This book was weird. A good weird but weird nonetheless. I enjoyed the dual POV between the two main characters but I just had a hard time relating to them. I dove into this book thinking that these two girls would become friends and solve a mystery together and instead this book was less about the mystery and more so about how the disappearance affects everyone else. Regardless I really enjoyed the book because the main characters lives were unperfect and real and the topics discussed were raw and unfiltered.

This is going to be a hit. It is everything you need: suspense, mystery, dark brooding girls, and drama. But in the UK. The book goes by extremely fast so don't miss a second of it.

The Gaps alternates perspectives between Chloe, an artistic scholarship student at an exclusive private school, and Natalia, who is clever, blonde, beautiful and the Year 10 queen bee. When one of their classmates, Yin, disappears, a strange and complicated kind of friendship begins to develop between the two.

Like all great YA, this is a novel that explores themes of identity and belonging. Although the disappearance of Yin is an important aspect of the plot - and The Gaps brilliantly interrogates the "dead girl" trope and its inherent misogyny - at its heart this novel is the story of Chloe and Natalia and their journeys of self-discovery. Hall does a brilliant job of creating distinct and authentic narrative voices for the two characters, and their development feels very organic.

Complex, gripping, and highly recommended.

This book was so good. It was nice to see a book not set in America. (I need to add more but I had forgotten I read this so will update later!)

This book shows what goes on in the minds of girls when they walk alone on strata or when a man is walking nearby. It shows that some are harsh at school but they are home alone because their parents are drunk or always working. Not many writers can put this down on paper, but here it worked.

I love a good YA Fiction - and this one actually blew me away. The Gaps is modern, smart, thoughtful and very moving.

The story revolves around a missing Grade 10 student Yin, who attends an exclusive private girls school. It is told from the perspective of 2 very different girls - Natalia - the wealthy, snarky, queen bee, and Chloe - who attends the private school due to a scholarship and who is struggling to fit in. It sounds stereotypical, but these girls are anything but. I loved both of the girls and especially some of their feminist comments scattered throughout the novel. They are both very honest and real.

I thought the book was going to be a thriller, or a murder mystery, and that the girls might try to find Yin themselves, but it is just so much more. I won't give anything away, but I highly recomend this one for adults, both young and not so young.

This is a wonderful book about female friendship in childhood and adolescence. THE GAPS explores how we try on different identities as we grow into who will finally become. It is also a story of class, race and grief. The two protagonists, Chloe and Natalia, are both greatly affected by the abduction of their classmate, Yin Mitchell. THE GAPS show two girls from very different backgrounds come together through this seeming tragedy. Beautiful and poignant, it made me reflect on who I was at sixteen - what I liked about myself, what I didn't and the very particular vulnerability we experience at that age. I loved it!

This book surprised me in a good way. I went into it thinking this would be a murder mystery with lots of suspense, which it was in a way, but more than that it was a story of what happens to those left behind after a tragedy. I really expected there to be more emphasis on solving the mystery. In retrospect, I'm incredibly glad that it wasn't what I expected it to be. I enjoyed it so much more than I would have. This allowed the story to really focus on the characters, rather than the mastery. As characters are what I most enjoy about a story, this benefitted me tremendously. If you feel the same, I think you would enjoy this story too!

The Gaps is a haunting look at abduction and those who are left behind.
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After the abduction of their classmate, two girls, Chloe and Natalia, struggle to find their place and deal with the complicated emotions of the aftermath and being a young women in today’s world.
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This book was wonderful. I felt for the characters and I was pulled into their story. I have never read a book like this, and it will definitely stay with me for a while. It also made some great comments on being a women in today’s day and age, and how some never feel safe.
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I highly recommend this, and I cannot believe more people aren’t talking about it.
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4.5 stars rounded up
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Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

So, I'm not a teenager, I don't live in Australia and I've never lost a close friend, and yet this book resonated so loudly for me. The plot is simple and perfectly executed. A young girl is abducted and this is the story of how her classmates cope. The story is told from two sides, and two very different characters. But let me tell you now, this is not what you expect. Having read the blurb I initially thought this was going to be about how rich girl meets poor girl and they bond over murder and try to solve the case. Well no. This is not what this is. This is so much better. Each girl handles things differently and each wants to know what happened to Him, but their stories intertwine beautifully and explore sadness, beauty joy and expectations all at the same time. Chloe is an artist of sorts and through her work the reader gets a real feel for the deeper issues of the book and the character of Natalia is like a transformation. This isn't a crime novel. This is not about Yin or her kidnapper. This is about what it feels like to be a girl. I'm 38 and yet this was raw and honest and made me want to be part of something just like them. I honestly cannot fault this book. It is an unexpected 5 stars for me and I will definitely be reading and recommending more from this author.

DNF 11%

I wanted to thank the author and the publisher for making this book available, but I didn't like it.

From the little I read, I didn't like the story and characters very much. Maybe it will get better with the rest of the book, but I'm not in the mood to read it for now, so I decided to abandon it, I'm really sorry for it, but that's life.

In addition, the kindle version is poorly formatted, which made reading a bit difficult.

4.5 stars

a huge thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an earc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

the gaps by leanne hall was an extremely interesting, insightful and thought provoking read, and there’s no doubt i’ll continue to think about it long after finishing it. the book is told through two character’s points of view, which i enjoyed, and by the end came to feel connected to both these characters in different ways. the story begins with the abduction of sixteen year old yin mitchell, which is a lingering presence throughout most of the book, though it didn’t centre on the solving of the mystery in the way i had thought it might, which in my opinion was overall a good thing. one thing that i found most interesting about this book was the characters and how they each reacted differently to yin’s abduction, and how they all grew over the course of the story. overall, hall’s writing is nice to read, and in my opinion this book had a good balance of plot and character development, as well as a good balance of povs. i was kept on the edge of my seat throughout reading this, and would definitely recommend it to others.

trigger warnings: mentions of rape, underage drinking, death, abduction/kidnapping, murder, mentions of depression, sexism, racism, objectification of women, mild gore

The gaps is a story of girls left behind. I feel like we get a lot of stories of missing girls, so this was a nice change of perspective. It took a few chapters for me to get into, but both of the narrators quickly developed as unique voices and very real, very flawed characters. I thought that the presentations of teenage grief were very real. This is the kind of book that I think young people need. Highly recommend.

I was privileged to read The Gaps by Leanne Hall before its release date in March 2021. It starts with Chloe Cardell ruminating on the disappearance of her classmate Yin. Chloe just transferred to the school Balmoral and does not know her classmates very well at this time. The abduction takes a toll on all the Year Ten students, and as the days go by, there is less and less hope that Yin will be returned like the other girls before her. It starts a wave of fear, anxiety, and doubt among the students; the teachers start getting questioned, the students see police around campus, and fathers start getting questioned as well. No one quite knows how to handle the emotions that the disappearance brings on for these girls.
After a few days, popular student, Natalia comes into the story. Natalia is a blonde spitfire who rules Year Ten. She always has a posse of friends around her, who cause fear in everyone around them. Natalia is particularly shaken up by the disappearance of Yin, she and Yin were best friends in lower school, but they drifted apart before Year Seven.
Art is a major theme in this novel; Chloe loves creating art but does not know if it is the right path for her in life. Chloe and Natalia start a friendship through an art project that Chloe is working on for an exhibition at Balmoral. Through art there is conflict, foreshadowing in the disappearance of Yin, and the start of new friendships and understanding in the students at the school. The author cleverly set up the story to show what it is like going through a traumatic experience for those who are left behind. The fear that boils inside each of the students, how they attempt to curb their emotions, while trying to be more aware of their surroundings so they are not the next to be taken. The author combines the fear of the students with the fear and nerves of the parents and teachers in the story.

Not my favorite read, not my least favorite. The mystery of a local girl's disappearance seems to run like background interference for the true story- friendship between unlikely friends. A good quick, vacation read.

An excellent story of young people experiencing extraordinary circumstances and unfathomable grief. Leanne Hall is deeply in tune with the worlds of her characters here, and she is so skilled in replicating the looks, tones, voices, and inner and outer lives of teenagers and their families. This is a solid, affecting read.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an eARC of The Gaps in exchange for an honest review.

This wasn't quite what I was expecting and I really enjoyed it for that. Based on the description, I was expecting your typical "two teens from different social scenes become friends in the face of tragedy to try and solve a mystery" book but there's a lot less emphasis on the mystery of where Yin's gone/who's taken her in favor of focusing on how the kidnapping affects everyone else in our dual protagonist's lives. The Gaps is definitely also feminist fiction and I really enjoyed its discussions about how society treats both missing and not-yet-missing girls. A page-turning, thought-provoking read.

First I would like to say thanks to the author for giving me an ARC copy of this book! I really enjoyed it. It was not what I was expecting but was very very good. It was filled with emotion, regret and I loved the friendship between Chloe and Natalia as I watched it grow. I loved seeing the broken girls come together through things that were important to them as it was really emotional to read. It was written from two alternating perspectives, Chloe and Natalia, which I really enjoyed. Overall, such a good book!

A spellbinding coming-of-age story of ordinary high school girls, who are anything but ordinary. They are dragged from the innocence of a protected existence by a dramatic occurrence to one of their school chums. The writing style is genius, with common school girl chatter overlaying a narrative charged with wisdom and a sense of critical observation far beyond their age. The young, and not so young, will be forever changed by reading this gem.

DNF at 14%
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an arc

I'm sad that I'm dnf-ing this but I also would rather dnf than give it a low rating. The arc was so oddly formated. Some of the text was red and the alignment was off. Also, there was a character named Arnold who I thought was a stuffed animal, but then it galloped and stuck out his tongue and then I realized he was a dog, and I'm pretty sure it never said that.

I'm just very confused and I might pick it back up when the finished copy comes out.