I absolutely loved this book. It’s gentle, sincere, deeply emotional, and so on tap with the many stages a person goes through when they lose a close loved one.
Sally is talking to her older sister Kathy throughout the book. Their relationship is so sweet for two sisters three years paper in age. They have moments where they get on each other’s nerves, but in the quiet of the evening, they talk it through and go to sleep content once more. Kathy and Sally live in a normal home in a normal neighborhood, not too fancy, not too inferior. The summer before their Junior and eighth grade, Kathy finally catches the attention of Billy Barnes, and Sally, who wanted to share in his attention a little bit, is pushed to the back burner.
Life is normal, each day passes, until a horrific tragedy strikes. One in which Kathy is suddenly gone and Sally feels overwhelmingly responsible.
The book spans the next 15 years of Sally’s life. We watch her parents slowly lose their sobriety, their jobs, and their status in the community. Sally eventually goes back to school, but for months she feels nothing. Except late at night when she and Billy have long heart-to-heart discussions over the phone about daily events and the big hole Kathy left.
Alison Espach quietly and effectively makes you feel the sorrow, anger, jealousy, and staggering worthlessness suffered by Sally, and eventually, her acceptance and peace, her forgiveness of herself and her family, and her continually evolving storm of emotions towards Billy.
Sincere thanks to Henry Holt & Company for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. This book is now available.

Going into this novel it is best to note that this book is not a mystery novel. You find out early on how the MC's sister passes away. The story spans 15 years and is narrated by the remaining sister. While grief is the main theme of this book it told in such a way that you can also find pieces of humor tucked into the narrative. I felt that I became part of this family and upon finishing I realized that I did not want to say goodbye to the characters.

Book hangover? Absolutely.

I cannot wait to see what Alison Espach publishes next.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt for allowing me to read an early copy of this book! I will be purchasing a final copy for my bookshelf.

A lyrical touching novel about the aftermath of grief and learning over time to weave it into the fabric of your life. Sally Holt is about to enter eighth grade when her beloved sister Kathy, dies in an auto accident. Sally was also in the car and the driver was Billy, Kathy’s boyfriend and for different reasons, they both carry guilt about their role in the event. The story then follows the two of them, as well as Sally’s parents, through the years as they slowly accept the death and learn to move on. Told from Sally’s point of view, we watch her grappling with all the challenges of growing up, including an ondoing friendship and eventual touching romance with Billy, the only person who she feels truly understands her. While the subject matter is dark and painful, the book is not a downer but instead an uplifting treatise on coming to terms with loss, continuing to mourn but also learning from the experience to appreciate all that life offers you. It’s a profoundly moving and thoughtful book and I highly recommend it.

My thanks to NetGalley for an advanced reader copy.

Sally and Kathy are sisters and best friends. They share the same room and every night Kathy, who is three years older than Sally, fills her in on all the world has to offer, including school politics, crushes - mostly Billy Barnes, and growing up. In eighth grade, Sally gets a ride to school with Kathy and her now-boyfriend Billy, and, in an attempt to avoid a deer on the road, Billy swerves and hits a tree, instantly killing Kathy. All at once, the lives of Sally, her parents, and Billy are shattered and they are each left to grieve in their own way. The book is written from Sally's perspective as a type of letter to Kathy, who she updates on how life has been in the fifteen years following the crash. Sally never truly gets over the death of Kathy, seeing reminders of her in everything around her, including her mother's loss of grip on reality and Billy's continuation of a semi-normal life. The beautifully written heaviness of each character's grief and complicated relationships with one another is not reflected in the book’s cover that was most likely chosen by a publisher who wanted to market the book as a summer read.

Melancholic yet captivating and hopeful. Teenage years interrupted by grief. A life shaped by overcoming loss. But mostly, a love letter to a sister.

Little sisters have a way of idolizing big sisters. Sally was only 3 years younger than Kathy, but those extra few years combined with Sally’s total adoration allowed Kathy to guide Sally as she matured. Or she did until Kathy suddenly died in a tragic accident. Without Kathy, Sally was left rudderless. Lost and adrift.

The book is narrated by Sally as she talks to Kathy, her internal dialogue laid bare detailing the depth of emotion that spans more than a decade as she grapples with the loss.

Espach masterfully utilized first person POV to vividly entrench me into Sally’s inner monologue. Every emotion she experienced was so vividly portrayed that I felt it alongside Sally. The conflict between being crippled by grief and living a full life was intense and wholly relatable. As the story progressed and Sally’s voice evolved, I became more deeply connected to her, fully invested in her life and her healing.

The slower pace of the story felt fitting to this intimate and raw exposition on grief. The journey was intricate in nature, showcasing the full arc of the stages and emotions. While much of the novel is drenched in sorrow, lighter moments and an overall sense of hope created balance.

While the symbolism in the story’s conclusion worked, the open-endedness of it left me wanting. After feeling so deeply connected with Sally, I was desperate for more. And yet maybe no ending could properly match the emotion the rest of the novel evoked.

This novel has sat deeply with me after my own recent experiences with loss. It was cathartic in a way I didn’t even know I needed.

I enjoyed the physical copy of this book most, but the audiobook narrated by Jesse Villinsky is excellently done and gave a distinct voice to Sally and her grief.

Thank you @henryholtbooks and @macmillan.audio for the #gifted copies.

Notes On Your Sudden Disappearance is a unique take on a coming of age story that millennials will love. This story about grief, growing up, and thinking about what-if will stay with you long after you finish it. The story begins in the '90s following a pair of sisters as they move through adolescence. A jarring tragedy will tear your heart in two about 25 percent into the story. It's difficult to read about the grief and pain the main character feels and readers should be aware of the content before going in. However, this is such a realistic and heartfelt depiction of how to move on when your entire world changes.

Fans of Curtis Sittenfeld and Emily Gould will love this book.

have just finished the book and I founded it very difficult to read. The novel depicts the “destruction” of a family after the sudden death of the older daughter. I didn’t love as the author describe the little sister, I could not empathize with her; I didn’t like her, and the book seems like a long list of annotation without a cohesive development.
Maybe I am the wrong person for this novel.
Thank to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

3.75⭐️ Thanks to publisher for ARC. The first 1/3rd and at other times during the book felt like daily minutiae and very slow to read, but then the rest of the book (once Sally hit high school) was much more engaging and I couldn’t put it down. I also enjoyed the dry wit that just about all of the characters had. But this was a tough topic and story to read. Mixed emotions.

An intimate exploration of grief and loss, this novel drew me in from the beginning and kept me interested throughout. Young Sally Holt is enamored of her older sister Kathy, particularly Kathy's obsession with Billy Barnes, a local boy. After a horrible accident takes Kathy from her, Sally must deal with grief and the normal struggles of coming-of-age. This intimate story explores Sally's specific grief and common themes of loss. The forever connection she shares with Billy is a strong storyline, too.

Sally is a fully fleshed out character who comes to life within the pages. I loved how this novel explores loss, but also presents it as a very specific experience to this one girl. At first I felt that Sally's romance with Billy was a little too convenient, but Espach did a wonderful job rooting it in reality and the connection of shared trauma. At times the parental characters seemed like caricatures, but that might have been because Sally was so distinctly drawn. This one kept me thinking about it long after I was done reading. An immersive, engaging book!

I could not get into this book for the life of me. I read 50% of it and gave up. The younger sister’s obsession with the older read as creepy to me and I couldn’t get over it. Sorry just my personal opinion.

I loved the premise of Alison Espach's Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance -- a younger sister reflecting on life after the loss of the older sister she idolizes. I found Sally to be extremely relatable at all stages we see her. I think I just wanted more... something. I'm not sure what, but while I found Sally to be relatable, I didn't find her compelling. Everyone grieves differently, and I think I was searching for some acknowledgement of that instead of judgement and "toxic family" discourse. Overall a good premise that just didn't quite hit the mark for me personally. Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have been reading too much literary fiction recently, and I was beginning to think I just absolutely hated this genre. When I went on my NetGalley account to begin my next review book, I was so annoyed that it was yet another literary fiction novel. What had I been thinking?!

But, but, BUT… this book changed me.

This was SO GOOD. Maybe it’s because my sister is my best friend and any book about sister loss just always smacks me in the heart, but I devoured this novel.

Sally absolutely adores her older sister, Kathy. She is like a mentor for Sally, even though she doesn’t realize this. Then, Kathy dies suddenly.

This book is written in Sally’s first-person POV as if she was talking to Kathy, which essentially makes us, the reader, stand in as Kathy. I loved this book format so much. It really drew me into the novel and made me feel like I was a part of the story.

Sally’s mind is just so interesting. The things she remembers and when, her view on life, her behaviors towards her lovers. She is such a great character to see navigate life.

This book made me realize I love literary fiction when it’s done right. And this is done right. The only reason I am giving this 4.5 Stars instead of a full 5 is because the ending felt a little abrupt. I think this novel would greatly benefit from an epilogue. Still, this story was so beautiful and I’m really happy it fell into my lap.

Thank you NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance is exactly that…. It feels like reading letters addressed to one sister from another, a sister who will never read the letters.
Sally Holt’s big sister, Kathy, dies at the hands of her boyfriend, Billy, in a car accident when Kathy is just 16. She has her whole life ahead of her, and it is cut short. But, this story begins before Kathy’s death. Sally begins noticing her sister slipping away before her death, and then recalls the immediate after math of her death, as well as years later what it looks like.

This was a story on grief, on the grief someone like Sally experiences when she surpasses her big sisters age, when sally grows up and moves on and Kathy is stuck being 16. I thought this was an honest and raw story about depression and a family that tries to pick up the pieces after a tragedy but just never quite seems to be able to. Sally is, at her core, not a very good person. She hurts a lot of people, and falls in love with people she shouldn’t, but she also never blames her sisters death on her behavior, she doesn’t actually have an excuse at all.

I didn’t love this book, and it took me a really long time to get through, but I did think it was an honest representation of grief, showing that healing sometimes never happens, how some people never really do move on from a tragedy, when a lot of books about grief are uplifting, this book shows that it’s also normal to just never move on. I think this book would have been more impactful if grief was a more relatable subject to me personally, but the story was engaging and I found myself caring for the characters, which is why I rated it 3 stars.

If you liked The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe, you might like this one. It's more a character study - coming-of-age story - so it is much slower-paced than some people will expect. I don't think that's a bad thing. I just think readers need to know that going into the book so they can judge if that's the type of book they want to read right now or not depending on their mood.

A coming of age story as well as a chronicle of a family’s struggles with grief, <i>Notes on Your Disappearance</i>, had lovely moments as well as sad. It is told from the perspective of Sally who was about to enter the eighth grade the summer a tragic accident changed her life. Although not the thriller implied by the title, this was the powerful and thought-provoking story of Sally’s journey as she navigated her way through adolescence and the changes that grief manifested in her parents, and her sister’s boyfriend, Billy.

Several things stood out as far as the style of the writing. The most unusual was that Sally addressed her sister throughout the story as ‘you’. This worked for me until it became a distraction. The second was how artfully the author inserted popular culture, such as current events, clothing and movies, to reflect the passing of time - fifteen years from the 90’s.

For the most part, I thought the characters were well developed but distant which made it difficult to really connect with them. Their stories kept me engaged until about mid-point when they started spinning in a variety of puzzling directions especially with the character of Sally.

This was a promising effort which kept me intrigued me up to a point. Then I had to push to make sense of it to the end which resulted in a three star rating.


FYI - I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wow. I could not put this book down. Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance is a story written to a sister whose life ended too quickly. Grappling with her loss AND the weight of her parents' grief as well, Sally's words are moving and heartfelt. Excellent read!

I absolutely loved Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance. This is the character driven story about what life is like for Sally before, during, and after she loses her sister as a teenager. Sally tells us her story as a woman in her thirties looking back on that time in her life, and I ate up every single page.

There are so many reasons why I loved this book. The writing and Sally's voice is top tier. Espach is able to construct beautiful sentences that describe universal feelings and experiences, yet experiences that also feel so very personal. Coming of age stories where the main character looks back and reflects is one of my newly identified favorite plot devices. Sally grew up in the '90s and the nostalgia factor is real here. Sally also just felt SO real. She makes teenage decisions that are infuriating yet so completely understandable.

It was powerful to watch Sally live her life and try to move on all while finding special ways to honor her sister and keep her alive in new memories. This book is definitely sad...a sister is lost, but I didn't cry. This is also dark, but there are enough moments of levity that made this a book I truly couldn't put down. I recommend this to fans of Nobody Will Tell You This But Me and anyone looking for a character driven story to get lost in.

I really enjoyed reading this book and I couldn’t put it down. It’s about a woman, Sally, who’s sister, Kathy, died in a car accident while they were younger and she is telling stories to her sister about her life and Kathy’s boyfriend, Billy. It’s a story about grief and the different ways it can be experienced because Sally’s is really repressed because of her parents’ grief so that’s part of why she tells Kathy these stories. I don’t think I would consider it a love story like the description says but there is kind of a love element to it.

I would definitely recommend this book.

I requested an ARC from NETGALLEY based on the title. Silly,me! I do normally read the summary of a book but I must have neglected to do so in this case. I went into this book thinking there was a mystery involved. Not so; it's more of a coming of age through a tragedy story.
I did continue reading,despite my reluctance. Nothign ventured,nothing gained,right?
I suppose I did gain a slight glimpse into the way a tragedy can effect family and friends. I imagine the loss experinced by the central characters would hit a chord with readers of similar experiences.
We all deal with grief n our own unique way and that was handled decently. However, it is my opinion that the narrator of this story,who was 13 at the time of the life changing event, never really moved on or matured . Perhaps it's the writing style of the author but the narrator comes across as overly naive and simple. Plus,there seem to be moments of time that last forever and then suddenly there is a time jump of 4 years.
Regardless, I did not connect with this book of most of the characters.
I am sure others will identify more with the storyline but for me it was just overwhelmingly bleak and somewhat obsessive.

I loved this book. Sally abs Kathy are sisters who share everything from their bedroom to a crush on local heart throb, Billy. Kathy dies in a car accident and both of their lives unravel. I loved Sally narrating her life to her lost sister. She’s funny and dark and though it is long I just wanted even more from Sally. I think I fell in love with her a little. This book will stay with me for a long time.