"Do Not Become Alarmed"

“Do Not Become Alarmed”

Written by Maile Meloy

Review written by Diana Iozzia

Spoiler Friendly

“Do Not Become Alarmed” was an impulse purchase. It had all the makings for a great book: two couples go on a cruise. Their children go missing. Well, I thought this would be a great thriller, but I was sorely disappointed. I give the author credit, because she created very vivid detail with very natural dialogue. However, there were too many elements in this book that I did not enjoy.

The cruise part of the story is nice to hear about the fun they’re all having. The wives, plus the wife of a couple they met while traveling, decide to go on a mountain adventure excursion. The truck breaks down, so the tour guide, the wives, and the children head to the beach. While one mother sunbathes, the other goes off and has a sexual encounter with the tour guide, cheating on her husband. When they awaken, all of the children are missing.

We read through a third person perspective as the children are navigating their way in the woods. One child, the son of the Argentinian couple the families met while traveling, decides to travel back to the beach, via river, to get help from their parents. The other children are ‘rescued’ by a drug dealing family, because the drug dealers suspect the children spotted a body. They are taken to a small little forest hut and are given specific clothes to wear and are watched by a maid and the brother of the head drug dealer.

During this kidnapping, the head drug dealer brutally rapes one of the children, who is fourteen. Now, this is not sugar-coated; this is severely vivid and disgusting. I honestly cannot believe a writer would sit down and think, “Yes, this is something that is vital to my story. An extreme rape scene of a child.” This truly ruined the book for me, because it was completely gratuitous. There was absolutely no need for the detail that was written. I understand that the villain would need to be established, but it shouldn’t have been written that way.

The couples struggle to locate their children, attracting local news. I did not enjoy reading the end of the story, all of the characters that try to save the children, or seem like they are planning to rescue the children. Unfortunately, the child who swam down the river was not recovered, but everyone else in the story who was important survives. There was a man who tried to help the children, who accidentally died, but by this point, I felt no sympathy to every character. I would not recommend this book to anyone sensitive to rape, sexual assault, or violence. The rape scene was on par with a snuff film.