I've read several books by this author, and this was another one I really enjoyed. It's a fast-paced psychological thriller, I read it in one sitting. Once again I thought I had everything all figured out, but nope! Who was the message meant for? One of the victims? Were the killings retribution for something? Motive?

The book starts off with a bang and ends with one too. I was immediately drawn into the story, and ended up finishing it in just one sitting! I got strong 'Final Girls' vibes, which was another book (written by Riley Sager) that I just adored, so that made me even more excited to see how this one would end and compare it to Final Girls. I had a lot of theories from really early on as to what happened that Halloween night, but I wasn't able to correctly piece everything together, which I loved. The ending took me by surprise until it was hitting me in the face, and I thought it was perfect! When we as children encounter sudden or chronic adversity, excessive stress hormones cause powerful changes in the body, altering our body chemistry. The developing immune system and brain react to this chemical barrage by permanently resetting our stress response to “high,” which in turn can have a devastating impact on our mental and physical health. Carly Robins is a new to me narrator, but one I would gladly listen to again. Her unique voices, tone and ability to drive up the tension were superb. The story lends itself perfectly to audio with its flow, chapter set up and perspectives. This research is not an invitation to blame parents. Adverse Childhood Experiences are often an intergenerational legacy, and patterns of neglect, maltreatment, and adversity almost always originate many generations prior to one’s own.

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Chelsea barely survives a horrific murder at Halloween which sees her 2 flat mates slaughtered. She is stabbed, slashed and bleeding out when Lang and his police colleagues arrive. Her life is saved and she recovers physically, albeit scarred. Mentally the scars will never heal and she spends some time in a psychiatric hospital after attempting suicide. She had left Springfield and moved ninety miles east of Boston after the murders. She would be safer there. However, she had wondered why he had spared her. Would he return to finish the job? No matter who the victims were, no matter their gender, religion, social class or circumstances, the bitter, acrid stink of their fear always smelled the same" She had a nasty scar on her cheek that extended from the side of her nose to her left ear. Chelsea had been diagnosed with amnesia and lost memories, nightmares and flashes. Now 5 years later, she still lived in fear with the thought of the killer’s return. After the murders of her roommates, Chelsea left Springfield and moved to Boston, where she lives an isolated life working from home as a medical transcriptionist. Elizabeth, a nurse she met after the murders, is the only person she can trust.

Halloween, the fifth anniversary of the murders, takes on a new twist. Who is really the killer (then and now)? Or is there something more dark and sinister at play?Disturbed is a poorly written, cheesy story about yet another survivor of a massacre in which the main character conveniently can't remember a single detail of that fateful night. Chelsea is a decent protagonist. She survived a horrific night, and though she still bears scars (figuratively and literally) of her awful experience, she is moving on with her life and doing what she can to put it all behind her. There are themes touched upon with Chelsea that make sense. Survivor’s guilt being the biggest one. There’s also the difficulty with making lasting connections, which is almost a given due to her foster home upbringing. She’s also kind of a contradiction…she runs 5 miles a day, but eats almost nothing but pizza and Hungry Man microwave dinners. But, I guess with the constitution of a 23 year old, you can get away with that. She’s reclusive, which make sense given her past experiences. And she’s struggling with memory loss, which makes her question some of what she sees. It’s an interesting mix, as she’s determined and motivated, but she’s also basically programmed to doubt what is real and therefore can hardly make any forward progress. She’s essentially her own unreliable narrator. We find out that the girls had company that night, Ethan and Boyd. Boyd had to leave early to go to work. Ethan is never seen again after the murders. He is their only prime suspect and the case goes cold after so many years. He has simply vanished or so it seems. Childhood Disrupted helps shift the paradigm in our understanding of health and well-being by unveiling the role that early adversity plays in our physical and emotional adult health. Donna offers a missing piece of the puzzle as to why women suffer in disproportionate numbers from chronic physical and mental health conditions, and opens a new and much-needed door for healing.”

One hundred thirty-three million Americans suffer from chronic illness and 116 million suffer from chronic pain. This revelation of the link between childhood adversity and adult illness can inform all of our efforts to heal. With this knowledge, physicians, health practitioners, psychologists, and psychiatrists can better understand their patients and find new insights to help them. And this knowledge will help us ensure that the children in our lives—whether we are parents, mentors, teachers, or coaches—don’t suffer from the long-term consequences of these sorts of adversity.Childhood Disrupted masterfully captures the complexity of how early life adversity imprints on our biology and stalks our health into adulthood. Heart rending stories of hardship and triumph laced with medical facts and findings creates a framework of practical advice for remaining unbroken in a challenging world.” A groundbreaking book showing the link between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and adult illnesses such as heart disease, autoimmune disease, and cancer—Childhood Disrupted also explains how to cope with these emotional traumas and even heal from them. The book starts with a bang! A cop arrives on scene and finds two college girls brutally murdered in their apartment while a 3rd girl, Chelsea, is just barely clinging to life while hiding in the bath tub. I really liked this one. It’s one of those psychological thrillers that you’ll enjoy it! It’s well-written and fast-paced. Told in multiple POV, 3rd person. It’s a stand-alone novel. It was truly enjoyable for me and hope you like it, too!

One girl was left alive in the tub. Multiple stab wounds. One of them deep in the side of her abdomen. Blood everywhere. Fast forward to the present and we find that Chelsea is still reeling from her ordeal and barely leaves her apartment. Her only solace is her best friend Elizabeth. Then, out of the blue, Boyd re-enters her life. That's when the strange messages start arriving. She is terrified that Ethan is stalking her and wants his revenge. Adverse Childhood Experiences should not be confused with the inevitable small challenges of childhood that create resilience. There are many normal moments in a happy childhood, when things don’t go a child’s way, when parents lose it and apologize, when children fail and learn to try again. Adverse Childhood Experiences are very different sorts of experiences; they are scary, chronic, unpredictable stressors, and often a child does not have the adult support needed to help navigate safely through them.An Eco warrior with a novel way to avert the overpopulation crisis in an original and sometimes gory fashion. The middle of the book seemed to take a different pace, and focused a little more on Chelsea's relationship and the issues that came with it, and for a little bit I thought it was odd that the book was taking that direction, however everything tied together in the end, and it all made sense, so if you read the book and start thinking it's losing its thrilling edge, just you wait! Still I knew: I was fortunate to be alive, and I was determined to live the fullest life possible. If the muscles in my hands didn’t cooperate, I clasped an oversized pencil in my fist to write. If I couldn’t get up the stairs because my legs resisted, I sat down halfway up and rested. I gutted through days battling flulike fatigue—pushing away fears about what might happen to my body next; faking it through work phone calls while lying prone on the floor; reserving what energy I had for moments with my children, husband, and family life; pretending that our “normal” was really okay by me. It had to be—there was no alternative in sight. While I did figure out the who, Jaynes tripped me up with a stellar twist that was brilliant. I love when the reveal feels like an "aha moment" and is delivered with believability. Disturbed was my first Jennifer James book and I look forward to reading/listening to more of them. This book wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be. Creepy yes, but not really scary. It was also a bit bloody, but nothing too disgusting which made me feel a little better.