Little Girl Gone By Alexandra Burt

[amazon_link id=”0008133166″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]’Little Girl Gone’ is Alexandra Burt’s debut novel.

A baby goes missing. But does her mother want her back? When Estelle’s baby daughter is taken from her cot, she doesn’t report her missing. Days later, Estelle is found in a wrecked car, with a wound to her head and no memory. Estelle knows she holds the key to what happened that night – but what she doesn’t know is whether she was responsible…

‘Little Girl Gone’ was one of the most highly anticipated books of 2015 and even though I enjoyed the book, I personally felt that it didn’t live up to the hype, as it was compared to ‘The Girl On The Train’ one of favourite debuts from this year.

The story is seen through the perspective of Estelle Paradise, a troubled young woman who is found unconscious with a bullet wound at the bottom of a ravine and with no memory of getting there. But that’s not only Estelle’s problem, days earlier, her baby daughter Mia and all of Mia’s belongings were mysteriously taken and because of the suspicious circumstances and not having a reliable alibi, Estelle is the prime suspect and immediately becomes known as ‘Amnesia Mom’ by the media and public.

The story flashes between the past and present tense, as Estelle tries to put the pieces of her daughters disappearance together and prove her own innocence, particularly as her husband Jack even doubts her sanity. With the progression of the story, we join Estelle on a journey with her psychologist, Dr Ari a quiet determined man and we reflect back on Estelle’s life and how she became, the troubled being that she is, orphaned as a child, she was brought up by her aunt and as soon as her brother was old enough, he left for the navy. Lonely and insecure, she moves from job to job and settles on Jack, a man who also like Estelle, I didn’t warm too. He was cold and unloving towards Estelle and failed to truly understand the grief that Estelle was going through as well as recognise the post natal depression that was slowly pulling her life apart.

The story is gripping in its own way, but I didn’t feel that it consumed me the way other reviewers did. At moments I found it quite slow and laboured and the fact that Estelle was a character that I couldn’t warm to made it equally hard. Although that was quite genius of Alexandra to create Estelle, troubled and lacking in maternal instinct, it’s hard not to feel an empathy towards the woman and you do want her to rescue her daughter so she can finally have her happy ever after, but I felt that there were so many twists and turns, that sometimes I got a bit lost.

Bleak and intense from the very beginning but regrettably not the book for me as it didn’t really grip my attention, ‘Little Girl Gone’ highlights the issue of post natal depression and how it can be unrecognised in cases and occasionally makes for interesting psychological reading along the way.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”0008133166″ target=”_blank” ]Little Girl Gone from Amazon [/amazon_link] and is available to buy from good bookshops.