Book Review: All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda

Synopsis from goodreads

It’s been ten years since Nicolette Farrell left her rural hometown after her best friend, Corinne, disappeared from Cooley Ridge without a trace. Back again to tie up loose ends and care for her ailing father, Nic is soon plunged into a shocking drama that reawakens Corinne’s case and breaks open old wounds long since stitched.

The decade-old investigation focused on Nic, her brother Daniel, boyfriend Tyler, and Corinne’s boyfriend Jackson. Since then, only Nic has left Cooley Ridge. Daniel and his wife, Laura, are expecting a baby; Jackson works at the town bar; and Tyler is dating Annaleise Carter, Nic’s younger neighbor and the group’s alibi the night Corinne disappeared. Then, within days of Nic’s return, Annaleise goes missing.

Told backwards—Day 15 to Day 1—from the time Annaleise goes missing, Nic works to unravel the truth about her younger neighbor’s disappearance, revealing shocking truths about her friends, her family, and what really happened to Corinne that night ten years ago.

Review (no spoilers)-Brace yourselves for an unpopular opinion

I received this book from NetGalley.

 

All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda is quite a unique book. As indicated in the synopsis, the story is told backwards. Well, I have never read anything else like this and I admit that it wasn’t really easy to adjust to the style. For the first time, I was tempted to go to the end of the book and just start from there but I guess that would have ruined the experience. Honestly, I was so confused by the layout in some instances.

Basically, the story is narrated from day 15 backwards to day 1. In this way, one chapter will give details of what happened on day 15 then the next chapter now goes back to day 14 and henceforth.

Characters

The character development was done really well. However, I found almost all characters to be pretty unlikeable. I guess this is the new way of writing psychological thrillers. For instance, Gillian Fyn’s Gone Girl and Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train had the same type of characters. In All the Missing Girls, I thought this worked out well. I didn’t like Nic but still found her to be quite compelling. I felt the same way about Laura, Daniel and Tyler, didn’t not like them much but still thought they were great for the role that they played. I think the only character that I didn’t have an issue with was Everett.

The Plot

The story-line was also pretty good with mystery sustained from the first page. I like it when I find a book with so many suspects. I think that I suspected almost every character at some point. It was hard to guess what exactly happened to the missing girls and who was responsible. Every time I thought I knew who was responsible, something else happened and I got a new suspect.

Final thoughts

I took some time to get into the story and get the backward narration style. Some chapters were more interesting than others and I kept wondering if this was caused by the narrative style. There were instances where the tension was completely lost because previous chapters already explained how the events would unfold. I had a number of highs and lows throughout the book shifting from excited and interested to just going through the pages.

I liked the fact that the author added two final chapters after day 1 that helped explain everything in a way. These chapters were narrated in chronological order.

I recommend this book to fans of thriller/suspense kind of novels. Readers who are interested in trying out something new that is, reading a story backwards should also get this book. However, I give this book 3 stars because the narration style did not work for me. It was a bit difficult for me to keep up with it despite the great plot-line and wonderful characterization. Get the book and read it though, many people seem to have enjoyed it so the narration style must have worked out well for most readers.

About the Book

All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
Published by Simon & Schuster on June 28th 2016
Genres: Thrillers & Suspense
Pages: 384
Format: DRC
Source: Netgalley
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