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Book Review of The Year of Fog

The Year of Fog
The Year of Fog
Author: Michelle Richmond
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Paperback
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Helpful Score: 3


I couldn't put this book down. I literally read it in two days...and I have two small children, so it's not like I have a ton of free time on my hands.

The narrator "loses" her fiance's 6-year-old daughter on a foggy San Francisco beach. This book spans the year following that fateful day, as the police become more convinced that the little girl must have drowned, and the narrator becomes obsessively convinced that she was kidnapped. Even as her relationship falls apart (like you couldn't see that one coming), she becomes more committed to finding the little girl than she is to building a life with the girl's father.

Richmond is an excellent writer, who wraps the themes of loss, love, and memory into a fascinating story, although the plot does move rather slowly at times...just like that year does for those involved. Her details are vivid enough that after reading a scene in which the narrator enjoys some late-night french toast, I had to put the book down long enough to make myself some.