She doesn’t remember.
He won’t let her forget.
From a distance, Claudia Castro has it all: the famous family, the trust fund, thousands of Instagram followers, and a spot in NYU’s freshman class. But then one drunken night everything changes.
Her memory hazy, Claudia cuts herself off from her family, seeking solace in a new friendship, but when the rest of school comes back from spring break, Claudia is missing.
Julia Dahl was born and raised in Fresno, California. After almost 20 years in New York City, she now lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her husband and son.
Dahl began her career as a journalist working as a fact-checker at Entertainment Weekly. Since then, she has been an editor at Marie Claire, a freelance reporter at the New York Post, the deputy managing editor of The Crime Report, and a crime and justice reporter for CBS News.
She now teaches journalism at NYU.
Dahl’s first novel, INVISIBLE CITY, was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, and won the Barry Award, the Shamus Award, and the Macavity Award for Best First Novel. INVISIBLE CITY named one of the Boston Globe’s Best Books of 2014, and has been translated into eight languages.
*Trigger warning: Mentions rape / serious sexual assault*
This is an intriguing look at life after a serious sexual assault on a freshman student, the rich and famous Claudia Castro by two friends, one very drunken night. We begin with Claudia waking up and realising that she has been assaulted the night before but has no memory of it, that is until surfaces of the night and what happened with who.
A compelling read, Julia Dahl, walks you through Claudia’s thoughts and decisions in the weeks that follow. Everything is driven by emotions of Claudia, her family and the perpetrators and their families dealing with the assault in a digital age.
I found the characters to be very realistically portrayed. Claudia is shown to be the girl who has everything initially, she has a famous family, a trust fund, and an enviable Instagram of over twenty thousand followers where she posts regularly. Everything changes after the attack, and we see the impact on her life. The guilt is followed by anger and revenge.
Chad has been infatuated with Claudia for years and doesn’t appear to carry any guilt over his actions, feeling that she deserves it after ‘leading him on’. His father knows the stakes and tries to protect him, not necessarily in the right ways.
Trevor waw the best character in my opinion, the perfect stranger who is supportive but also somewhat in love with `Claudia which leads him to some regrettable decisions. Sometimes in these situations it’s often easier to confide in a stranger.
The ending was the most disappointing part of the book and left me with many questions. I wanted to know more of what happened to the others in the book but mostly I wanted more for Claudia.
This is a book about rape, money, power and emotions. An insight into how the super-rich deal with situations, the family backgrounds and how many and power talk louder than real justice. Just to mention though, no official justice has been sought.
From the blurb I thought this would be a ‘normal thriller’ (my usual genre) but it was so much more nuanced and a captivating read about the aftermath of a crime rather than the crime itself.
I can see how Claudia felt more empowered by the end and it spoke to the appalling rate of convictions, the victim blaming that occurs and is both realistic and very topical.
I found this a very quick read but thought-provoking. It was also not mentioned that any of Claudia’s friends or 20 thousand Instagram followers were concerned when she disappears which like many other books of late speaks to the fake friendships that can be found both on and offline.
Thank you to The Publishers, Faber & Faber, the author and Netgalley for an Advanced Copy in exchange for an honest review.
| Title | The Missing Hours |
| Author | Julia Dahl |
| Series | N/A |
| Format | ARC |
| Page Count | 288 Pages |
| Genre | Trillers |
| Publisher | Faber and Faber |
| Release Date | 4th November 2021 (Paperback) |
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