Complex Trauma Rep in The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson

Spoilers! Spoilerific, this one. 

Let’s start with the spectacular:

• Bel’s character development - her progression from avoidant and bitter to wizened enough to give others the benefit of the doubt, to be a little friendlier.

• Many great stories show how a character learns to do something they never would have done in the beginning. She experiences this kind of revolutionary change. 

• The way the romance interacts with that, with escalating kindness and a gracious letting go.

  
  

Now, onto the personal and contemplative. I don’t read a ton of mystery, but due to personal experience, I wondered if Bel was viewing her dad through the goggles of dependency and if he was a gaslighter. 

As a mental health sensitivity reader, I appreciated the inclusion of these elements, but I want to draw attention to how unrealistically they were portrayed. This is a mystery novel; sensationalism and fast pacing are par for the course. But properly handled, this could have provided a little guidance to kids forced to deal with criminal elements in their lives, and I think it’s a missed opportunity. 

Let me explain in more detail. Little moments litter the novel - a claim that a cup broke, a criticism for leaving a window open, a remark about the trash - and these turn out to be little lies her dad tells to undermine her confidence and sense of reality. As petty and cruel as these behaviors come off to good average folks, it’s real. It’s a technique criminals use to keep the people around them guessing - and second-guessing themselves. This is a form of everyday gaslighting. 

Bel does not behave like a gaslit person. She idolizes her dad, but her reality warp stops there. It does not carry over into her confidence or sense of self. She catches Rachel in three subtle lies, sees the pattern, and believes in herself right away. When I was gaslit, I would have assumed I misheard things, succumbed to the pressure to trust older adults, made up any kind of possible story to explain things away. This is what constant reality shifting trains your brain to do.

When she does catch him in one of these minor lies, her reality spins on itself in the span of seconds. I want to assure fellow readers who have climbed their way out of a gaslit pit - it takes longer. It can take weeks or months after the initial “I’m being lied to about stupid stuff” revelation to unpack years and years of more relevant lies.

That kind of dependent attachment on an abuser does not stop so abruptly. It just doesn’t. There will be a grief process for the person you thought they were. I had no strong impression of Bel grieving the dad she thought she had. It would have added some quality bittersweetness to the ending. 

I don’t think it’s asking too much for young readers to contemplate the complexities of complex trauma. Untangling the mystery itself is an elaborate intellectual challenge. I read far more disturbing things for high school coursework, and I would have found it compelling. It's easy to chalk these discrepancies up to the nature of a mystery novel--or even the type of personality Bel has--but it felt like it was worth a discussing.

It made me want to validate the journeys of others recovering from complex trauma and just remind them--the reality shifting out of a gaslight takes time.

Thanks for reading - please feel free to share your thoughts.

The Reappearance of Rachel Price can be found on Amazon, Libby, and Viewpoint Books!