Thursday, June 14, 2018

All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda-- Adult Mystery w/ YA Crossover Appeal!!

All the Missing Girls

When Nic returns to her small town 10 years after her high school best friend disappeared, she finds herself caught in the center of another girl's disappearance.

In order to find out what happened to Annaliese, Nic needs to find out the truth about her friend Corrinne.  And this truth involves her family, her friends, and everything she's been running from for the last 10 years.
















Nicolette comes to town to pack up her childhood home because her dad can't afford to have the house and pay for his care.  She rarely ever comes back because of the painful memories-- mainly due to her best friend going missing and it never being solved.  Within days of returning ANOTHER girl goes missing-- and it's once again tied to her friend/family group.  The girl that's missing is dating Nic's high school ex and it turns out she was obsessed with the Corrine disappearance.

Interesting thing about this book: It's told backward.  It starts out with a short introduction and then we jump to 2 weeks into the future and work our way back.  You would think that reading a Mystery backward would not work-- I mean, that's what I was thinking at first-- but I was wrong.  Apparently, you can totally start at the end and go backward and still somehow still feel like you are moving forward TOWARDS something???  Well, this author can do that for you anyway.

You know what will get me every time?  The enigmatic, addicting, charismatic, best friend.  Corrine is missing before the book starts, but she's larger than life on these pages.  Every time there is a Corrine in a book, I find myself drawn in.  Why do I like a character that is mysterious and equal parts alluring & dangerous??  I have no idea.  It's not like these characters are really ever likable.  They're the ones using the nice girl's secrets against her.  They're the ones pulling all the strings-- and when something bad happens to them, I think we're supposed to feel like they had it coming?  All I ever feel is that I wish I knew them too.

The other cast of characters in this book weren't bad either.  From the brother and his wife to the ex-boyfriends and the neighbor.  I liked getting to know and suspect them all.  The part that really threw me was the father.  He's in a nursing home and has some sort of dementia, but he KNOWS something.  That part of the mystery I loved trying to unravel.  It made the book all the more complicated and muddled.

Recently I've been reading a lot of Adult Mystery/Thrillers, and I have to say if I find more like this one, it may become a habit.  There are flashbacks to high school days, and that brought the YA aspects in that I personally like to read about.  Megan Miranda was already cemented as one of my fave authors-- and now she's proving me right every time!!

OVERALL: YES!!  I loved this backward mystery!!  It's told from Day 15 to Day 1 and it is done so well.  I will recommend this to both Adult and YA readers because I think it has some crossover appeal.  Put Megan Miranda on your auto-buy list and you won't be sorry.

Date Published: 6/26/2016
How I got this book: Library
Publisher: Simon & Schuster


Add it to your To-Read List!!

My Rating: 5/5









Character: Nicolette Farrell
Book: What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen

  • Nicolette is a fan of "starting over" and I could totally see her using different variations of her name in the different towns she's lived in.






9 comments:

  1. I LOVED this one. It being told backwards was so different and thought it really worked. Glad you loved it too!

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    Replies
    1. It was really cool the way it worked out. At first I was totally confused how a mystery could work backwards, but somehow she pulled it off. Have you read any of her other books?

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  2. I keep picking this one up. I am glad to hear that you liked it. I had no idea it was told backwards. Makes it even more interesting to me. I may have to pick it up at some point.

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    Replies
    1. WOO!! I totally recommend!! The backwards story really made the book.

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  3. I like the way you describe this mystery book - I think I'll have to look into it! :)

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  4. I find the backward approach interesting, and glad it worked for you. There is something about knowing the endpoint, and then trying to figure out how the characters got there.

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