Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 09/01/2020 Gr 9 Up—When seven-year-old Dee Skinner walked into the woods with her best friend, Sibby Carmichael, she almost turned back—the woods were too dark, too ominous. But Sibby always had a plan, so despite her apprehension, Dee followed her in. Ten years later, Dee is still trying to make people forget that she's the girl whose best friend vanished. The trauma of Sibby's disappearance has led Dee to start a secret podcast: Radio Silent. She curates and assembles information from missing-person cases, and her listeners take it from there. Thanks to Dee's efforts, several people have been located. Dee longs to tell the gorgeous black-haired new girl across the street who she is, but she's worked so hard to keep people from seeing her as that little girl in the woods that she finds it hard to open up. With all the missing-person cases Dee has tackled, the one that drives her—and the only one that she can't bring herself to talk about on her podcast—is Sibby's. That is, until another little girl in Dee's town goes missing. Well-developed characters populate the story, and the dialogue is smooth and natural. The solution to the mystery is satisfying but somewhat forced, but the journey to get there is compelling—readers will find themselves pulled through the pages. Sibby is blonde and Dee's appearance and ethnicity isn't described. VERDICT A page-turner of a mystery with a strong lead character who is a member of the LGBTQ community make this book a winner.—Heather M. Campbell, formerly at Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO - Copyright 2020 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 02/15/2021 Delia Skinner is a junior in high school with a traumatic past and an unsure future. As a child, she was left behind when her friend Sibyl was kidnapped from their tree fort. In the decade since, Dee has built the strength to host a podcast dedicated to finding others who have gone missing; on the podcast, Radio Silent, she becomes the Seeker, and her fans are her Laptop Detective Agency. Her quest to work through her past trauma and navigate the shifting landscape of high school, all while working in secret to save lives, is a tough one. It's made even more difficult when a child with eerie ties to the cold case goes missing. As figures from her past rotate back into view, she must make difficult decisions: Will she sacrifice her own privacy to help another family? Will she have to relive her own trauma to uncover long-hidden secrets? Award-winning Ryan, whose books have appeared on the ALA Rainbow List, has created a thrilling mystery for fans of Courtney Summers and Nancy Drew. - Copyright 2021 Booklist.