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| Watch Me Disappear | 
 enlarge | Author: Jill Dawson
Publisher: Sceptre
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £7.98 (100%)
New (34) from £0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 207788
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0340822996
EAN: 9780340822999
ASIN: 0340822996
Publication Date: January 11, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Crisp once read copy with light spine creases.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 Seahorses and childhood May 28, 2008
There are so many books out now about those left behind when children disappear and sadly I felt that this book did not provide enough beautiful prose, believable well formed characters or any suspense. The "I" character is clearly well educated as an academic expert in seahorses and yet her tale is not told in an adequately insightful way. I would only recommend this book to those who are interested in marine life or small town/countryside childhoods.
 Watch Me Disappear May 4, 2008
A difficult subject, sensitively handled alongside a vivid description of growing up in the seventies. Overall a good book, but for some reason, I don't feel my usual need to immediately seek out the author's back catalogue.
 Accomplished novel if sometimes uncomfortable reading March 25, 2008
Watch Me Disappear by Jill Dawson came to my attention via a review by John Self. While I was vaguey aware of her through her novel Fred & Edie, the striking cover of which regularly used to catch my eye in my previous existence as a bookseller, I had never gone as far as to pick up any of her books. Now that I think of it, I have no idea why, and what a shame because Watch Me Disappear is a fine book indeed.
The novel follows Tina Humber who returns to the Cambridgeshire village she grew up in for a family wedding, and so confronts the memories of her childhood friend Mandy, who disappeared when she was 10. (An aside: another book about girls going missing? How odd. I didn't notice until now.) It's a long time since Tina has been in England - she now has a career researching seahorses in the US, where she also has a husband, and a child the same age as Mandy was when she went missing. Long-buried memories start popping up unbidden, and soon Tina realises she knows exactly what happened to her friend, and perhaps always has.
This book is a real slow-burner. I don't mind admitting that at first, when I started reading it, I was inwardly debating whether to put it straight back down again. Not that there was anything bad about the book, it just wasn't grabbing me. Soon, though, it got somewhat under my skin and I couldn't put it down even if I tried (a cliche, but true). The slow-build, now that I have finished it, is actually perfect for the story. If everything moved at top speed then the narrative would undoutedly lose that magic ingerdient that makes Watch Me Disappear so compelling. Not only is it compelling, but it is also brave - not many writers could handle a subject as thorny as the innocent sexuality of young girls without it smacking of sensationalism or being a touch tawdry but Dawson pulls it off without question. A mark of a talented writer and no mistake.
At times it is an uncomfortable read, not least when the image of Holly and Jessica, the two Soham schoolgirls brutally murdered a few years go, is invoked on one or two occasions. The invocation works here, but again it is easy to see that it could so easily have gone completely wrong if Dawson hadn't been in full control of her subject. This book perhaps isn't for the faint-hearted, but my, you'd be missing out.
 What do I remember? August 18, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I had preconceived ideas about the content of this novel and the type of direction the story would take. I expected a journey into the past for the narrator, with some kind of resolution regarding the disappearance of her best friend when they were both ten. As I read I realised that the novel was in fact concerned with more complex issues, such as how memories are formed, how far we can trust our memories and how can we be sure that what we remember is the sum of what actually happened. The narration is from the perspective of the main character and it is only through her reported conversations with others that we catch a glimpse of memories other than hers, which hint at other "truths" that could, if we only had access to them, shed some light on the story being told. The novel, in part, recreates childhood in the early seventies (which was very nostalgic for me). It is the way in which memory is explored, however, that truly resonates. The hints of damage done by unstated (possible) abuse and the tenuous connections between memory, medical condition, medication and denial are all below the surface. I've continued to think about different aspects of this book since reading it and it has been some time since I have read anything that is so understated and yet so thought provoking. I would recommend it very highly as a beautifully written book, which maintains its complex structure very well and creates, in its narrator, a vulnerable and fascinating character.
"This is the moment Mandy Baker reappears." April 1, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book is written in a lush, addictive way that leaves a strong imprint in the mind. At first I thought that it was lots of quirky thoughts compiled together, so that none of it was relevant or important, but then I realised that it was the profanity of the quotes and the distance between each thought that made them so relevant. Gripping story, takes a bit of time to get used to the literary style but once it has been read it sticks. Dark, mysterious, but not in an obvious way - since most of the story is shaded with innocent recollections of summertime and childhood. Compelling and subtle.
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