All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda: Reshelved Books

Hello to everyone who is reading this post!

Thursday is upon us and as promised, here is the review of All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda. This novel is Miranda's first having been written for the adult community; she has written several books for the YA community prior.  (Her newest YA novel: The Safest Lies is a book that I have added to my GoodReads "to-read" bookshelf.)

But as to not get too off topic, let us get back to why you are reading this post!

All the Missing Girls takes place in a small town in North Carolina, called Cooley Ridge. The main character Nic Farrell goes back to her hometown to finish work on tying up some lose ends: cleaning up and getting her father's house on the market and getting guardianship of him with her brother, Daniel.  Having received a letter from her father prior to her trip down to Cooley Ridge, Nic's past is about to come back in a big way.

During her visit, a girl named Annaelise goes missing, essentially vanishing into the darkness of the night. Searches in the woods turn up nothing and no one seems to know what happened to her.  This coupled with the fact that her best friend, Corinne went missing ten years ago makes Nic feel uneasy.  Slowly the past comes back to haunt Nic and one could even say that it consumes her....

After reading the synopsis on GoodReads, I thought to myself "Yes! I can get on board with this!"  (I do spend my days off watching Investigation Discovery, a channel that makes my husband VERY uneasy. lol).

So I took myself to the Barnes and Nobles and searched the fiction section high and low for the book.

Feeling triumphant that I had found the book!

That night, I was able to settle down with a cup of coffee and started reading All the Missing Girls...

That was on a Thursday and I finished the book on Saturday night (a chilly, windy Saturday that added to the effect of the story!).

Miranda definitely knew how to write a page turner.  I did NOT want to put the book down and there were times that I was reading where I wished I was able to read and comprehend the book at a faster rate just so I could find out what ends up happening.

With that being said.... Let the review begin!!

As I wrote before, the book was a definite page turner.  

I know that part of the appeal to this book was that it went backwards. Part 2 of the book started on Day 15 and worked it's way back to Day 1. To me, that was the main reason in why I felt a lack of information being given.  The story started to fall in place around Day 4 and then the reader received most of the answers during those first (last?) 4 days. 

But there were points during the book that I felt there wasn't any information being given.  I left that I was reading and reading for cliffhangers and lose ends. 

Now keep in mind at by the time I got Day 4, you had read most of the book... And received many cliffhangers.... I was left BEGGING for answers!

Then I got to Part 3, which was set back at Day 15 and after finishing that part and the book, I felt like I was ripped off and I was felt a little confused and with more questions: After all of this time, why Tyler? Why give into what the cops wanted to see happen, when it is something that seems totally out of left field AND even felt them scratching their heads? What happened to Laura and Daniel? I could go on but I'll spare you.

I felt that the book was wrapped up in a hurried way.  No rhyme or reason and that everything was all muddled at the end. Nic didn't have any reason to do any of the things that she did in Part 3.  Had the story not gone backwards, I wouldn't have felt that Nic was acting erratically.  Or at least WHY she was acting the way that she was would have been out in the open.

All in all, it wasn't the best book I've read but it wasn't the worst either. 

I didn't care for how it went backwards in the middle of the book and I didn't like how I had questions that needed to be answered because they were addressed given the format of the story and how it ended.

I did appreciate how the story line pulled me in and made me want to keep turning the page.

Instead of giving this story a 3 star rating, I am going to give three coffee beans out of five. (Because we love our coffee on this blog!)

~ Jillian