A Girl Named Anna by Lizzy Barber

Cover Image From Google

Cover Image from GoodReads

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my review. All opinions are my own. 

So, I believe that this book was originally published in 2018 under the title My Name is Anna but was recently released in September 2019 as the title I am reviewing it under, A Girl Named Anna. I couldn't find out why (Google let me down), but I think the first title was probably the better fit, especially since the line was actually used in the book.

Here's the story: Anna is an 18 year old girl who lives with her mom. Mom is uber religious and seems to have some OCD tendencies. Anna and her boyfriend go to Astroworld for her birthday (even though she is forbidden from going there for some reason) and she has a flashback or a memory of having been there before. The book alternates between Anna's story and Rosie's story. Rosie is a teenage girl who's family was torn apart after her sister was taken from, you guessed it, Astroworld. 

The book itself took me some getting into, because it started off really slow. Then it started to get good, and by the time the two characters were putting the pieces together the book was 88% done, so the ending felt a bit rushed. I would have liked to see how things were handled after they figured out that Anna was the missing girl. I feel like so much could have been done with this book, and it fell flat in the end. I also read the synopsis that painted it as a thriller, but it wasn't very thriller-y. The suspense just wasn't there for me. It was NOT a bad book, just more of a family drama than a thriller, and I wish the ending would have gone a little longer.