* Thank you Netgalley and Sourcebooks Fire for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. *

On the night of Gaia's going away party, she never makes it home. With a lot of people offering no help, it's up to Gaia's little sister, Esme, to figure out what happened to her sister, and bring her home.

Have You Seen My Sister is very... young. The narrator is 15-turning-16, and she has an extremely young inner voice. Compounded with a writing style that was attempting to capture the way teenagers talk (but, unfortunately, failed, I believe), the overall tone of the book was a bit immature at times, and nonsensical at others.

It was impossible to believe that so many people just... didn't care about someone being missing. Not only did they not care, they were actually making jokes, and having side conversations about unrelated topics while discussing the missing girl. I've read a lot of mystery novels, and I've never seen such a large amount of people totally not care. I'd understand a few people, but it was 10+ laughing and joking around in the middle of a conversation about a 19-year-old girl being missing.

I also could not believe that Esme had absolutely zero self-preservation skills or thought for her own safety. Her sister, who is several years older and wiser, and knows the area way better, is missing - so why does Esme or her parents or anyone else think it is safe for Esme to be walking around investigating on her own? When she comes back her parents basically admit to not even noticing she was gone, and not realizing she had been abandoned by the person she was with.... and yet, they continue to not care where she is or what she's doing.

In the end, I would not recommend this as the best mystery YA.

Here's the ending if you don't want to finish the book but want to know what happens:
Gaia was never really missing. She and Scott planned for her to hide and for people to do a hide-and-seek game the next day and find her, but Scott decided that their Youtube channel would take off if she was missing for real, so he chained her up in his basement and kept her there while everyone was looking for her. Then she escaped, and because she knew Addy was about to be kidnapped by Lucille and Jacques in a plot to blackmail Addy's parents for money, ran off to save Addy. Addy was involved in a scheme with Craig, Jacques, and Lucille where they stole things from guests and re-sold them for money. Jacques started bringing in drugs, and Craig wanted out, but they didn't want to let Craig out, so they pushed him off the tower. Craig was just a creepy horn-dog who wanted to take advantage of teenage girls, and was sleeping with Addy but trying to get Gaia.
2023 arc mystery ...more5 s1 comment Abigail482 3

A fun and twisty YA thriller! Enjoyed this one!3 s Becca C22 3

I love a book set at a ski resort, and it's the perfect setting for a mystery.
The dynamic between Esme and Bode was refreshing, and fun to read. Esme's inner dialogue was so relatable (even though I am no longer a teen girl, haha).
I find that YA mysteries this can go either way - some love to shock you with dark and gory surprises, while others draw you in with "what's around the corner?" breadcrumbs. Have You Seen My Sister was the latter of the two, and for that I was grateful. I was rooting for Esme and, honestly, pretty proud of her at the end.
This was my first Kirsty McKay novel but I will be reading more.

Thanks to NetGalley for my ARC. I hope this review helps others who are curious about what really goes on at the nearby ski resorts. 3 s Jessica65 8

The twists and turns made it hard to put down. Not ashamed to admit I read it in one day. And the fact that the hero has an "issue"... really works well within the story.2024 library-e-reads2 s Julia Nash214 20 Shelved as 'dnf'

DNF at 30%.
All the characters are insufferable.2 s Alyssa462 20

I’ll start off by saying I am an adult, and this book definitely is geared toward middle grade. If I was a lot younger I maybe would have enjoyed this more, but I am not.

There was something about this though that I couldn’t stop thinking how I wanted to read it. I think because the cover reminded me of Until Dawn. It was in no way similar to Until Dawn but I really d the cover so I kept thinking about it until I finally had to pick it up.

I didn’t care about any of the characters, I wasn’t even sad or worried for Gaia, I was more wondering what happened to her. There were a lot of characters to pay attention to. There were random tidbits thrown in there or people that had no meaning.

I thought I knew who did it and how it happened, but I was wrong so there was that. At least I didn’t guess it lol

The ending was super quick. All that build up to everything being revealed in five pages, not to mention there was so much happening with so many different people I was left with, what the heck is going on. Then the conflict ended in two seconds practically and the reunions weren’t very satisfying. There were just one line interactions and that was it.

Even the romance didn’t have any spark. There was just nothing to it.

There was an epilogue so at least we got some closure, but even that was two pages long and rushed so there was really no point.

It was a very easy read and there were a couple of quips from Esme that I laughed at, but I said at the beginning of my review, this is for a very young age, and it just didn’t work for me.1 Pixie/PageTurners Blog(Amber) C.578 55

Definitely kept me guessing.2023-52-books-52-weeks-challenge 2023-popsugar-reading-challange 2023-read-list1 ?vi?33

major letdownnnnnn, I was expecting this book to be a scary thriller, but there was a lot more romance than I , I wanted to read this thinking it would be intense level a good girls guide to murder, HECK NO! I should've known though, the main characters british. God I hated every character in this book

I'm Esmes age right now, and girl, you would NOT catch me tryna get a boyfriend, WHEN MY LITERAL SISTER IS MISSING FOR OVER LIKE 3 DAYS.1 2 comments Emily T20

it was somewhat good up until the end. there was so much blame being pointed everywhere it was just frustrating 1 Kristin ?1,090 20

Picked this one up due to the cover and title, which indicated that this would be a suspense thriller.

However, the mystery itself is quite dull. The stakes don't feel high and the person accountable is so painfully obvious from way to early one. The romance was also a no for me. The main characters internal voice read as very young. You could almost categorize this as middle grade. Did not do it for me.fiction1 Haley Jane Marie26 1 follower

Great story line! The end got very confusing but otherwise good!1 Jordan686 36

Overall, this was an okay YA mystery.

Prior to reading this book, I’d never heard of dyspraxia. Learning about this condition helped to see Esme through the lens of her condition vs. as a spazzy teen who is so clumsy it’s comical. It was a nice way to bring awareness to a condition that is ly unfamiliar to most readers.

Esme was a fun character. She’s feisty, devoted, and willing to do anything to find her sister. She’s a very young heroine navigating the world of romance while bulldozing through crime scenes and interrogating persons of interest. She gets embarrassed, makes mistakes, and fumbles through flirting. She’s oddly relatable and someone you want to root for.

The pacing was so-so. I kept reading because I needed to know what happened-if Gaia was alive or dead, and who was behind the whole disappearance.

But, if I’m honest, my main motivation was the blossoming romance between Esme and Bode. Their adventures together as they chased down clues and got in trouble had me speeding through pages. Every interaction was cute-sometimes shy, sometimes flirty. I loved it.

Read more here: https://youngadultbookmadness.com/202...netgalley-23-241 Daria261 6

this was the most unserious YA mystery thriller that I have ever read.

Oh, god. This was awful. The story was trying so hard to be a mystery thriller that really just ended up being a terribly written one that forgotten what genre it was in. The fact they were making jokes and have some unrelated conversations outside of the main plot of the story was beyond me. Don’t even get me started on how this girl wasn’t even that serious when it came to find her own sister much less be worried about her and why was this girl more worried about some random boy crush over her sister that had gone missing…smdh.

The characterization was two dimensional, there were some major harmful stereotypes of people being betrayed, and the fact that these teens were acting cartoonishly stupid than what an actual teenager acts is just so funny to me in weird way.1 Darryn387 2

Thank you to Edelweiss for this digital arc.

The writing was good but I could not get into this story. I didn't think it flowed well. It felt more of an abrupt zig zag. The main character also irritated me by how she treated her sister's disappearance. She didn't share certain things with the police or even her parents right away. I get that you have loyalties to your siblings but when someone is missing, time is of the essence.approved-edelweiss ya1 Cornerofmadness1,781 15

I won this in a GR giveaway and this is rounded up from a 3.5. Overall I did enjoy this mystery. I thought the red herrings were well sprinkled in. On the other hand, I did have some issues with some of the point of view character Esme's choices (though she is 15 and judgement centers have a min. of a decade more to develop into adulthood).

Esme's family is visiting New England from England (where we're not sure. The Canadian border isn't far, it's ski country and they keep talking about driving into Boston) Her older half sister Gaia has gone missing after a goodbye party that Esme also attended but only partly remembers. (this and her 'clumsiness' are part of her dyspraxia) The addisons, the wealthy family and friends to Esme's family only get the resort security involved at first as Gaia is college aged and might have just left on her own. Esme and her family don't buy that for an instant (and it seemed a way to interject how Gaia's case might be viewed thru a racist lens as she, un Esme, is biracial).

There are plenty of suspects, Craig a 30ish ski instructor, a few other ski people, Scott who was reality show famous and was working with Gaia to get back into the limelight, a few sketchy types and several others. Naturally Esme's family is out searching but Esme is also out playing Nancy Drew with a local boy Bode (there's a shoe horned in side romance here which I found distracting and weird. She's thinking about that while her sister is missing?)

I had a good idea who had to have some involvement from the moment they found Craig's truck because yes, he too is missing. The ending is a wee bit over the top action wise but overall I enjoyed it. What I didn't enjoy was Esme hiding things from her parents and the cops to save her sister's reputation. She's old enough to know that isn't going to work well.

I did see reviewers didn't find it believable that people didn't take the disappearance more seriously. I'd respectfully invite them to watch a week of true crime. Teens Gaia's age are often written off as runaways, more than anyone wants to think of. The stats in America are appalling, over 2000 kids going missing daily and about a million yearly between here and Canada so yeah, that there were police on the case and it not totally ignored was not unbelievable to me.giveaways mystery neurodivergent-characters ...more Liliana918 197

Reviewed on Lili Lost in a Book

I enjoyed this author’s Undead duology as well as her other YA thriller The Assassin Game, so I was excited to get something new from her! And overall, I thought this book was okay.

As the title suggests, our main character’s sister goes missing. Esme and her family are from the UK and were visiting her sister Gaia in the US where she was working at a ski lodge. But the day before Esme and her parents are set to head back home, Gaia disappears.



Given the cover and the description, I thought this book was going to take place at a ski lodge/resort. For whatever weird reason, I love books that take place in that sort of setting. I don’t even ski!
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