Look Again

A "Have You Seen This Child?" flyer turns up in the mailbox of Ellen Gleeson ripping her world apart in Scottoline's new thriller Look Again. A journalist, Ellen just can't forget the striking similarity in features, of the age enhanced photograph, to her adopted son Will and she starts investigating the story behind the image.

The coincidences Ellen begins to uncover feed into her fear that her three year old son Will might not truly be hers. Her head knows better but her heart just can't leave it alone. She has to know the truth or at least prove to herself that Will isn't Timothy, the kidnapped child of Carol and Bill Braverman, the victim of a carjacking in Florida. Ellen uncovers much more than a passing resemblance. She finds a show more trail of untimely deaths that endanger her job, family, and ultimately the thing she wishes to protect the most, Will.

While the reader can easily see where this story line is going, willing Ellen to just stop as every page is turned, it ultimately doesn't matter as Scottoline expertly orchestrates emotions to a fever pitch. You just don't care that you know what's going to happen when she opens that door. Scottoline has you hooked and you are going to stay hooked until the very last page. show less

A woman sees a missing child flyer, and notices that the child looks remarkably similar to her 3 year old adopted son. She can't get the picture of the child out of her mind, and starts to do some research, if only to confirm for herself, that her child is not the child that was abducted as a baby 2 years ago. What would you do, as a mother, if the child you legally adopted, a child you've loved and cared for, a child who has recognized you for his mother as a baby, is discovered to be another couple's child, a child who was abducted when he was a baby? Would you keep the child and pretend you never saw the flyer? Or would you return him to his biological parents, both of whom have not given up hope that their child is alive somewhere, show more knowing that his return is going to bring you nothing but certain heart-wrenching grief?

This book had such great potential, dealing with this issue, and I thought the author did an excellent job in describing the adopted mother's mental torture, wanting to do the right thing and at the same time, not wanting to have to give up her child. Being brutally honest with oneself, trying to do not just the right thing, but more importantly, the right thing for the child is an agonizing process.

But that's where the book then, I thought, went a little pear shaped. The author decided to add a bit of mystery into the story, about the woman who gave her child up for adoption. Or did she? And what really happened during the abduction? I liked the way the adopted mother went about doing all she could to find out the true identity of her child. But just when I thought the author was about to dive into a defining moment, instead of crafting this with a more poignant but more realistic ending, she threw in some unbelievable action stunts and patted it down with a fairy tale ending. The wicked witch and her goblin destroyed, her prince comes to the rescue and all is sunny under the rainbow. I was disappointed with the last third of the book. It could have been so much better if the author hadn't caved to those who need happy endings. show less

Ellen Gleason is a journalist in Philadelphia. While writing a story about a CICU in a hospital she becomes enamored with a 1 1/2-year-old patient who never has any visitors. Upon inquiring, she is told he may be available for adoption. She adopts Will and is happy with her decision until she sees a missing child postcard in her mail. The child on it looks very much like her son. She becomes obsessed with discovering whether the missing Timothy Braverman on the postcard is the same child as her Will Gleason. She begins her investigation with her lawyer for the adoption, who she discovers has died from suicide one month after the adoption. The investigation takes over her life, placing her journalism position in jeopardy and eventually show more her life. show less

Scottoline does a good job navigating the legal, ethical and moral journey of the story's premise but beyond that, there really wasn’t a whole lot for me to love, or even like about this one. The writing is rather light-weight, more suited for a ChickLit or contemporary romance novel than a gut-wrenching thriller as this one is billed to be. Ellen as a character was impossible for me to accept. When she isn't day-dreaming about being romantically linked to Marcelo (her immediate supervisor at the newspaper) or engaging in some passive-aggressive office battles with her fellow journalist Sarah, Ellen is off throwing caution (and her job) to the wind when she decides that "she" needs to find out for herself Will's true lineage and show more embarks on a solo investigation to the point where she engages in behaviour akin to stalking and at some points in the story, comes across as a bit unhinged, and not in a very realistic way. I get that Scottoline is a single parent and may view things from a perspective different than mine (I am not a parent), but I found it very disturbing how focused the messaging is on mothers and how Ellen communicates that a mother's love is different, regardless of whether the mother is the birth mother. The story downplays male roles in general and IMO really takes a bit of a swipe at relegating the father to a secondary role as a parent and care-giver, which I found disturbing. I expected the story to have a bit more objectivity to it and not have such a "blinders on" female focus. It doesn't help that some of the dialogue was a weird mixed-bag of 40-something/20-something lingo and didn't always flow like a normal conversation would. There are also some continuity and just general common sense issues that if this had been a movie, would have driven me crazy.

Overall, this story probably works for readers who like their action-packed thrillers to be of the soap opera/romance beach read variety.

This was my first Scottoline read and while her stories may appeal to some readers (as some glowing reviews tend to suggest), I will be

passing on her other books as not my type of read. show less

Are you one of those people who looks at the faces in the ads for missing children? I am. So is Ellen Gleeson. Someday maybe I will recognize the face of a child in the neighbourhood and be instrumental in reuniting a child with his/her family. Never would I expect to see the face of my own child staring back at me. Ellen didn't expect it either, but there it was. The boy in the poster looked exactly like her son, Will. The reporter in her wouldn't let Ellen rest until she had explored the possibilities - and what she discovered is the stuff of every mother's nightmares.

If you have read any of Lisa Scottoline's other books, you will know that she is eminently readable. Her style includes a lot of dialog and short chapters. I read the show more book in one sitting. Partly because of the writing and partly because I got so caught up in the mystery. There were lots of twists and turns, lots of roadblocks to get through and just when you think you've got it solved ... well, you don't.

The ending bothered me a little just because I am not a fan of pat endings. On the other hand I was pleased with Ellen's generosity and heart at the end and all through the book. Just an excellent read. show less

When reporter Ellen Gleeson gets a “Have You Seen This Child?” flyer in the mail, her heart stops—the child in the photo is identical to her adopted son, Will. Her every instinct tells her to deny the similarity between the boys, because she knows her adoption was lawful. But she’s a journalist and won’t be able to stop thinking about the photo until she figures out the truth. And she can’t shake the question: if Will rightfully belongs to someone else, should she keep him or give him up?

I enjoyed the dilemma Ellen faced and the things she did to try to figure out if her son was the missing boy and then what to do about it if it was. The relationship between Ellen and her son came across as real and genuine. Ellen also had show more a budding romantic relationship that was a bit too good to be true. I figured out part of what was going on but there were still a few things that happened that I didn’t expect. Overall, the story was interesting and a bit suspenseful with enjoyable characters. show less

I need to not read books about parents losing kids. Or at least keep lots of tissue handy when I do. I really enjoyed this book, but felt like the resolution was a little too easy. Carol dies and it turns out Bill is not Will's biological father, so Ellen is free to keep him. Well, that's fine and dandy. But what if Bill was the biological father? What then? I feel like that would have made for a much more powerful story. This ending was a little too Harlequin Romance for my taste.