Well... I finished it and now I'm MAD! I don't know why I ever thought I would enjoy reading this book... The whole story was depressing... Henry Dees is every Mother's worse nightmare!

Henry Dees (the 1st person character) was trying to make the himself appear sympathetic... explain how/why things happened the way they did.. instead he just came off as pathetic! I wanted to wring his scrawny neck. He kept talking about loving Katie as the daughter he never had.... bahhhhhhhh... he didn't know parental love or he never would have let things go that far... He was too worried about what he would say to her parents and what everyone would think of him instead of taking care of and protecting Katie.... He was a selfish, selfish, man!

arrrgggghhhh.... I was just mad at the world in general when I finished this book...
I'll take my old mushy romances or a good sci-fi any day over a depressing read like this.
Even a good murder mystery... as long as it doesn't involve harm to children.

I may have been swayed by the catchy title and the beautiful book jacket. (and the fact that it was a free book) so Thanks to Pauline and bookmovement.com for the opportunity to read this one. I will pass it own with notes inside to check out this website. And I will be more careful about which books I sign up to win~~~

I read for pleasure, and I like happy endings...
If I want to read about kidnapping and child abuse, I'll pick up the daily news...
and get mad over that!

I can't wait until our next bookclub meetup to find out how everyone else feels about this book!

I would categorize this book as readable enough but so,so depressing. No character, except maybe the brother, is sympathetic and the two main characters are just downright creepy. I don't think I would be giving anything away by saying that the reader knows right from the start that there will be no happy ending. There may be enough content to analyze or discuss in a group but I would not feel comfortable choosing this book for the people in my group. Obviously, you can't always have a "happy ending" but I think most people want to have some sense of hope in a book and this books just doesn't.

I recieved this book from Book Movement with great expectations for an engaging read. Although I read it quickly to get through it, the characters did not engage me, and the predictable outcome was just that. I am not a believer in always having neatly tied up happy endings, but this book left me feeling defeated and flat. The narrative style held some promise, but I believe, in the end, it did not serve to enhance this story, particularly when charactors addressed the reader directly. It was an essay on just how unredeaming people can ultimately be when wrapped in their own issues.

With simple, yet strikingly descriptive language, Lee Martin convincingly describes a small town in Indiana about to be awoken from its dreamlike innocence and complacency. You can feel the summer humidity and the carefree dusk the night that Katie disappears and identify with the range of emotions and rationalizations that come to the surface in the wake of her disappearance. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, despite its dark subject matter and espercially appreciated the beautiful clarity of Lee Martin's language.

It didn't bother me that this would be a book without a happy ending. This story definitely held my attention and I kept reading because I wanted to know what really happened to Katie.

However, there were a few elements of the author's style of writing that I didn't care for - for example, it started out by Mr. Dees saying this is his story and he would be telling it when actually it is told by several of the characters and the author. I think I would have preferred just hearing from the characters and would have incorporated the background the author thought necessary in his chapters into memories or flashbacks of the characters. I would have liked to have had more from the character of Raymond R. Wright directly to get a better understanding of his point of view. I also thought the characters of Patsy and Gilley were under-developed - I wanted to able to identify with someone sympathetic in the book and it was difficult.

Another thing I really didn't like much was the "taunting" by Mr. Dees to the readers on a couple occasions to "decide for yourself and quit or continue reading the story now" - this seemed out-of-character for Mr. Dees and I felt like this was just a writer's ploy to encourage the reader to stick with the book. It made me think that maybe the author has doubts that his tale is holding my interest and is resorting to a last ditch effort to retain readership.

I think the author's depiction of a small Indiana town in the 60's was a little rosy but I liked the contrast between the Heights and the Gooseneck areas of town. I wanted to know more about the "hold" the glassworks had on the local economy and culture.

Well written and compelling but one of those topics that are so deeply distrubing that the main idea about making choices is lost in the fact that it is about weak, stupid and evil people who destroy lives and violate a small child. Henous, this story makes me so mad that I support the father and see nothing wrong in what he did. What does make me? It takes my humanity and makes me less....... My book club met about it and really could not have an itelligent conversation... there was nothing else to say.

I enjoyed the novel even though it jumped around in time, a technique I usually find annoying. The author subtly developed his characters in this manner and kept me turning the pages because I knew as each chapter ended, there was still "more to be revealed". It also controlled the pacing and enabled suspense to build to a satisfying climax. I did recognize these characters as authentic representatives of the location and era.

This book defies being pigeon-holed into a specific genre, which may make some readers uncomfortable. It is not an escapist novel to read for a "happy ending" (better stick to the superficial romances and chick-lit). I found the explorations of each character's personality intriguing as they unfolded through the telling of the story. The event depicted takes place everywhere, all the time. It was courageous of the author to face up to something we would all rather not acknowledge or at least examine.

I really enjoyed the book, I thought that it was a fast read and I liked how it was told from many different perspectives. It reminded me of the Poisonwood Bible. Anyhow, I think that my bookclub is going to have a lot to talk about because the reader is left with so many mixed feelings.

Our book club read this and everyone thought it was a difficult book to read because of the topic. However, the way it was told, from the point of view of several characters made it interesting and compelling. At the beginning of the book you are not sure who to believe and surprises await until the very end of the book. Well written but again a difficult topic that will haunt you in your sleep.

This was a difficult book for me to read. Especially, having two children, it was sickening to read from the point of view of two disturbed characters. The characters left me feeling cold. A very dark, depressing, disturbing read!

Fast read. Very good. Seemingly straight forward, but each character has had time to clean up thier own story and to tell thier own rationalized version of what happened; everyone is guilty of something, but someone else was always to blame for why each person made the decisions they did. I don't think it is as obvious as the character narrations would lead you to believe. Can produce excellent discussions if you dig deep enough.

Lee Martin did an outstanding job of pulling you into the story. He constructed the book from many points of view but does not reveal the details of the murder at once. He challenges you to close the book, he lies to you during his story, and yet you read on to confirm that you knew exactly what happen to Katie.

Some people will not like the dark nature of the story and that is the reservation I have in my recommendation.

Suspensful, well-written, not a happy topic but one that engenders lots of discussion and is certainly part of today's reality.

This was a little reminiscent of the lovely bones but with a complex exploration of the motives and character of the two main protagonists. It was interesting to have characters who were not simply black and white and to examine how small choices can have larger consequences than intended.

This book was okay. I had just finished a couple of other books on the same topic so my enthusiasm was a little low on this one.

The subject matter notwithstanding, this book was interesting and a very quick read. The character development was a bit overdone and this was NOT the magical prose of The Lovely Bones. There were some parts that didn't seem plausible, but it did manage to hold everyone's attention for better or worse.

Few things cause as much distress as the abduction of a little girl; a multiple narrated story. Katie Mackey is nine and lives with older brother Gilley and her parents in the small town of Tower Hill, Ind. The Mackeys own a glassworks, the town's largest business, and Katie is a child of love and privilege, aglow with innocence. On the other side of the tracks is Henry Dees, a lonely bachelor and math teacher, who is Katie's private tutor this summer of 1972. His neighbor is the equally lonely widow, Clare Mains, who has taken up with the self-styled Raymond R., a new arrival and, like Dees, victim of a grim childhood. Ray is not well liked for his know-it-all ways and synthetic folksiness, but Clare, all heart and no brains, is charmed, and marries him. Then, on a perfect summer evening, Katie disappears. Earlier that day, Dees had kissed her and then felt ashamed. He has an out-of-control crush on Katie, having snuck into her bedroom and taken some of her hair. Ray knows all this and has blackmailed Dees, but it's Ray, Dees claims, who took Katie for a ride that evening. It will be days before Katie's body is discovered. While the killer's identity is fairly clear, the author keeps a nagging doubt, serving his theme of the shattering of small-town innocence, Katie's parents feel this guilt as they recall the abortion they agreed on when they were 18. Dees feels it as he acknowledges he had been "dumb to his own mysterious heart." The searchers for Katie feel burdened by "the weight of all their sins." Small wonder, then, that in time Katie's murder will leadto vigilante justice and another missing body. You do have to read this to the end for all the threads to come together. Pretty good book