Publishers Weekly
Starred Review.
The fifth and final installment of Janie Johnson's story brings the series that started more than two decades ago with The Face on the Milk Carton to a highly gratifying close. Janie-who in high school discovered that the family that raised her was not the one she was born to-is now in college, keeping her complicated past to herself to make a fresh start in New York City. When a true-crime author wants to use Janie as the subject of his next book, a complex chain of events propels her back into the arms of her onetime boyfriend, Reeve. Meanwhile, Janie's long-ago kidnapper, Hannah, embarks on a vengeful quest. Quick, short scenes and plenty of crosscutting between numerous characters' points of view keep the story moving with breathless momentum. Cooney generates a compassionate and thorough sense of closure by interweaving brief updates on nearly every individual-teenager or adult-that has appeared in the series. Though there's never much doubt that Janie, Reeve, and Hannah will end up where they ought to be, it's a treat to watch them get there. Ages 12-up.
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From the Publisher
Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, February 18, 2013:
“The fifth and final installment of Janie Johnson's story brings the series that started more than two decades ago with The Face on the Milk Carton to a highly gratifying close.
Kirkus Reviews
Over two decades after the Janie series began with The Face on the Milk Carton (1990), Cooney concludes the thriller-romance saga of kidnapped Janie Johnson. Janie, having balanced living with both her "real" family and her kidnap family, looks forward to the anonymity of college, only to discover that a true-crime writer wants to revive the ordeal in a book. Although her heart is still with Reeve, the boy next door who betrayed her, she begins to date Michael--who is actually stalking her as a researcher for the crime writer. Dumping Michael, she falls back into Reeve's waiting arms. In a romantic proposal scene at the airport, they decide to marry immediately. With much rehashing of back story and Janie's endless wrestling over which boy she loves, the pace drags until the heart-pounding final pages. Janie, for all she has been through, is shallow and saccharine--a throwback to decades ago. Janie's wedding plans and multiple professions of faith in God give the book an explicit Catholic tone. Kidnapper Hannah Javensen's character, expressed in the interspersed chapters that explore her mental instability, has more psychological depth. Fans who have wondered whether Reeve and Janie's love endures and whether the kidnapper is caught will want this final piece of the puzzle. (Fiction. 12-17)
