I liked this so much more than I thought I was going to! I think this was interesting and fun--the characters are also a little older which is nice, even though this is firmly YA (in my opinion). I had a fun time reading this, and it was really fast paced. I think the way that the commentary and mystery was woven together was also pretty well done. I think my big gripes for the book were that the clues and mystery were a bit clumped together? Instead of clues sprinkled throughout the story they were sort of given in big chunks all at once and there really wasn't... an investigative aspect to this story? I was expecting more of a Truly Devious vibe, where there are clues and investigation done by the cast of characters but it really wasn't quite that. Still fun, though! I would definitely recommend this if you want something fast and interesting.

Holy crap I really loved and enjoyed this audiobook. Melissa has been a favorite author for a while, but this one blew me away.

Even though my first theory turned out to be broadly correct, it didn’t dampen my enjoyment of this book. The suspense was fun and seeing the pieces fall together was enjoyable! Although the characters are in college, this reads more like a YA mystery. It wasn’t a massive brain-twister, but it did the job. It was a quick, heart-pounding page-turner.

After his girlfriend, Amelia, disappears in Rome (where she was last seen with him), Josh is now suspect #1. To make things worse, he comes home without her… with blood in his suitcase.

A mixture of mystery, thriller, and commentary on ‘missing white blonde woman syndrome’, this book draws parallels to another girl who went missing years ago — one without any media coverage. Among other things, it also briefly touches on the impact of social media speculation and web sleuths’ interference in ongoing missing persons investigations.

I blasted through this with the need to know where Amelia is. The vlog transcripts in particular were written well. Everything just flowed. I could envision everything, almost as if I were watching in realtime.

For the negative… I expected this to be a whodunit-type mystery, tbh. However, there was very little actual investigation across the novel. The info-dump was unnecessary. The clues weren’t sprinkled through the book; they were poured out suddenly.

Harper Delgado didn’t really play a major role, she was more of a passive listener. Her character enabled us to view Amelia’s life through an outside perspective. I thought it was too convenient she happens to be a super genius hacker who circumvents authorities to uncover secrets…

The ending was satisfying, if not a little open-ended and rushed. I kept scrolling, expecting at-least one more chapter. Still, it did get me to shed a few tears.

I tried to keep this review as vague as possible so as not to spoil anything that wasn’t already in the synopsis, but I’d recommend this for any true crime aficionados out there. This mystery thriller definitely delivers a fast-paced story that’ll leave you breathless.

Josh is at the airport ready to head home after a wonderful trip to Rome with his girlfriend. The problem is she has disappeared. They were having lunch before going to the airport when she suddenly got angry and left. When he gets home he doesn’t know what to do. He decides to do nothing … until people begin to wonder if he did something to her. How do you prove you are innocent when there is no body? What really happened?

Going Dark is a stand-alone mystery that had me thinking I knew where it was going and left me surprised with the truth. This is not a jaw-dropping surprise, but it didn’t end with what I was thinking during the first half of the book. Cruz has stepped out of her normal fantasy genre and has hit a home run with a great escape read that is also a quick read. I recommend Going Dark to all mystery fans.

If I had saved a dollar for every time I read a missing person-thriller, I’d have at least a couple hundred dollars now!! I love the combination, the suspense and the twist in the story is just so satisfying. A travel influencer goes missing, her boyfriend is a prime suspect. If you think the story is going to pan out like a classic missing person’s thriller, you will be proved wrong. I was overconfident that I had figured out the twist, but I was surprised at how wrong I was. There is a third character in the story—a hacker who is drawn to the influencer’s missing case. The story progresses with spotlight on the characters and just when you get familiar with them, Melissa takes a sharp turn and reveals that the characters aren’t who they say they are! You have to read to find out more. [4.25]

Thank you Storygram tours, Publisher & Melissa for the arc.

Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity of reading this advanced reader copy.

I thrive for this type of books: thrillers with a disappearing woman and a big twist that changes the story once you finish. I read the description of the book and was hooked: a woman that disappears in another country, her boyfriend going back to the US without knowing what happened AND WITH HER BLOOD ON HIS SUITCASE, another disappearance of another girl… Honestly, I had to know what was going on. But the reviews, they were all referencing Gone girl (which I absolutely love). So I kinda knew what I was getting into.

I started reading and I wasn’t as hooked as I thought I would be, but once I read around 50 or so pages… The whole book was finished in like 4 hours? I remember someone asking me something and me being: please tell me it is not urgent. I was into the story so much that even after the grand reveal, I still needed to know how it was going to end. That is something that I enjoyed a lot about this book. There is still suspense and tension even after revealing the twist.

The characters? I mean. I can’t even say anything without revealing even the slightest detail. I think it is a bit more YA than I would like, perhaps a more adult story would be better in the case of characters. But, honestly? No need. 5 stars.

I don’t want to give anything away, but if you have seen Promising Young Woman or read Gone girl or even Bad girls with perfect faces (one of our favourites), you are going to like this one. There is a bit of those in here.

What is this about?
Travel influencer Amelia Ashley is missing, and Josh Reuter, her boyfriend, is the top suspect on everyone’s list for good reason. But nothing is what it seems in this.

What else is this about?
This is not the thriller you think it is.

I wanted to read Going Dark because it involved a missing social influencer and social media, and I am cosntantly intrigued by what authors can do with those two elements in a crime/ thriller novel.And when the book begins, it rightaway hits the beats of what I expected: a beloved and successful influencer, a suspicious boyfriend, and someone else out to figure out what’s going on.

Amelia Ashley is blonde, beauitful and very good at being a content creator aka running her food/ travel blog. She is also dating Josh Reuter, and by all appearance they are deliriously happy. So much so, that Amelia books them two tickets to Rome and the holiday of a lifetime.

Except, the book opens with Josh coming home alone because Amelia simply disappeared. When he ios back at university, he starts to try and find her, and inadvertently stokes the suspicions of a beauty influencer the pair of them stayed with in Rome. She posts something about the missing Amelia, and Josh who doesn’t know what else to do, unfollows Amelia’s accounts.

Between the viral missing post and Josh’s own actions, he quickly comes to the attention of the cops, and the author takes us into his life as it disinegrates and Amelia still remains missing.

He begins to lose friends, can feel everyone staring at hime during university, and then the cops come knocking. Very quickly he officially becomes a suspect.

At the same time, the book follows Harper, a hacker of sorts, who is drawn in by Amelia’s disappearance and begins to investigate her and Josh in order to find out what happened. Her own relationship with her sister fuels some of this as well.

And then there’s Amelia: the book lets us get to know who she is as Harper investigates her by watching her vlogs, searching her posts and just in general searching for her online.

This is where Melissa de la Cruz turns thing up a notch and readers begin to realise neither Josh nor Amelia are who they say they are. There’s an urgency that comes with revelations in the novel (and this isn’t at the end of the book, things are way more compelx for this to be a revelation at the end) that made the pages fly by as the scope of what Cruz is writing — and writing superbly — comes to light.

I could not wait to get to the end, truly. Going Dark should absolutely be on your TBR.

Amelia Ashley is a social media influencer who has it all: more than a million followers, a seemingly perfect life where she visits the best restaurants and locations, and a cute boyfriend, Josh. When she and Josh go to Rome for the vacation of a lifetime, Amelia posts about the entire trip for her followers, so they can live vicariously through her. But when Josh comes back to the US alone and Amelia's instagram account doesn't have any new posts, everyone is wondering #whereisameliaashley? And why did Josh leave Rome without her?

A great thriller that will have you turning the pages late into the night!

⭐️: 3.5/5

Social media influencer Amelia Ashley seems to have it all. She’s pretty, has a huge Instagram following, and a hot boyfriend. When she goes missing in Rome after a fight with her boyfriend, Josh, her disappearance goes viral, spawning hashtags and a police investigation. Josh is the number one suspect, but he can’t proclaim his innocent loud enough to make people believe him. Unconnected to Amelia, hacker Harper gets roped into the investigation, and starts to find out more than she bargained for, begging the questions, who really is Amelia Ashley, and what happened to her?

Although Going Dark is billed as new adult, I’d still put it thoroughly in the teen/YA realm, because it has a lot of the same decision making mechanisms as YA books. It’s definitely a page turner, especially once you get to about 45% and all the secrets start coming out and everything starts coming together. I’ve read a fair amount of books of a similar theme to this one, usually not in the YA realm, so this was nowhere near as gritty or realistically thought out as what I’ve come to expect from these type of storylines, but would be perfect for a younger audience who probably wouldn’t care about those things anyway. I had a lot of instances where my thought going out of a big reveal was “well…that seemed too easy…how?” Also, for the relatively serious subject matter, with the exception of a few side mentions, parents were mysteriously absent from the lives of these very troubled teens, which was hard to overlook.

I could see this being a really fun read for teens once the formatting is finalized, because I always love books with different types of “media” throughout, such as blog posts, journal entries, etc. Thematically, it was a really interesting read, but I had to take off 0.5 stars for the abrupt ending and the unfortunate decision to not include an epilogue to tie everything up.

Thank you to @netgalley and @unionsqandco for this eARC in exchange for my honest review!!

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for an ARC of Going Dark in exchange for my honest review.

Oof. Where to start...where to finish...much like this book. I love Melissa de la Cruz and was so excited to get a copy of her upcoming release, Going Dark. I mean it was such a perfect plot: social injustice, racial injustice, based around social media. Should've been perfection, right? I can read 2 to 3 books per day and it took me almost three WEEKS to finish this book and could've cried with relief once I did. There was no character development, the plot was so over played, and the writing was repetitive enough that I literally said "SERIOUSLY?!" out loud multiple times. I'm still not sure who the main characters were or even if there were any. Too much information, too much everything. I will continue to read the authors books but this one is a hard no for me.

Going Dark by Melissa de la Cruz is an interesting and very well written story.
I liked how the author immediately drew me into the story.
Once I started I never slowed down.
The different POVs was intriguing and kept the pace of the story going.
The mystery kept me engaged, flipping the pages very quickly.
Overall, a well written, chilling story.
I look forward to more from this author in the future.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Union Square & Co.
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this eARC!

This is like Gone Girl for a younger generation, though I found this book much more enjoyable. Josh is dating Amelia Ashley, famous influencer and travel blogger. The two go on a trip to Rome, but when Amelia completely disappears, Josh is forced to come home without her. Once her disappearance hits the internet, the police get involved, causing Josh to panic and wonder what really happened to Amelia. Tangentially, Harper, a hacker, is looking into Amelia and discovers a much bigger mystery than just her disappearing. The suspense of who Amelia is and what her motives are, as well as what Josh knows and how complicit he is, was really strong until about halfway through, when we get an infodump of Amelia's backstory and what led her to take the actions she did, as well as Josh's role in everything. The last half is essentially filling out the backstory, which killed the suspense, and waiting to see how things get resolved. I liked the first half much better than the second, I felt like the information about Amelia could've been introduced in a different way, but overall I liked the book and felt like the end was satisfying.

I was definitely hooked into the mystery that slowly unravels in Going Dark. I loved how the different POV shifts let us see how the pieces all fit together. Some things felt a little too convenient, but I still really enjoyed the book, and it kept me up late reading to find out what was really going on

Thanks Netgalley and Union Square & Co for this eARC, these opinions are my own. This was quite the mystery! Josh and his girlfriend Amelia went to Rome on the day they were supposed to come home they got in a find and Amelia walked away from Josh, she never showed up to the airport. Now home and Amelia’s disappearance is making waves as she is an influencer. Josh doesn’t understand what happened and can’t imagine anything bad happened, but when evidence comes to light he becomes the main suspect in her disappearance. Harper hacks in secret and when one of Amelia’s friends asks her to hack into Amelia’s life she finds more to the story. What happened to Amelia? I liked that the story was told from three different perspectives, Amelia’s being told through her social media posts. It creates a whole picture of the situation! I will say I didn’t connect with Josh though, I didn’t like his vibe from the beginning. I love how Melissa de la Cruz connects everything and how the past connects to the present! Definitely worth a read if you like mysteries tied to social media!

The premise of this book sounded intriguing, but nothing could have prepared me for the mystery within the pages. The elaborate plot had me desperate to know the truth. As more information was revealed, I got dragged deeper into the mystery of Amelia Ashley's disappearance, and found myself questioning the reliability of the narrator.

I was pleased that this book addressed the concept of "missing white woman syndrome". The commentary about how the disappearance of white people is treated more seriously than Black people or people of colour was really important and extremely relevant to the story.

Going Dark is a real page turner and I couldn't put it down until I'd reached the end.

A perfectly plotted out mystery with a beautiful plot twist! This is such a good read for middle grade and YA readers who love a good mystery and want to follow the clues. I definitely plan on grabbing a copy for my classroom

I really enjoyed "Going Dark" by Melissa de la Cruz better than I thought it would be. Quick, easy read for sure.

Going Dark by Melissa de la Cruz is a fast paced thriller about Amelia Ashley, a beautiful social media influencer who disappears on a romantic getaway with her seemingly loving boyfriend Josh. He returns home from Rome without Amelia and immediately becomes the prime suspect in her disappearance, but there is so much more to uncover... Who was Amelia Ashley before she became a social media icon? Is Josh the gentle, doting boyfriend or does he have a violent side? And how is this related to the case of Mignon Lee, a troubled young girl who went missing just a few years before?

The police may not be taking this seriously but Harper, a brilliant young hacker, will not rest until she discovers the truth behind these mysterious disappearances.

When a trip to Rome between famous influencer Amelia Ashley and her boyfriend Josh ends with him coming home alone things are about to get messy as Amelia has essentially disappeared and now people are demanding to know what happened to her and Josh is suspect number one... especially since they found her blood in his suitecase. Josh maintains that he is innocent... or is he? Enter Harper Delgado, a hacker who happens to go to school with Josh... and when a friend of Amelia and Josh asks her to search for Amelia because she just knows something is off with Josh and that something is wrong with Amelia, Harper finds herself entranced in the case and who Amelia Ashley truly is. Amelia is a popular food and travel influencer... so soon the world’s attention is on Josh and now we will have to see what happened to her and who she truly was... and who Josh truly is.... but there is one missing piece, two years ago another girl went missing and no one ever mead headlines or hastags about her but she is deeply connected to Amelia’s own disappearance. The story was an interesting one told in multiple POVs and parts, we start off with Josh and his current situation and move back to Amelia’s past and then to Harper as she cracks the case. The book ends super abruptly, like it’s a bit unsatisfactory because it could definitely use an epilogue or two or three more chapters discussing the ending of the case and what happens to all the characters. Overall it’s an interesting mystery that could have been better if the ending was more fleshed out and certain characters made different decisions but overall a good mystery.

*Thanks Netgalley and Union Square & Co. - A subsidiary of Sterling Publishing, Union Square & Co. for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

I really enjoyed this! It made me think of a handful of high media cases. A significant other goes missing, one is blamed, the truth is messy. The twists in this were great and I liked the sort of world building of Amelia.