Reviewed by Keith Mbuya for Readers' Favorite

Ryan and Alexa, two high school juniors from a small town called Lendinbrisk, Maine, had perfectly normal lives until the town’s Snowflake ball was fast approaching. It all starts with Ryan having lucid dreams in which he sees a strange girl. It gets even stranger when he bumps into the girl in his dreams at school and finds out it is Heather, his and Alexa’s long-lost childhood friend. As if on cue, they read a news article announcing the town's redevelopment. Nothing about this seems right. Apart from Heather being the daughter of the town’s largest construction company's CEO, Ryan has no memory of his childhood with Heather. But that’s not all. Both Alexa and Ryan wake up one morning and their parents seem to have skipped town, or have they just disappeared into thin air? As the trio tries to find their parents, they get sucked into a mystery where the truth is as elusive as the answers they seek. Find out more in Seth Knyte’s The Years of Our Lives.

Lovers of young adult slow-burn mystery, adventure, and psychological thrillers will find Seth Knyte’s The Years of Our Lives an enthralling read. With vivid depictions, Knyte whisked me away from reality and hurled me into a world of endless imagination. The plot is a puzzle itself, unfolding through the style of “a story within a story.” Each turn of the page made the puzzle more and more complex and I could not tell where the story was heading. Knyte's narration allowed me to experience the cast’s emotions. This and the juxtaposing of the cast’s traits made it easy to connect with them. On the outside, Ryan and Alexa’s relationship seemed to be a plain friendship. But the more I read between the lines, the more I was convinced they both felt more for each other, except no one was ready to admit it. With the arrival of Heather, who had been head over heels for Ryan since childhood, things only get murkier. There is drama, suspense, and adventure, all with a touch of fantasy.