This is a strong story not for the faint of heart. Written from a different point of view about what happens when the unthinkable happens

<i>Snatched</i> is about a man, Kieran, whose job it is to kidnap children to sell them to rich couples who want to buy them for one reason or another. It relates in particular the story of Anna, who helps him kidnap 3 and a half-year-old Thomas from England, with the objective of selling him to a Russian couple. But then the deal falls through, the Russians leave, and plan B is apparently to sell Thomas to a Romanian pedophile ring. But Anna won’t have it, so she kidnaps Thomas from his kidnappers and they suck so much that they can’t find her and she travels everywhere with the kid and eventually returns him to his parents. All without ever being caught by the kidnapper, the Romanians, the police or the journalists.

So, the premise was sort of interesting (although other reviews say this has been done before? so interesting but not original?), which is what attracted me to the book in the first place. But that is unfortunately the only thing I liked.

It’s written in a series of short “diary entries” by a series of characters, all in the same, excruciatingly descriptive style. “I did this. And then he said this. I felt this, and then this happened.” And all the characters are unlikeable. All of them. Even little Thomas got on my nerves (because seriously, how dumb did he have to be to believe that they were playing hide-and-seek from his parents for months on another continent?)

One character sometimes “speaks” to the readers, to tell us our lives suck and we’re losers. Had the book been good, these kinds of asides could have been funny, but as it was they were just grating and annoying.

The ending could have been interesting too, there were a few potentially interesting threads throughout the story, but as it was it kind of just fizzled out. There was no punch, no satisfying ending. Just a place where there was no following page and a “oh, it’s finally over?”

So basically, the feeling I get from this book is “could have been.” A lot of missed opportunities and wasted potential.