Book Cover from Amazon
99 Days by AnnaLisa Grant
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Day 1: Caroline Patterson is kidnapped.
Days 2 – 98: Caroline endures unimaginable horrors.
Day 99: Caroline escapes.
May God help them all…
**Due to the content and subject matter of this story, 99 Days is recommended for mature/18+ readers.**
MY REVIEW
I bought the book because it ran two timelines concurrently – alternating chapters. I wanted to see the device in action, pretty sure it would fail, but curious enough to look.
Timeline one – Caroline being kidnapped and enduring “unimaginable horrors” until her escape. Trigger warning: rape, beating, mental abuse, etc.
Timeline two – Caroline recovering from her kidnapping and finding her own path toward healing (which may involve hunting down her kidnapper when the police can’t find him, just saying).
Results? It worked perfectly. The plot is tight, the switch back and forth between past and present clear, building tension throughout the story, and the resolutions of both timelines carried good payoffs.
The description of her abuse are low-keyed enough to let a reader know how horrible her experience was without completely living through them with her. This book is not torture porn, but emotional journey of survival (timeline one) and healing (timeline two) without ever forgetting the story is a thriller.
With a Master’s degree in Counseling and a background in human services, Ms. Grant captures up- and down-sides of how human society and institutions interact with individuals who have suffered rape and abuse all within a fictional entertaining yet informative story.
Reading time: 3 and a half hours.