Customer Reviews

Now You See It: A Novel

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I really enjoyed this novel, and now that it's done I want more!
Lynn creates a real world with characters full of mixed emotions. The suspense is drawn out, while she shifts between time frames. It makes you question your own relationships and leaves many questions unanswered...which I liked! The questions in the back of the book are excellent, and designed for a discussion group! I will definately recommend it to my Book Club. I'd like to see more from this young author!

by all means take this book on vacation, but know it's a satisfying read. Ms. Lynn weaves a story that takes her characters from past to present, leaving hints along the way, of how fragile a young marriage can be if not tended to. The disappearance of Jessica, under not suspicious circumstances but
puzzling ones, lends David an opportunity to replay their marriage using threads of previous travels and unresolved endings. Fun read...wish I knew what made Jessica tick.

When you sit down with a new author, you?re never quite sure what to expect. Just a few pages into Allison Lynn?s first book, I knew she?d be an author that I would turn to again. Her characters and their relationships are as real any you might know. It?s Allison Lynn?s ability to bring her characters to life, to make them seem as though you might have met them at a party last week, that makes the disappearance of Jessica all the more captivating. I turned each page with an increasing desire to learn not only more about what happened to the characters but also about the personalities and relationships that caused them to act as they did. Now You See It is a great read and I look forward to more books from the author.

This book is frustrating. And it's supposed to be. David and Jessica are happily married. So David thinks. Then Jessica goes missing and David is forced to rethink different parts of their past. Did something happen to her, or did she leave on her own accord? And if she did, were their clues all along that she was unhappy. David thought he knew her so well, but he didn't until she was gone. I enjoyed this book.

When David's wife disappears, he faces everyone's worst nightmare. His wife is gone without a trace, and all attempts to get to the bottom of the disappearance lead to dead ends. But the real success of Now You See It lies less in the mystery, and more in the psychological portrait of David's desperate uncertainty. David must contemplate many terrible possibilities, ranging from murder to the suggestion that she purposefully vanished. But the harder blow he must absorb is the idea that he will never, ever know what really happened. Lynn's exploration of this kind of bitter confusion and uncertainty is excellent and absorbing. I'll be ordering the next one as soon as it comes out.

After reading reviews of Lynn's book in US weekly and People, I put this book on my must read book. I became completely consumed by the story and the characters. As a former New Yorker, I felt I knew these characters and the dinner parties they attended. I loved them, I hated them, and left the book feeling grateful I was not them. The story "haunted" me both spiritually and existentially. I am indebted to Lynn for giving me closure in her final chapter, for I was far too wrapped up in the story to let it go once the book ended.

"There is too much a man might dwell on that happened a long time ago, a man cannot live that way."

I finished "Now You See It" a couple of days ago, and it is lingering, a work I keep thinking about. I am haunted by the ideas Lynn explores--marriage(what is a marriage?), and identity, singly and in union with a mate or family (big stuff); and of course, how we take for granted the paths proscribed for us, including creating a good marriage, family, career. And then the idea of escape from that life. "The way he and Jessica and so many people they knew created entire lives by surrounding themselves with the known."

Last week I watched a livestreaming PEN panel moderated by Adam Gopnik. It was four expat writers (Salman Rushdie was one) who now live in New York. There was a Spanish writer, originally from Barcelona, who teaches at Sarah Lawrence. He was great, as they all were. He talked about New York not letting anyone go. He didn't so much decide to stay, as he can't leave. That is so much a part of living in New York, and Lynn captures that idiosyncratic New York dilemma. New Yorkers always talk about "getting out" and leaving, but in my experience find it very difficult to do. I think that is so much a part of the book for me. It is that palpable feeling that one is living the best of all possible lives, and yet, yet, what is out there beyond this circumscribed life.

Lynn writes beautifully of that mapped out, charmed life, and the inevitable chasms. I think some of the reviewers are disappointed because they come to a work with the expectation that it will be a fast and "easy" read. Some seem to have wanted a mystery story. A contemplative work with mysteries that go beyond the usual plot contrivances of a genre novel.

I look forward to reading more of Allson Lynn's fiction.

The overall plot was amazing so I figured the entire story would be worthwhile. For a while, until it rambled on about David's work, it was a great depiction of the inner turmoil someone faces in that situation. The end was just not enough to sit through reading the entire book. I was completely disappointed. One and a half pages or so to explain what happened just didn't cut it and it was a little unbelievable.

I bought this book thinking it was a suspense novel, as it is supposed to be, but upon reading it - it really isn't.

I think that the author has a great concept for a novel, she even started off on the right foot, but it fell flat in my opinion, and the end was a huge let down.

**(Possible spoilers ahead)**

I think this book would've been much better if the author had Jessica disappear, and then focused in on how David and Jessica's life changed as a result. How Jessica rebuilt her life from scratch, and how David got along never knowing what happened with his wife. It would've been fascinating to think that Jessica never moved out of New York and perhaps came upon David without him knowing, or maybe he does recognize her but isn't quite sure enough to approach her.

I just think overall that the book was a good start for a story, but needed a little more work to really get itself off the ground.

What started out as promising and gripping turned unbelievable and flimsy by the end. That he'd receive a note from Jhensen that just "fell" out of his folded shirt was highly implausible to me. This and the fact that there wasn't nearly enough character development of Jessica to have empathy for her situation, made it very disappointing as it began to wind down. I wanted to understand her better so I'd know why she'd do this to someone that loved her and that she supposedly loved, but I thought the last chapter was a complete copout, by both Jessica and the author. To make what she did look okay and acceptable and even a little noble, when really all it was was weak and selfish showed a lack of character all the way around. I thought David was well-drawn and felt for him, but just didn't get some of the other characters. I might try another book, but I was definitely let down in the end by this one.