Six Months Later

By: Natalie D. Richards

Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller

When Chloe falls asleep in study hall, it is the middle of May. When she wakes up, snow is on the ground and she can't remember the last six months of her life.

Before, she'd been a mediocre student. Now she's on track for valedictorian and is being recruited by Ivy League schools. Before, she never had a chance with super jock Blake. Now he's her boyfriend. Before, she and Maggie were inseparable. Now her best friend won't speak to her.

What happened to Chloe? Remembering the truth could be more dangerous than she knows.…

©2013 Natalie D. Richards (P)2014 Tantor

Good plot. Several unexpected twists.

The characters are endearing. They leave you hoping that there will be a sequel so that we can keep tabs on their futures. No graphic or uncomfortable scenes to read. Well written.

Loved the Whole Gosh Darn Thing!

Was the ending totally predictable? Why yes...yes it was. But it was so delicious getting to that ending that I didn't even mind!

Six Months Later starts with Chloe, a wise cracking slacker, who basically goes to sleep in class, and wakes up to find six months of her life is gone with no recollection of anything. Trying to wing it she finds her life is all sorts of upside down and sideways, and even getting things she's always wanted in life doesn't matter in the grand scheme of memory loss or going snap crazy. But everything still feels off, and she can't shake the shudder when her new boy toy touches her, nor can she shake the flashes of memories when she's near a certain bad boy. Memories that show her a different life, one she desperately wants back. In searching for answers Chloe finds more than she can chew, and realizes some memories are best left forgotten.

Again, totally transparent in the long run, but oh my word was it wonderful getting there! Total high five to the narrator for nailing the voice and characters in pure perfection. No lie. She is literally my top narrator now.

As for the characters themselves, they were so nicely developed! No stupid moves that leave you shaking your fist muttering the ever present "why, just why?" There was only one thing that Chloe was a little blind to, but I'm not giving anything away...

The plot was great, moved along pretty well, and had me listening intently. It was, as I've said, pretty easy to spot it, but I tried not to think of the who what and why so I could be "ta-dah" surprised. Didn't work out to well. I just wish the villains had been more villainous. Otherwise, top notch book, a great mystery/suspense, and I completely enjoyed it!

Knowing What I Know Now, I'd Skip This

Where does Six Months Later rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

My thoughts from Goodreads. Please ignore the above question:

This was an interesting story, to some extent, but it had some serious issues, including basic failures by the author to appropriately research and represent the world that the story is set in (high school kids getting ready to transition to top notch colleges).

Also, the MC has about the least amount of curiosity and persistence possible, for this being a thriller/mystery novel. She basically solves the mystery by everything miraculously falling in her lap at the right moment, and not through any amount of asking questions, pushing boundaries, or actual sleuth-like behaviors.

The side characters are cookie cutter versions of stereotypes and often inconsistent.

"Okay, I forgive you."
"Wait, no I don't."
"Let's be friends again."
"I'm not sure we can ever be friends again." . . . ad nauseam.

However, despite these negatives, the heart of the plot is interesting (Chloe falls asleep a mediocre student and wakes up having lost 6 months of her life to now having the perfect GPA and boyfriend ---although it's not even remotely realistic that she could improve her GPA and college standing so much in just 1 semester), so it ended up being a quick read. I think it could be a significantly better and more thrilling story, given the plot it had to work with, but it's too surface-level and constantly convenient to really sink hooks into the reader.

Fast-paced = yes. Thrilling = not so much.

No issues or concerns with the narrator, who did a good job, which probably helped the story along.

Interesting story idea, told uninterestingly.

I was intrigued by the concept of this book: a girl trying to figure out why she's missing six months of her life. But the weak and repetitive dialog (and internal monologs) wore me down. I struggled to finish this book and actually abandoned it for a few days.

The one-dimensional, male characters add little to the story. The villain appears suddenly at the end, apparently just so that he can partially explain himself. We're left to speculate on the roles and activities of his fellow plotters, following an unsatisfying end of the novel.

The narration by Emily Woo Zeller is well-done.

Hooked after the first page!

Natalie has a way of captivating you from the first words of her books! I have read 4 in a row and each has been a nail biting experience, but this has been my favorite!

SO EXCITING - MIND BENDING

Any additional comments?

Man....oh man....oh man..... This was such a great book. It messed with my head and made me crazy, in all the right ways :).

Chloe fell asleep in school one day and when she wakes up six months has gone by. She has the boyfriend she has always dreamed of having, she all of the sudden is at the top of her class, has new friends. She seems to have it all. There is something missing though. All of the sudden she isn't best friends with her life long friend Maggie, and she is having weird lapses in memory.

Chloe spends time with her new (well new to her memory) boyfriend Blake, but doesn't feel like it's right. Everything seems to be off. Chloe keeps having dreams and glimpses of memories back and none of them seem to coincide with what is going on in her life.

Chloe is trying to maker her parents understand there is something more going on than just memories being gone. She's seeing a counselor, and making things up because she doesn't want everyone to think she has gone crazy.

She runs into Adam, the local bad boy, and when he touches Chloe, a memory comes to her. That is what starts Chloe's journey to find out what is going on.

I cannot imagine loosing my memories. I already don't' have a fantastic memory. I can look at pictures though and remember where we were, and even remember the feelings that went along with the day. Chloe couldn't even do that with anything involving the last six months.

She is determined to make up with Maggie, or at least find out what happened between them. There really is so much going on in this book. It is so fantastic. It was so exciting. It made my head spin and gasp a few time :).

In Chloe's search to find out what is going on with her, she realizes there is something much more disturbing going on. It's a wonderfully spun web of lies and deceit. Get ready for a page turning, bumpy, intense, at some times scary, emotionally charged ride.

a tantalizing mystery

this was a great book that kept you on edge til the last second. the ending was rooted in reality and was very satisfying, though I wouldn't have minded a couple extra pages. the performance was good and the narrator was excellent at distinguishing between voices.

Interesting story

Sometime you have to just sit back and wonder what the author was thinking. This book is supernatural at its finest. Guaranteed that you won’t stop listening all the way through to the end. It’s pretty good however, I would have liked to know what happens after she takes the second SAT, Enjoy!!

Rip Van Winkle?

This was the quest of a girl who woke up and discovered it was six months after she thought it was. She is trying to regain her memories, not let on how much she has forgotten, and figure out the danger those memories hold . Worth a read.

This book was okay.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I guess so. It's interesting, but I don't think the author did very much research on the subjects that needed it. Most of the storyline didn't need background research, but there were some references that seemed...slapped together. It is possible that this was the issue: I've been on a teen fiction kick, so I started with Jay Asher's 'Thirteen Reasons Why' and then Lauren Oliver's 'Before I Fall' (Both books were just incredible). If I had read this first, I may have liked it more, but I had to compare it to the other two based on the order in which I read the books.

Would you recommend Six Months Later to your friends? Why or why not?

Audible does this all the time! THIS IS THE SAME QUESTION: "Would you recommend Six Months Later to your friends?" and "Would you recommend this book to a friend?" Ha Ha. Just look up at the first question and you'll see my answer.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

I did want this question, because I have a clear answer that I thought about throughout the book. I'm actually a fan of Emily Woo Zeller, because of her performance of Grady Hendrix's 'My Best Friend's Exorcism,' which was done AFTER this. I believe Ms. Zeller has improved significantly, so her performance in this book wasn't up to the standard of MBF's Exorcism. That being said, she did do a decent job and I was never annoyed by her performance; I just believe that she progressed as an artist and this was one of her earlier works. She does have one of the BEST TEEN voices I've heard in audiobooks (Listen to 'The Hunger Games' trilogy and you'll see why I HATE when older sounding voices are put with anyone younger than 30). The only young female narrator that I think is better than Emily Woo Zeller would be Emma Galvin (Divergent, Poison Princess, and many others); however, Ms. Zeller is definitely in my top five favorite female narrators (including adult narrators like Julia Whelan, who did the voice of Amy from 'Gone Girl').

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Sure! I think that they would include more about the darker side of the book and actually do the research that Ms. Richards kind of glided over.

Any additional comments?

I do want to say this: I wish audible gave you the option for half stars, because I think that the performance deserves 3 1/2 stars. Also, the story isn't a complete 3, but it's also not a 2 or a 2 1/2. It'd be a 2 3/4, but I don't want to get that technical. I'm also a very tough judge and remember that I read two amazing books right before this one. I might be judging too harshly.
As for those who are considering this one, read it if you want a simple teen mystery. You might figure out the mysteries before the ending like I did, but you might not. Despite figuring it out, I still enjoyed the story and I had a very good time listening.