out of 5.

My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I received a free copy from NetGalley. I spent the whole novel unsure if the narrator/main character was telling the truth or not and wondering if events happened in her head or in real life. I was glad it was a quicker read since I spent the whole time wishing someone would help her and stop her sufferings.

The beginning of this book quickly drew me in. The protagonist was quite the unreliable narrator which kept me wavering on believing her throughout the book. I enjoyed the dual timelines and the ending was great. My only complaint was a slight overextention on the focus of everyone's disbelief. I know it was meant to emphasize how difficult it was for Terra, but it dragged a bit. I would have loved less attention to the middle of the story and an expansion on the fabulous ending!

When I saw that there would be a companion novel for Jane Anonymous I just knew I had to read it. That book I read in one sitting because it was too good to put down and I needed to know how everything would unravel. The Last Secret You’ll Ever Keep was no different!

The beginning of the book sets up the plot and introduces us to Terra who is the main character. After being kidnapped and with nobody to believe her, she learns about a site called Jane Anonymous where victims of crime-related trauma can talk with others who have dealt with similar issues.

The website is really the only connection to the first book and I was okay with that because the website does play a huge role and I really enjoyed the mixed format of this book as there are chat messages included. Another thing I liked about the format was that the chapters are split into past and present. It helps to build the full story of what happened to Terra and how much of an impact it has made on her life.

There is nothing more I love than a plot that keeps me invested from start to finish. This one really delivered and had me questioning everyone that talked to Terra. I think what also makes the plot even crazier is that Terra is also seen as an unreliable narrator because of her past. She also doesn’t make the best decisions at times and it made me want to shake her but I can also understand her perspective. She has been through a lot and when everyone thinks you are a liar, you want to do everything to prove them wrong. I definitely wasn’t expecting that ending and had to take a break from reading because it was becoming too much for my poor soul, haha.

When it came to the minor characters, I can’t say I felt too much. Her aunt could be a lot at times and I can understand why their relationship wasn’t good. Everyone else I just kept questioning their motives.

There are great messages that can be found through this book and the biggest one I can’t say because spoilers. You’ll have to read it to find out!

Overall, I really loved this book and can’t wait to see what else this author writes and I need to check out her other works. She definitely knows how to get the heart pumping!

Not for the faint of heart but I love a good abduction thriller! This is a fast paced and gripping story...from the start you’ll feel chilled to the bone and I love an unreliable narrator which you’ll feel Terra is throughout the story. You’ll be turning pages so fast trying to figure out what to believe and how the story can end in a way that will leave you satisfied... grab this book! I’ll leave it at that!

Trigger Warning: abduction, mental illness, death.

This psychological thriller tells the story of a girl who got abducted for four days but managed to escape. However, when she gets back, people don't quite believe her story and think it was all made up. This leaves us questioning, does she have some kind of mental illness or is she telling the truth?

Let's start with the writing, which was really captivating. Some parts of this book made me feel so anxious at times, hard to breathe even. I admit, I like that in a thriller. It makes you feel something, as if you're feeling the main character's panic yourself, it's really immersive!
There was also a good balance between the descriptions and the actions, and here I would like to mention the great job the author did when depicting the hallucinations, I liked that so much!

Although I didn't feel a strong bond with the main character I couldn't help feeling some empathy for the whole situation she was in.
There were also a few characters that bothered me a bit, for instance her aunt, but especially the agent who worked on Terra's case. The way she talked to Terra throughout the whole process? It's definitely not the correct approach for someone in her position.

Oh, and I loved that in the end we got to read "The Forest Girl and the Wishy Water Well"

On paper, I should have loved this book. I was expecting a fast-paced read, but I felt disoriented the entire time. I wasn't sure what the author was trying to do with the main character.

A fantastically paced book, gripping and exciting all the way through! The characters were developed very well and the plot intriguing! I definitely recommend this read to anyone looking for something chilling and complex!

What a freaking page turner. Book had me guessing from page to page and I never wanted to put it down. Literally did not see the end coming. At all. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.