I'm a little sad to say goodbye to a series that felt so familiar and brought back so many memories. I will always love the grunge music of the early nineties and I liked that some of my favorite songs were used as chapter titles setting the mood for what was to come. This series pulls you in and after spending so much time with Nico I had to know what happened to her. I loved that her daughter used her diary to retrace her mother’s steps to find her and get the answers she needed. The ending is perfection and everything I wanted. The Runaway Train series is a love letter to the enduring power of music and the influence it has in our lives.

🎸ᗷOOK ᖇEᐯIEᗯ🎸
𝘝𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘔𝘦 by Lee Mathew Goldberg

In the final installment of the Runaway Train series, Vanish Me, continues to highlight 90s grunge rock.
We skip ahead in time, as Nico’s daughter Love, is a teenager and she discovers her moms diaries from the 90s. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and now its Love, who sets out on a road-trip following in her moms footsteps at the same time falling in love with grunge music herself.

Once again I had to play each song mentioned in the book as I reminisced to a much easier time as a teen and young adult.

Fabulous book and series about love, loss, hope and the best music!

Thank you @suzyapprovedbooktours @leematthewgoldberg @netgalley for my gifted copy.

This story is a continuation of the Runaway Train series and it was such an amazing installment! We get the perspective of Love, Evan and Nico's teenage daughter. First of all, I think she is a great character who grew a lot through the story. She really got the best of both of her parents. She got the desire to explore the world for herself from Nico, the studiousness and never-ending love from Evan, and the songwriting and music ability from them both. I was in for this story and it did not disappoint. The grunge period is still alive and the friendships are so adorable and loyal. It really is about finding yourself and all three of the characters did this. The ending I wish was a tad different, but I love it for what it is! This series has been a blast!

4/5 stars for the people who love grunge and road trips with friends to solve the mystery!

**Thank you Netgalley for a review copy! I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Well, here we are in the 3rd and final instalment of The Runaway Train series. I fell in love with the first book, "Runaway Train", almost a year ago. It was the perfect 90s adventure with the soundtrack of the 90s to go along with it. The second book, "Grenade Bouquets" was a wild ride but left me wanting more. This book was the ending to the trilogy that I needed.

Vanish Me picks up where Grenade Bouquets leaves off. We read this story through the eyes of Love, Nico and Evan's now teenage daughter. We know that she was raised by Evan as a single father. We don't know the story of why...

Nico is estranged from her daughter but keeps in touch every few months. When she stops checking in and goes missing Love decides she must look for her mother. She finds Nico's teenage diary and decides that to find her mother she must retrace past places and visit past friends.

Reluctantly Love's father agrees to let her and her two friends, Frankie and Caden, take a road trip to L.A. to visit her grandparents and track down Nico's old friends.

We also get a glimpse into what happened all those years ago from the perspective of Nico via her diary. As her daughter, Love, reads entries we discovered what prompted Nico to give up motherhood and become a wanderer of the world.

This was a fun adventure and gave Runway Train vibes. Love, Frankie, and Caden are the same age that Nico was when she ran away. Like most 17-year-olds, they are trying to figure out life and determine who they are in the world. Friendships are tested and hurt and healing is a regular occurrence on the trip. It's all set to a 90s soundtrack, of course.

I truly love this book series and this was a wonderful end. 5 stars!

"Vanish Me' is set to be released here in the U.S. on February 10, 2022 so pre-order now! If you haven't read the first two books, get them now- I read each one in a single day so you'll be ready for the 3rd release!

Thanks to author Lee Matthew Goldberg, Netgalley, and Wise Wolf Books for allowing me an advanced e-copy to read and give my honest review.

Happy Reading!

“Everyone has hated themselves at one point. We all are a product of our mistakes. The secret is finding whatever way you can to love yourself, even if it’s rough some days and you feel like giving up.”

✮✮✮✮✮

The 3rd and final book in the Runaway Train series. It picks up from where the last left off, Evanico took up the big time, and then Nico fell pregnant. Being mentally unstable, with undiagnosed postpartum depression on top, motherhood was too much and she disappeared. Over the years she flitted in and out of Loves life, and then news hits… She’s been missing for two months, so Love decides to follow in her footsteps and talk to all the people in her mums past, in the hope she will find her.

Wow. I’m so gutted this trilogy is over. Nico and co will stay with me forever. This third and final part was really moving, although I don’t think I was expecting this at all. It was incredible to see Nico and Evan’s daughter find herself, by following in her mother’s footsteps from book one, although minus the alcohol and drugs!

I think Nico’s ending really came together, and although I wish she could have been happy before, that’s just the rollercoaster of mental health. Lee Matthew Goldberg is an incredible author, especially to capture the emotions, as well as the highs and the lows of this mental health train from beginning to end. It’s still a taboo topic, and he has done it massive justice.

I’m going to invest in print copies of all three books, because I really truly have felt a connection to these books, and I would love to reread!

** I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

Vanish me is the third and final book in the Runaway Train series but can be read as a standalone - which is what I did. It follows our MC, Love, on a journey to find her mom. I really enjoyed this book, which makes me want to learn more about the side characters, so I might read this whole series! With a bit of mystery and coming-of-age, Love was-excuse the pun- easy to love. Her development and thought process was fun to see. I definitely would've enjoyed it much more if I had read the books as a series.

I enjoyed seeing how this story wrapped up. It can definitely be read as a stand-alone though. Love is such a good kid considering her mother left her as a baby. I adored her relationship with her father, I didn’t expect him to become such a wonderful parent.
All the 90’s music! Love

Oh wow! I absolutely adored this book which was beautifully written and I couldn’t put it down right from the start.

This is the third book in the trilogy of which I haven’t read book 1 or 2. My pet hate is not reading a series in order but I confirm this book is fine to be read as a standalone. It does touch on past events but briefly elaborates so you don’t feel like you are missing anything.

This book is set in the present day (ish) where Love has been brought up by her single parent father, Evan, with her mother, Nico, only being a fleeting part of their lives, having left her tiny daughter and partner, and going off to ‘find herself’, only returning for brief, unannounced periods before disappearing again for lengthy spells. Aged 16, Love finds her mother’s journals written in the 1990’s when Nico was not much older than Love, and Love travels back to places and people in her mother’s past in a bid to find her and understand what caused her to behave the way she did.

This is a Young Adult book and as I am an Old Adult I’m not the target audience but it just proves that this book has a wide appeal.

The characterisation was incredible and I loved them all, even the selfish, flawed Nico.

Each chapter is written either from Love’s present day perspective or as one of her mother’s journal entries. The only time I put the book down (aside from sleep and work) was to quickly head to Amazon music to listen to some of the songs that each chapter was titled after. This really helped to bring the book to life and take the reader to another place and time.

Reading book 3 has definitely made me want to go back to the very beginning and I will be buying books 1 and 2 at some point soon..

Thank you to Netgalley for the advance review copy.