Despite the lingering presence of very teenage problems (duh, it's YA; I'm just not in the target audience), Rules for Vanishing really utilized varying formats and multiple characters to its advantage. By using the investigation, interviews, and analysis of video/recording/photographic evidence, we really got to experience the story in a non-traditional way.
There were, however, too many characters (especially at the beginning), which made it hard to get a handle on the group dynamics without everything feeling very fake. Once we cut out a few extraneous characters, though, the ones left really started to shine and differentiate. The twists at the ending got to be a little too much as we strayed from weird to absolutely crazy but overall I enjoyed the experience and absolutely tore through it.
There were, however, too many characters (especially at the beginning), which made it hard to get a handle on the group dynamics without everything feeling very fake. Once we cut out a few extraneous characters, though, the ones left really started to shine and differentiate. The twists at the ending got to be a little too much as we strayed from weird to absolutely crazy but overall I enjoyed the experience and absolutely tore through it.