Heartbreaking

It takes a little bit to get going, and it's best to read it in as few sittings as possible (just don't set it down for more than three days at a time like me), but when you really get into it, it's a great story. Not because of the mystery, mind you, but because of all the elements that play into it. This is a portrait of a town and its people, and how one event shapes lives in a small town. Whether or not you actually live in Arizona where Sycamore is based (though I have spent enough time there to feel the Arizona sun in the story), the description of small town life, the dreams of its inhabitants, and the way that lives interact is pretty universal; it's just the little details that change. Some characters seem to matter less than others, and some probably could be cut out if you wanted to shorten it, but overall it was a story that had heart and soul, even if it sometimes devolved into a lot of flowery speech.

Sidenote: I would almost describe Sycamore as a mix of the book Looking for Alaska (for an older, more literally mature audience), and the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (with less dark humor).

This is a common plot line (girl goes missing, town spends the next 18 years wondering what happened to her). But it was surprisingly so much more than that mystery. The characters were well developed, and unlike almost any mystery I can recall, this novel actually captured the grief that various characters experienced in the aftermath of her disappearance. Not just your average who-dunnit. This one seemed full of emotion beyond just the tension of the unsolved.

Chancellor really captured the mood of being a teen awaiting the adult life you think you are ready for, and the adult life looking back at how foolish, naive, and preciously perfect your teen self was with all the dreams and plans sure to happen. Though it is about a missing teen it is not just that story, instead it is about how life changes us, the decisions we make and how we make our way through life.

So much life in this book. Beautiful, hard, redemptive.

Sycamore is a little bit mystery on what happened to Jess Winters. But it is primarily an examination of the lives of those who knew Jess. The characters are very developed and tangible with all of their faults, their goodness, and feelings.

3.5 stars

I received Sycamore by Bryn Chancellor as a Goodreads Giveaway Winner.

Jess Winter's life is uprooted when her mother, Maud, moves her to the town of Sycamore after Jess's father starts a new family. Slow to find her place in the new town and new school, Jess eventually becomes friends with Dani and Dani's boyfriend Paul. When Jess, who's been known to go out in the middle of the night to walk and process her thoughts, doesn't come home one night after everything in her life explodes before her eyes, questions start circling about what has happened to her. Fast forward to present day. The mystery of what happened to Jess Winters has been a conundrum for the town of Sycamore for 20 years. When newcomer to the town, Laura Drennan, stumbles upon human remains, the unanswered questions the town has been avoiding about Jess's disappearance are finally forced out into the open.

Full of suspense and mystery, Sycamore is engaging from the very beginning. It is told from two main perspectives; of Jess 20 years ago and the events that led to the mystery of what happened to her, and of various people from Jess's life in present day as they recount their memories of Jess and begin to find answers to her mysterious disappearance. I enjoyed the varying viewpoints as it kept the story from becoming dry, although it was a little confusing in the beginning, as Laura and Maud's reasons for moving to Sycamore are almost identical and difficult to tell apart. I appreciated how real Chancellor was in her characters and how she never let the story go dry; it was always engaging and kept me curious about what was going to happen next. There were several pivotal points in the story where I wish she would have given more detail to help clarify what was taking place as I felt it was a little muddled in her lack of detail, as if she was trying to propel the story forward too fast. Overall, though, it was a great story with a diverse and relatable cast of characters. It lacks an abundance of twists and turns and an overload of complexity, which makes it an easy mystery to follow, especially for those who have difficulty putting a bucket load of pieces together. However, note that I'm not saying that the mystery is simple by any means, either.

This is a great read for anyone who loves a good mystery and enjoys suspense, however it is lacking in the "thriller" aspect, so while it keeps you guessing and wondering what happens next it does not have the edge-of-your-seat, heart-pounding quality that I would normally associate with the thriller. Still, a very exciting and worthwhile read for anyone interested in a good mystery that isn't overly riddled with complexity.

Sort of a struggle to review this one without sounding either overly annoyed and/or with spoilers. If its not overly clear from the blurb this is much more of a slice-of-life (but connected by a girl's disappearance) than a thriller mystery.

The story jumps between the past, around the time of Jess' disappearance and the present where some remains have been found in the local area. While at times the changes in narrative are masterful and intriguing at others they are a little confusing and disjointed - especially when you consider the sheer number of characters, many of which are quite similar at least in some areas.

I feel its important to clarify this as I suppose I was hungering more for mystery and complex interrelations, and while there are a LOT of relationships in Sycamore I feel there was a story tension between fleshing out all the tales and interweaving them with Jess' story. At times it felt a little stretched in my opinion and I do feel there was a little bit too much bait and switch towards the end of the story.

To explain without spoiling anything, what happens to Jess is very much held as the central tension and mystery of the book - with a real heck-tonne of misdirections and red herrings. BUT setting up this teasing creates a weird literary confusion, the real meat of the story is of course the various characters and their lives that central mystery is really just the focal point for all these stories.

And that's where the bait and switch comes in - its fine to have a story where the real treasure was the friends we made along the way - but its annoying that a lot of the story's tension came from a central mystery, that was resolved don't get me wrong, its just that idea of setup and payoff... It would be very annoying if Lord of the Rings ended with the realization that the One Ring was a metaphor for our own demons and we all have to metaphorically drop them in mount doom. Not because that's a bad story just we've had pages and pages of setup telling us the challenge is to get the ring into Mordor

Feels like I'm getting off track - Sycamore is a good read, the characters are beyond real and huge props to the author for developing so many intriguing interwoven stories. Just be cautious that I don't think this story will tame a hankering for a good murder mystery thriller type book, this is more a small town expose of the people type thing.