Finding Hannah by John R Kess (Book Review)

Finding Hannah by John R Kess is centered around fifteen-year-old Dylan Beachley and his search to find his older sister, Hannah, after she is kidnapped as he slept just one floor away.  After the official search by volunteers and officers is called off, Dylan makes it his mission to find her on his own.  He is joined by Molly who eventually tells him about her life with a drug addicted mother and her abusive boyfriend.

The action started almost the second you opened this book.  While normally I enjoy books like that, I felt there wasn't enough of an emotional tie between the reader and Hannah to feel the pain of her absence. While you do get to know more about Hannah along the way, you don't feel the initial shock from her kidnapping. I think it was because of this that I didn't feel a sense of urgency to find her.

As the relationship between Dylan and Molly grows, I felt like the story became more about her and what she is going through.  This isn't a bad turn for the story. There's only so much you can say about Hannah who's kidnapped just a few pages into the book. Molly was my favorite character in the book because she seemed to have such a positive attitude even with an abusive home-life. I was taken by surprise at just how much I liked Molly and her story when I teared-up as Dylan read her a letter he had written.

This is listed as a children's mystery/thriller and I think that's the perfect way of describing it.  There's nothing too gruesome or scary. I feel like Finding Hannah is the perfect book if you are just trying out the thriller genre and not looking for something that might keep you up at night.  I would let my ten-year-old daughter read it without any worries. If you are someone who reads thrillers on a regular basis, you might be disappointed by the lack of detail surrounding the more painful aspects of the story.

Overall, I rate Finding Hannah 4 out of 5 stars.