
Such Quiet Girls
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Published date:- April 29th 2025
Publisher:- Dynamite Books
Author:- Noelle W. Ihli
No. of pages:- 352 pages
Genre:- Thriller
Quick review:- A well written novel based on true story about the children and the driver being kidnapped and held for ransom. Gripping and intriguing
Rating:- 4 stars.

– Domestic abuse
-About Alzheimer’s disease
-Child abuse

Ten children, abducted in broad daylight—and buried alive.
Sage and her sister won’t make it home from school today. Neither will the other children on Bus 315. But that’s only the beginning of the nightmare.
New bus driver Jessa blames herself for what happened. She couldn’t protect the kids she was supposed to deliver to daycare, just like she couldn’t protect her own daughter three years ago. But this time, everything will be different. It has to be.
Trapped in a shipping container buried twenty feet underground, Jessa and the children do their best to stay calm. The kidnappers insist that if everyone behaves, they’ll be freed when the ransom is paid. But Sage isn’t sure they’ll last that long. Neither is Jessa. It’s dark and cramped, and with every passing minute it’s getting harder to breathe.
With time—and air—running thin, Jessa and the children must find a way to outsmart their captors, or face an unthinkable fate.
Such Quiet Girls was inspired by actual events.

Although this is a work of fiction, the story is loosely based on the real life events that took place in Chowchilla, California in 1976
Sage and Bonnie as usual takes a school bus to their day care. Sage is the oldest in the bus and she couldn’t wait until she didn’t have to take the bus anymore although her mother had instilled responsibility to look after Bonnie. The bus driver, Jessa is a thirty-something year old woman who recently got released from prison. She is working under a different name and had lied in her CV but Jessa is earning and trying to save money so she could reunite with her daughter Soph. Their normal routine changes when two men abducts the bus, forces the children and Jessa into the shipping container buried twenty feet underground. While the kidnappers are trying to come up with a plan to what to do with the money, Sage and Jessa are finding ways to escape from the container before they all die in the underground.
I like reading Noelle Ihli’s novels and this is the fifth book I have read from her, and the second book that is based on true events (the first book None Left to Tell, which is based on true story). She writes books with emotions and feelings and make you also feel like you are also the part of the story. In Such Quiet Girls, you have POVs of Sage, Jessa, Sheena who is Sage’s mother and who receives the ransom note from the kidnappers), Ted one of the kidnappers. We see Sage is a determined and courageous girl who thinks of herself as Harriet the Spy who will save and solve a crime. We see Jessa who becomes vulnerable as she remembers about the past but then end up saving the children with Sage. The ending was emotional however.
However, even though I liked this book, this book wasn’t as great as her other books. Nonetheless, I liked this book based on the fact that it is based on true story.
Overall 4 stars.
If you want to know more about the true story of Chowchilla Kidnappings, click the link






















