Second time starting this one… and I actually had to fact-check because I genuinely couldn’t remember if I’d ever read Mary Kubica before.
Turns out I have. Twice.
And yet here I am, once again falling victim to BookTok recommendations. Every single time. (Need to delete that app immediately. For legal reasons, I won’t.)
There’s something uniquely unsettling about stories that begin in silence—until one moment shatters everything.
A family vacation. A quiet lakeside cottage. The kind of place where summers stretch endlessly and memories are supposed to be made. But sometimes the prettiest places hide the ugliest truths.
That’s what drew me to It’s Not Her.
At its core, this isn’t just a mystery about a missing girl or a brutal crime. It’s a story about family secrets, the lies we tell to protect the people we love, and the terrifying realization that we may not know those closest to us at all.
I originally DNF’d this a couple of weeks ago, but after seeing every girlie pop on TikTok talk about it, I caved and picked it back up.
Regrets? Maybe.
Things are happening, but I’m just… not that into them.
Reese disappears shortly after her parents are murdered. Before that, she had been talking to some random guy named Daniel. Her aunt Courtney and uncle are desperately trying to find her while juggling three traumatized kids, a police investigation that feels painfully slow, and a whole lot of family drama.
Basically: vacation from hell.
And because apparently this town collects missing children like Pokémon cards, another girl vanished five years earlier and was never found. Her parents even join the search for Reese.
Nothing suspicious there.
Then Courtney discovers provocative photos of Reese on her husband’s iPad.
Excuse me?
They’ve been married for eleven years. He’s Reese’s uncle. Reese is seventeen.
Insane.
I have really mixed feelings about this book because everyone seems at least a little unhinged. By the 60% mark, I wanted to be questioning everything, connecting red strings on an imaginary corkboard, doubting every character.
Instead?
I was bored.
And that pains me because I love messy family thrillers.
The ending also didn’t fully work for me. What happened to Reese—and especially to Emily and Nolan—just wasn’t believable enough for me. However, I did enjoy the detective aspect of the story, which ended up being one of the stronger parts of the book.
Overall: really mixed feelings. Not terrible, not amazing, just one of those thrillers that never fully grabbed me by the throat the way I wanted it to.
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