Wherever Nina Lies, Lynn Weingarten

Weingarten, Lynn (2009).
Wherever Nina Lies
New York: Point
978-0545066310
Genre: Realistic Fiction, mystery

Two years after the disappearance of her older sister, sixteen-year-old Ellie goes on a quest to find her.
___________________________________________

Ellie has always longed for the day when she and her alternative, artsy sister Nina would be friends, not just sisters. But the novel opens with Ellie explaining how Nina snuck out of the house one night and never came back. Nina has spent 2 years trying to figure out where her sister could be. Ellie works as a barista and has a gay friend named Brad who seems to understand Ellie better than Ellie’s best friend, Amanda. Ellie and Amanda find a picture that was drawn by Nina in an old box of junk. The two girls begin to decipher the clues in an effort to find any info about Nina. After the two end up at a party where the house burns down, Amanda backs out of the search. At the party, Nina meets Sean who encourages and enables her to pursue her quest to find her sister. He claims to have suffered a similar loss, but Sean keeps the details to a minimum. As Ellie and Sean leave the state in search of more clues, traveling from Chicago, to Nebraska, to Denver and then San Francisco, astute readers will recognize that Sean may be a threat as he repeatedly states that meeting Ellie “is fate” and grows more and more possessive of her. Along the trip, Ellie’s flashbacks about her sister reinforce Ellie’s longing and determination to find her sister and detract from the unbelievability of the novel. At one point, Sean tells Ellie that he has hired a P.I. who has found that Nina is dead. A devastated Ellie thinks that they will return to their home state, but when Sean suggests they leave and live on their own, Ellie becomes suspicious. The tension increases page by page…apparently, Sean has been using Ellie to get to Nina, who he thinks he loves and wants to kill because she has never returned the feelings. In fact, Nina was Sean’s brother’s girlfriend, and Sean has killed his brother in an effort to be with Nina. Unbeknownst to Ellie, Nina left to protect her family from Sean. Will Ellie escape Sean's hold? Will Ellie find where Nina lies?
While unbelievable, Weingarten’s clipped dialog, present tense narration and fast past keep readers enthralled. There is some sex but not gratuitous; mentions of tattoos and piercings.