It's been a year since Teddy's twin sister disappeared, and she is still waiting for answers about what really happened to Izzy.

How could an aspiring Olympic swimmer like her sister go for a midnight dip in a lake and never surface again? That is, if that's actually what happened - as Izzy's friend and swim team buddy Toby claims it did.

Izzy's body was never found, but her passport is also gone, which seems strange to Teddy. She clings to the idea that her twin has left for some faraway place because - for whatever reason - she needed to get away from her life.

Meanwhile, Teddy remains suspicious of Toby, not least because he has now come to work at Bottomrock Lake, a place where Teddy has worked as a lifeguard for the last several years. It can't be a coincidence that this is also the spot from which Izzy disappeared. Plus, Toby was the last one to see Izzy alive when they met at Bottomrock Lake that final, fateful night...

The story conveys the depth and sharpness of Teddy's grief very effectively. And there are elements of romance, delivered with a light touch.
But it took a long time for the plot to get going, and I didn't enjoy the meandering in the earlier part of the book.

The setting is atmospheric and the lake seems almost like another character in the book. Speaking of which, this is very much a character-driven story. And the characters are interesting enough, so if it's a slow burn novel you're looking for, this might just fit the bill.

I ended up listening to this as an audiobook, but will share my audio review for the purpose of sharing what I liked about the story itself:

The narrator did a nice job using pitch and inflection to differentiate the different characters, and acknowledge the grief and confusion of a surviving twin whose sibling went missing. The police determined that it was an accidental drowning, though her body was never discovered and she was an Olympic level swimmer. In the aftermath, the surviving twin tries to uncover clues that will help her determine whether her twin disappeared of her own accord, or if something more sinister occurred.

I was hopeful for a great mystery, then started to become disillusioned when the great mystery became less of a mystery and more of a sibling in denial. However, the complex layers of the story came around at the end to lead to a thoughtful synopsis on grief, healing, stories that may go untold, and moving forward as a survivor.

It's important for teens to see that sometimes there isn't a pat answer to the question of "what happened?" We end up finding out more along the lines of what *didn't* happen. And some things that were never told.

We find ourselves answering questions before the narrator, awash in grief and denial, just isn't yet ready to. I really ended up enjoying this book and think it would be a great thoughtful read for young adults who like layered mysteries.

After the disappearance of her twin sister, Izzy, Teddy is still looking for answers. According to the last person who saw her, Izzy ventured into a lake and never came back out. It's been a year since then, and when the last person who saw Izzy, a swim team member of hers named Toby, starts working as a lifeguard along side her, Teddy can't help but continue to search for answers. Is Toby the key to finding out what happened to her sister? Or will the day she went into the lake forever remain a mystery?

After You Vanished has a lot of things going for it. Despite being a pretty unoriginal YA plot, it does a lot of things well. But the main problem I had with this book was the pacing. The book takes quite a while to get going and, after taking a pretty obvious detour in the form of a red herring, the plot finally starts to pick up speed. But by that point, then things start to happen almost too fast. A lot of the big mystery starts to uncover itself in the last 30% of the book, and I can't help but wonder if I would have enjoyed the story more if it was just paced out better.

However, despite the change in pacing nearly strong enough to give me whiplash, I did enjoy most the last 30%. Some of the resolutions felt almost lackluster, but I don't think that really mattered, in the end. The book's main focus was not so much about the mystery, but about the grief Teddy goes through, how it impacted her life, and how she slowly started to grow from it. Her character arc was really well done in that regard, and good development like this is something I normally find missing in similar books within this genre. So in that regard, the book is very well done; I just wish it could have been applied to the rest of the book.

Overall, I can't help but wonder how much more I would have enjoyed this book if it was better paced. But I am happy I read it nonetheless, and would recommend others giving it a shot.

After You Vanished by E. A. Neeves is an enthralling mystery that intricately weaves together a profound exploration of grief, complemented by a subtle touch of romance.

This captivating novel delves into the depths of a perplexing enigma, keeping readers on the edge of their seats as they unravel the intricate web of secrets. Neeves skillfully combines elements of suspense and intrigue, creating a compelling narrative that will leave readers yearning for more.

After You Vanished offers a poignant examination of grief, delving into the complex emotions that accompany loss. Neeves sensitively portrays the protagonist's journey through the stages of grief, allowing readers to empathize with their struggles and triumphs. The exploration of this universal human experience adds a profound layer of depth to the story, making it resonate with readers on a personal level.

In addition to the captivating mystery and exploration of grief, Neeves masterfully incorporates a touch of romance into the narrative. This subtle infusion of love adds a delightful element of warmth and tenderness, providing a welcome respite from the intensity of the mystery. The blossoming relationship between the characters adds a layer of complexity to the story, further engaging readers and enhancing their emotional investment.

After You Vanished is a professionally crafted novel that seamlessly blends mystery, grief, and romance. Neeves' impeccable storytelling skills and ability to create well-rounded characters make this book a must-read for fans of the genre. Prepare to be captivated from the very first page as you embark on a thrilling journey filled with twists, turns, and a profound exploration of the human experience.

I love a mystery that keeps you guessing. Teddy’s twin Izzy is missing and possible dead. How could a potential Olympic swimmer drown in a lake? Teddy is determined to find her sister and everyone in her life is ready to move on except Toby, Izzy’s best friend who was the last person to see Izzy the night she vanished.

The story is told through the voice of Teddy as if she is talking directly to Izzy. As Teddy and Toby piece together the events that lead to Izzy’s disappearance, they learn about the secret life Izzy was hiding from everyone especially Teddy. Along the way, Teddy grows by learning and loving the people in her life, finding forgiveness, and her ability to move on beyond this tragic event in her life.

With a little book talk, this book will be quite popular. There is drama, mystery and romance. However, we must preface it with a potential trigger of sexual assault.

The mystery isn't completely original in that it's been done before but the mystery is captivating enough both from the outset when the older sister challenges her friend to a midnight race- she swimming the length of the lake and her friend running on foot. She never made it to the other side of the lake, the boy Toby doesn't know what more he can share and after a year of her missing, Teddy, the younger sister is trying to move on but just can't.

It's not until Teddy and Toby are pushed together working the summer job at the lake where she disappeared that Teddy realizes Toby isn't the scumbag she thought he was. He does want to be helpful and Teddy might have feelings for him now too. The unraveling is about a sister who had some tragic things happen including Olympic-sized pressure to swim, a hidden romance, and bigger plans for herself before she went missing. So it's a story of grief and moving on but also about making space to live as Teddy must do.

What happened to Izzy? Where did she go? No one knows, but Teddy of all people should hold some answers regarding her twin’s disappearance. But sadly, she’s in the dark as much as anyone else is—including the last person to see Izzy: Toby Smith.

Teddy has made it a point to avoid Toby at all costs, but that becomes impossible when he volunteers at the same lake she works at. Confronted by his appearance, Teddy is also exposed to the temptation of delving back into her own investigation of Izzy going missing. And now that she has a new starting point—aka, Toby—Teddy is convinced she’ll get the answers she missed before. So long as Toby stays honest with her, that is…
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Oh this was such a perfect summer mystery! Almost immediately I was sucked into wondering what happened to Izzy and who could’ve been involved. There were a lot of twists and turns to the plot which I really enjoyed, and I really liked how easy it was to follow Teddy along her investigation.

But what really makes this a perfect read for me was all the insight Teddy gained at the end, and also all the personal growth she went through. I think this is a great book for people have dealt with or are dealing with the disappearance of a loved one, or just putting someone in the shoes of someone who has/is. This was super emotional and suspenseful, and I highly suggest you give it a shot!

Some Y.A. books live up to their genre, but some capture the very essence of youth as if you are missing out. This will sprinkle in the confusion of belonging in the teen years and it will all come back to knock you off your core. It is a heartfelt mystery and told through Teddy's POV, she tells the story as if she is talking to her twin sister, Izzy, who is missing. This was a clever part of the story...the conversation that she would have had with her. Izzy met up with a friend Toby at midnight at Bottomrock Lake. She was an excellent swimmer and had planned to compete in the Olympics, so she wanted to swim across the lake and have him meet her on the other side. She never resurfaced. A year later, Teddy still mourns their loss and considers her missing and not dead.

There are many twists and turns leading to suspects in her disappearance then assumptions maybe she ran away when online bullying comments are found. It uncovers sibling rivalry, grief at its toughest moments and the anxiety of the stares from locals. Her and Toby will find a connection that is raw and real.
I enjoyed the unraveling and how it is delivered. The characters are well thought out and depicted with emotion. The story flows so evenly and I rushed through the audio to find out what happened to Izzy. This will remind you of John Green's book Looking for Alaska, which you got to love.
Thank you NetGalley and Disney-Hyperion for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a beautifully written book about grief, anger and loss. I cannot imagine anything worse than losing a sister but especially if you don’t know if they are lost or dead. I feel like the mysteries took a backseat for me to the story of the emotions and pain that Teddy is going through.

The ideas were good but there were parts that just didn’t work so well and were too obvious. I liked the style but a little unbelievable in places

AFTER YOU VANISHED by E. A. Neeves is a true page-turner. I can honestly say that, even as I was packing for a trip to Europe, my mind was obsessively picking through the plot lines of this psychological thriller, turning over solutions to the puzzle Neeves lays out. The plot turns on the mysterious disappearance of our main character's twin, an Olympic-level swimmer who goes for a midnight dip in a lake and is never seen again.
The author's choice to have Teddy, the main character, address the narrative to Izzy, her vanished twin, makes for a moving and visceral reading experience. The overlay of romance is delicately constructed to enhance the mystery rather than distract from it. I would recommend.

Teddy’s favorite place is Bottomrock Lake, she loves swimming and has worked there for the past several years. Including last year when her twin sister Izzy disappeared. Teddy becomes obsessed with what happened to her.

When Toby, Izzy’s secret boyfriend, comes back to town, Teddy is suspicious. Teddy is determined to get to know him and uncover his secrets in the hope of finding more about her sister. Can Teddy unearth the key without falling for the boy who watched her sister disappear?

This book was definitely a slow burn mystery focusing more on character development. There was one scene towards the end that I don’t think needed to be included, and it didn’t really add to the plot. To me it took away from the story instead of adding to it. However, the rest of the book was good, and I enjoyed seeing Teddy’s development. I loved that all the characters were well written and full of depth.

If you are looking for a slow burn YA mystery that dabbles in romance, I suggest you check this one out.

Thank you to Disney Publishing Worldwide, Disney Hyperion and Netgalley, @netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Additional links will be added once posted.

3.5 stars rounded up

I was really impressed by this debut mystery! The characters were very thoughtfully crafted and there were realistic, but satisfying results to the mystery of what happened to Teddy's twin sister, Izzy. I loved the sports component to this story - both Izzy and her best friend, Toby, who becomes part of Teddy's world, are extremely competitive swimmers. I also really appreciated the complex and thoughtful response to grief that Teddy experiences during the story. Teddy's love of Bottomrock Lake, it's familiarity, traditions, experiences, are palpable and convey a fabulous sense of place in this story. I will definitely recommend this to my students and buy copies for my library.

This story felt like it started at around 75%, and by then I was on the verge of DNFing because the charm of the narrator constantly addressing the sister and the “you knew better…” “you know how… remember?” got boring as… I do not remember. This is the first time something has been mentioned and I am not ‘in’ in the story and the detail is never relevant to the plot. A bulk of the characters still felt underdeveloped after the 75% mark, but at least the story started Going Somewhere and some progress started on investigating the mystery of the missing, even if it never found a satisfying conclusion. As much as this book bored me, I will commend it for being an excellent exploration of trying to rediscover yourself throughout grief and how to move on with your life when half of you is missing.

And that assault scene near the end was entirely unnecessarily (IMO) and I can't even say that it contributed to the plot.

Six months ago, Teddy’s twin sister Izzy waded into a lake never to be seen again. At a memorial, she meets Toby, someone she believes to be a jerk. As she gets to know him, she unravels secrets from her sister’s life.

This one is more of a family story and dealing with grief than a twisty, turny thriller (which is what I expected it to be). If you go into it with the right expectations though, you should enjoy it.

A captivating mystery wrapped in a thoughtful examination of grief with a touch of romance. Framing the tale as Teddy telling it to her missing twin sister is a unique and smart choice that made me instantly aware of the close bond between the two of them. Teddy is a wonderful protagonist who experiences a massive amount of character growth, much of it tied to Toby, who she hates at the beginning since he was with Izzy on the night she vanished. The setting of Bottomrock Lake is a rich one that I can tell was drawn from Neeves' own experiences, and the wide cast of secondary and tertiary characters all factor interestingly into the story. It was fun to follow along with the investigation and try to guess how each new piece of information and revealed secret factored into Izzy's disappearance. Neeves gracefully handles sensitive subjects like mental health and sexual assault through the book, and I like how not every single question is given a neat answer by the end, allowing for Teddy and readers to fill in any remaining blanks.

After You Vanished is a brilliant coming-of-age story about the different kinds of love, grief and acceptance after Teddy's twin sister, Izzy, disappears following a late night rendezvous at Bottomrock Lake.

There are more subjects that AFV touches upon, however to mention them would take away from the mystery element of the story. I think it best to go into reading with as little information as possible, and Teddy and Izzy's story is no different.

Teddy and Toby (Izzy's swim teammate) are dynamic, compelling main characters that deal with Izzy's disappearance in both similar and different ways. Their own motivations for unraveling the mystery behind Izzy are organic and heart-wrenching, and I found myself breathlessly trying to solve the mystery alongside them.

Bottomrock Lake, the main setting of the story, becomes a main character of its own, and i'm a sucker for settings behaving as such in novels. Neeves does a masterful job weaving twists and emotions, and while I was left a bit unsettled by the ending, it felt right considering the story and character arcs.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was sort of a coming of age, dealing with teen issues with a twist--- a sister is missing and has been for about a year. Having the sister talk to the missing sister is a technique i've seen recently but I think it's pretty effective. It's almost more like reading a diary than a novel which I think works well with emotional stories like this.

I wouldn't go into this expecting a big mystery plot, it is around a mystery but it more of a book about dealing with it and the aftermath than a puzzle to solve.

Quick read, good story.

Teddy's sister vanished almost a year ago and Teddy just can't seem to move on without knowing what happened. I enjoyed the character development between the 2 main characters.

Last summer Izzy Ware waded into Bottomrock Lake at midnight and vanished.
It seems that everyone has moved on, believing that she drowned even though her body was never found.
Teddy (Theodora) Izzy’s twin sister, has questions:
*How could she have drowned when she was an olympic level swimmer?
*Why would she, who never broke the rules, have even gotten into the lake at night?
*Why is her passport missing?
*And WHY is Toby, the boy who was with Izzy the night she vanished, working at Bottomrock this year?
Throughout the summer, Teddy and Toby work together to try to figure out what happened to Izzy, but each new piece of information about Izzy leads to more questions.
The story is told from Teddy’s point of view, in a one sided conversation with Izzy.

This is a great story of a sister working her way through her grief and trying to come out the other side. I really enjoyed it.

I will be purchasing this one for my High School library, but would not recommend it for younger students. There is an assault and a scene where the characters remove their clothes. There is some language.