4.5 stars- rounded up for Goodreads.

This was a great read and super fast paced. There was some dark & deep subject matter but I feel like the author handled these subjects gracefully.

Claudia Castro wakes up in her dorm at NYU with a black eye & absolutely no idea what happened to her the previous night. As she tries to piece together what happened that night the fog is slowly lifted and shes left with one big mess. After she discovers what happens she goes missing & her family, friends, and some others are trying to find her.

This is a vague review but I feel like it’s necessary as to not spoil the story for anyone.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the chance to read this book and for introducing me to a an author that I was not familiar with.
The Missing Hours introduces you to Claudia Castro. She is a privileged rich girl attending NYU. One night out, she becomes extremely drunk and passes out. She can't initially remember what happened that night. When she wakes up in her dorm room, she discovers that she has a black eye and a split lip. Unfortunately for Claudia, a video comes up that explains what happened when she was passed out. She decides to go off the grid while she tries to rectify the matter. This leads to all kinds of disasters for both her, her family and a recent friend, Trevor, who is trying to help her. We also learn a great deal of background about Claudia's family.
The book is told from many different characters perspectives. . The chapters are short and the book moves along quickly.

After a drunken night and a video of it, rich and popular Claudia Castro disappears.

This one was right up my alley. I love revenge books and misogynists and rapists getting what’s coming to them. I really liked the main characters, all of them, except the “bad guys” of course. The ending went in a different direction than I expected, but it was still very satisfying. My favorite part was how the family was so different. They all had their own dramas going on, but when it came to it, they rallied together.

“She was ugly now; sick, infected — but the world was still full of beauty. And that made her mad.”

The Missing Hours is out 9/14

I found this to be and engaging book on a hard topic told with great care and thought with a believeable plot and characters.
Overall a good book on this subject and well written

The Missing Hours was generously provided by NetGalley and Minotaur Books in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to read The Missing Hours because it sounded like a YA thriller version of The Hangover- a college student cannot remember what happened to her one night and tries to figure it out through clues. My major disappointment was that the actual plot did not match up to my expectation. Claudia discovers pretty easily what happened that night, and then begins to plot her revenge.

I thought The Missing Hours was really well written. The characters were dynamic and interesting. There was some suspense, but it was believable and not so thrilling that it felt unrealistic.

I would read a book by this author again.

A fast paced book about a difficult topic. What do you do when you are raped and find out a video has been sent out to multiple people? Well Claudia plots her revenge and her new friend Trevor is there by her side to help her. I enjoyed learning more about characters such as Claudia, Trevor and Ben but didn't really care too much about many of the other characters. However, that didn't take away my like for the book. Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for an ARC copy.

Difficult subject matter about date rape and the missing hours that Claudia cannot recall. When a video of the encounter is sent out, Claudia plots her revenge. I found the revenge aspects a bit much especially as they were carried out by people who Claudia did not know well.

Wow wow wow. I read this in a matter of 24 hours. I couldn't stop. The amount of turns in this is impeccable. My heart raced the entire time. I was on the edge of my seat. The only aspect that bumped me down from a five to a four star was the pacing. There were a few areas of the story that I personally didn't like the pacing. But other than that, such a great story!

I have to admit that I am a bit surprised about how much I enjoyed this title. I was not sure I would click with the main character, but I ended up liking her. I think the author was adept at making complex characters and situations believable and sympathetic.

**WARNING: Sexual assault**

So even though this book had a few trigger warnings, I felt it moved quickly and I felt the ending was suiting to the rest of the story. Claudia was portrayed well throughout the story and she goes through so much with very little if no support from her parents, who should care about a horrific incident to their daughter, Some of the secondary characters were good too like, Trevor and Ben. Where this story loses me a bit was in the middle where the suspense seems to lag.

Overall a good suspense book just some execution errors to keep the reader engaged from start to finish. Still recommended and getting at publishing date.

Thanks to Netgalley, Julia Dahl and St Martin's Press Minotaur Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 9/14/21

I didn't finish the book. It wasn't what I expected. It was okay and some might enjoy it. I just left it unfinished and forgot about it.

Timely and unexpected plot with the right amount of backstory to make characters who could easily be unlikeable,, remain sympathetic. Satisfying ending.

"The Missing Hours" was a crazy, intense book. Claudia Castro wakes up hungover, with bruises on her face and a burning sensation that she assumes is the start of a UTI. She has no recollection of what happened the night before; not the first time she blacked out while drinking. However, when she discovers what happened during those missing hours, it will irrevocably alter the lives of multiple families.

It is Spring Break for NYU and many of the students are gone, but a recent indiscretion by Claudia was caught on video and made the social media rounds. Claudia is a "famous rich girl" and so her actions, especially if unflattering or able to be portrayed negatively, are fodder for the gossip mongers and trolls that pervade social media. Her behavior caused her boyfriend, Ben, to dis-invite her from the planned Spring Break activities, so she ended up with a staycation in the dorm. Her only companion for the next few days is Trevor, who has been "hooking up" with her roommate Whitney, and has his own reasons for staying in the dorms, but recognizing that Claudia needs assistance and a friend, helps her out.

At the birthday party for Ben, Claudia runs into Chad Drake, someone she had been involved with in the past and someone with whom she reportedly spent time the night she cannot remember. The following evening, Chad sends a video to both her and Trevor, who had gone to Ben's party with her. Chad considers the video nothing more than a "sex tape" and thinks it is funny to share. However, what the video portrays Chad and another boy, Jeremy, doing with Claudia is clearly sexual assault. After receiving the video, Trevor publicly confronts and attacks Chad, which brings the video to the attention of Chad's father, Ridley Drake, a powerful attorney. Ridley immediately recognizes the significance of the video and uses all the means at his disposal to attempt to obtain and destroy all copies of the video, which will have consequences for Trevor, Jeremy's family, and the Castros'.

Claudia realizes that if this video gets out, it will be something she can never escape -- the video will live in internet infamy, and especially with her fame and past behaviors, many people will not consider the video in its proper context or will not care.

Claudia cannot turn to her family for assistance. Her parents displayed a parenting style that can be best defined as benign neglect. Her father would be supportive, but ever since her parents "mutual separation", which was decidedly one-sided, he has been floundering and Claudia does not want to add to his problems. Her mother is a force to be reckoned with and having put aside her own youthful indiscretions and made a success of herself (aided by a sizeable fortune), will expect Claudia to do the same and just move on with her life. Claudia's sister Edie is not an option because the day after Claudia's assault, Edie gave birth to a daughter, and Edie is overwhelmed with being a new mother and mad at Claudia for missing the birth.

Claudia goes dark, in more ways than one, in order to enact revenge on her assailants, enlisting the assistance of Trevor and others in her plan. However, things do not go as planned, especially as Ridley Drake is actively trying to protect his son and the actions he initiates disrupt Claudia's plans. In the end, it seems that Chad is the only person who comes out of the encounter unscathed, but the book ends with Claudia utilizing her artistic talents in a manner which may well result in Chad being the one living in infamy.

I received a copy of the e-book via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

Content Warning: Sexual Assault

This was a very suspenseful drama with such flawed but well fleshed out characters. You are immediately pulled into the story and feel the need to know what happened to the protagonist, as well as what is going to happen.
The players are mostly unlikeable, but you still feel like you know these people - they aren't unbelievable and you are rooting for redemption (for some of them).

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for the advance copy to review. All opinions are my own.

Good plot, poor execution. This book started out promising but it quickly spiraled into an unbelievable mess. There was no real character development and the book just felt rushed. 1.5/5

I liked this book even though I didn't feel like the ending was very satisfying. I enjoyed the switching of narrators but for some reason found I didn't really care how the sister and family felt. It did have some slow points, but overall a fun, quick read.

This story had me hooked from the start- trying to unravel what happened that night, and a captivating look at an assault during the digital age. It did get a little long in the middle, but one to push through to figure out what exactly happened. Definitely got me out if a reading slump!

Author Julia Dahl has written a timely novel focusing on wealth and privilege and the repercussions that can come from people of that socioeconomic status feeling above it all. Being well-known and rich does not provide protection from being the victim of a crime, and it also does not mean you can get away with doing anything and everything you want… or does it?

When NYU freshman and social media it-girl Claudia Castro wakes up in her dorm room over Spring Break, it is clear something is very wrong. What is much less clear is what exactly happened the night before. She is bruised and bloody, but has no memory of most of her evening out. While she slowly starts to piece together the events that may or may not have occurred, she begins to rely on another student in her dorm that has also stayed on at school over the break Trevor is a kid from Ohio with a past he is trying to move beyond, and he is soon swept up in Claudia’s life and his developing feelings for her. As it becomes clear what happened to Claudia during her missing hours, Trevor goes down a path he thought he would not travel, especially for a girl he barely knows.

Told in alternating points of view, The Missing Hours explores rape culture among the elite, and how resources and status can make people feel they are above the law, while exacerbating the reluctance of a victim to come forward. It is a fast-paced and well written tale of how that privilege can also make people feel comfortable taking the law, or whatever they define as retribution, into their own hands without considering the consequences.

Fair warning, this is going to be half review and half slightly rambling rant about the objectification of women. I’d like to think the writer intended people to have this kind of reaction to her book though, so cheers to Julia Dahl for getting me all riled up. And while we’re on the topic of warnings, please be advised this book deals very frankly with sexual assault and many will likely find portions of it very hard to read.

Claudia Castro wakes up in pain, with her skirt around her waist and her underwear missing. Her face is busted and bruised, it hurts to urinate, and she can’t remember what happened last night or how she got this way. But after quite literally bumping into another student named Trevor in the dorm hallway, she finds an unlikely friend. He’s not her rich friends and family. He’s not her instagram followers or a member of the public judging her for her latest appearance on a reality show. Most importantly, he isn’t asking her what happened, he’s simply just there for her during a period when she is struggling to reach out to anyone else.

Eventually, Claudia finds out what happened that night via graphic video evidence and from there things start to spiral out of control. Some people want very badly to make sure the video never sees the light of day, and soon Claudia has vanished. Is she hiding out, or is there something much more sinister at play..?

This isn’t a long book, but it packs quite a punch. The chapters are short and the pace is quick, with narratives switching quite often, which kept me on my toes and excited to get back inside the head of certain characters. I finished it quickly but found I wanted to step back and really let my thoughts and feelings on it form before writing my review, which leads us into the ranty section…

Please note this may be ever so slightly spoiler-ish, though I have tried to keep it as vague as possible. I hope readers take some time to look below the surface here. Sure, it’s a fast-paced, waiting on the edge of your seat to see what happens kind of book, but there’s some really great commentary too. And not just the surface level #metoo and haves/have-nots stuff. The book may be about Claudia, but Trevor’s story is what really interested me. How much of his “friendship” with Claudia (and everything that transpires after they meet) is merely a function of lust after seeing her in some short shorts at the beginning of the book? Mind you, not just in short shorts, but sporting a black eye and cut lip, and limping down the hallway clearly in pain. I’m not saying Trevor is a bad guy (in fact, what makes this even more disheartening is how “good” of a guy he is), nor am I comparing him to the people who assaulted Claudia. However, I really hope readers don’t miss out on the larger point that Claudia remains a sexual object throughout the book, and that lust and obsession are the main driving forces for two very different acts, committed by two very different men. Violence committed against Claudia and violence committed for Claudia, because to both perpetrators she is an object of desire first and foremost.

Go ahead and binge read this one and get swept away in the story, but take a moment to sit on it afterwards and reflect. For me, the objectification of women hit hard, but I can easily see readers having just as much of an emotional response to the socioeconomic portions of the book. Justice simply isn’t the same for those with money, is it?

Publication date: September 14, 2021

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books for an advanced reader’s copy of this book for review.

Yikes! Do you want to chew your nails down to the skin, flip pages in fear you will miss something if you stop? Look no further, The Missing Hours, is the perfect novel for you! Bravo Julia Dahl! This is a book that will haunt you long after finishing . Talk about an addictive read!

Get ready for a fast paced read that at times did hit on some difficult topics, parts were difficult to read.

I absolutely love when a book is written from multiple points of view so you can see different perspectives of everyone involved in the story line, this novel did just that. The intensity is felt very early on.

How many of us went out drinking and miss pieces of our night? I know the college version of myself was definitely guilty of this more times than I would like to admit to. This is the story of Claudia. Something very bad happened, although Claudia can not recall the missing hours of her night. What is worse is a video has surfaced that shares the graphic details of Claudia's traumatic night.

Like I said, at times, the subject matter and the graphic description was hard to read. All in all this was an incredible, impacting novel. My heart was in my throat more times than I can count. The ending gave you satisfaction . I will be thinking about this book for months.

Five stars!