Then She Was Gone
by Lisa Jewell
★ Top 10 book of 2018 · #6 on Best Books of 2018
Ten years after her teenage daughter Ellie vanished, Laurel meets a charming man whose young daughter looks strikingly like the missing girl. Old questions resurface, and Laurel begins doubting who this man really is.
Best for: Suspense readers who like domestic mysteries built around a long-unsolved disappearance
Then She Was Gone is #6 on BookWard's Best Books of 2018, out of 59 2018 books that cleared our data bar.
What Then She Was Gone is about
Fifteen-year-old Ellie Mack, the youngest of three children, vanishes just days before a family summer vacation. Ten years later, her remains are found and a funeral is held, but the loss has already reshaped everything around her. Her mother, Laurel, has watched her marriage end and her family relationships weaken in the wake of that disappearance.
Then Laurel meets Floyd, a charming man she encounters in a cafe, and the two begin dating. Floyd's youngest daughter, Poppy, shares Ellie's looks and mannerisms in ways Laurel cannot ignore. As she learns that Poppy's mother seems to have had some connection to Ellie, old questions start to stir again. Lisa Jewell's suspense novel is about grief, family, and the long shadow cast by a loss that was never explained.
Then She Was Gone on the Best Books of 2018
Then She Was Gone came out in 2018. Of the 59 books first published in 2018 that met BookWard's data bar, it ranks #6 on our Best Books of 2018 list.
Why it made the list: 752 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.4 out of 5 (28 ratings); 44 are reading it right now. The list ranks each year’s books on how many readers have picked them up, how highly readers rate them, and how many are reading them right now.
Nearby on the 2018 list
- Atomic Habits James Clear, #4
- Five Feet Apart Rachael Lippincott, #5
- Normal People Sally Rooney, #7
- Circe Madeline Miller, #8
See all Best Books of 2018 Best books by year
More years: Best Books of 2017 Best Books of 2019.
The numbers behind it
- Readers: 655 want to read it, 44 are reading it now and 53 have read it, according to Open Library.
- Ratings: 4.4 out of 5 from 28 Open Library ratings.
| Signal | This book (0 to 100) | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | 80 | 55% |
| Reader love | 81 | 25% |
| Being read right now | 85 | 20% |
Questions about Then She Was Gone
When was Then She Was Gone published?
Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell was first published in 2018.
Was Then She Was Gone one of the best books of 2018?
Then She Was Gone is #6 on BookWard's Best Books of 2018, out of 59 2018 books that cleared our data bar. 752 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.4 out of 5 (28 ratings); 44 are reading it right now.
Why is Then She Was Gone on the Best Books of 2018 list?
752 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.4 out of 5 (28 ratings); 44 are reading it right now.
More of the best books of 2018
- Heartstopper, Volume 1 Alice Oseman, #1
- Where the Crawdads Sing Delia Owens, #2
- The Laws of Human Nature Robert Greene, #3
- Atomic Habits James Clear, #4
- Five Feet Apart Rachael Lippincott, #5
- Normal People Sally Rooney, #7
See the full Best Books of 2018, the Top 100, or new books on Rising.
How we know
This page uses public data: Open Library reader counts and ratings, and Wikipedia page views for recent years. The description is paraphrased from real source text. Rankings reflect reading interest, not quality or sales, and can be affected by data gaps. Lists update monthly.
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