ALA Booklist (Mon Nov 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

Grace Carter is nothing like her famous newscaster mom, GG. GG seems too preoccupied with her own career to understand that Grace's passion trophysics not just a phase. Even when GG's in the room, she's not paying attention to anything but her work. When Grace's mom abruptly leaves a soccer game and later texts Grace's dad that she's not coming back, Grace and her father are stuck in the PWR rpetual waiting room they wait for the police to find her. Did she leave on her own? Is it possible she was abducted? With the help of her friends, Grace begins to come to terms with the fac that the person GG presented to audiences every night may not be the actual person everyone believed her to be. Voros manages to pull off a spectacular feat: writing a 500-page book that feels more like a breezy, well-written 100-page novel. A mixture of thriller and STEM-related science (real-life astrophysicist Elizabeth Tasker makes a cameo), this is sure to be a hit among readers who devour realistic fiction and family-driven mysteries.

Kirkus Reviews (Mon Nov 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

In the wake of her TV news anchor mom's disappearance, a Canadian teen revisits their fraught relationship.Her heart set on a career in astrophysics, Grace, 17, couldn't be more different from her mom, GG Carter, and grandma Patricia, a film and TV star. She's closer to her ecologist dad and younger brother, Charlie. Seeking clues to GG's disappearance from Charlie's soccer game, the police interview Grace's family. Grace, gifted at recognizing patterns, describes recent changes in GG but is reluctant to tell the police about the fight they had after GG took a call and missed her daughter's astrophotography presentation. GG's celebrity puts her family under the spotlight; Grace and Charlie stop attending school. The new normal includes police updates, neighbors' gifts of lasagna, and sleepless nights. Supporting Grace are her best friend, Iris, and their attractive, half-Korean/half-white classmate, Mylo McLean (Grace and her family and Iris are white). Due to events in his own life, Mylo has also experienced the stress of being in limbo, like Grace's family, and desperate for news. While the novel's first two-thirds are stellar—vivid, suspenseful, and tautly plotted—in the final third air leaks out of the narrative balloon; only then do readers feel its exceptional, 500-plus-page, length. That's not to downplay the strengths on display—compelling characters, wry humor, masterful and suspenseful plotting—rather, the contrast raises expectations that aren't entirely fulfilled.Fans of edgy suspense won't be disappointed. (astrophysicist interview) (Fiction. 14-18)

Publishers Weekly (Mon Nov 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

After her mother, famous TV broadcaster G.G. Carter, disappears, 17-year-old Grace begins to piece together secrets of her family-s past. G.G. disappears in the middle of Grace-s little brother-s soccer game, ostensibly to take a work call, but when she doesn-t return and fails to respond to phone calls and texts, she officially becomes a missing person. The question is, was G.G. taken, or did she leave of her own accord? Grace, a budding astronomer with a keen ability to see patterns, begins piecing together clues to figure out what happened to her mother. And with the help of her best friend, her crush, and her actor grandmother, Grace realizes that not everything in her life is what she had believed it to be. Slowly teasing out the story, Canadian author Voros deftly mixes a missing persons mystery with science, complicated mother/daughter relationships, first loves, and close friendships, and keeps the narrative engaging by conveying the complex relationships Grace must navigate with her friends and family. Ages 14-up. Agent: Louise Lamont, Luigi Bonomi Assoc. (Apr.)