Thursday, June 16, 2016

All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda*

*this is a spoiler free review!

Summary from Amazon:


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.

My Thoughts:


     We open the story meeting Nicolette for the first time having just arrived home after a nearly ten-year absence to help take care of her ailing father.  She left Cooley Ridge for Philadelphia to make a new life for herself and start over after her high school best friend disappeared without a trace and the ensuing investigation tore her world apart.  Many of the original players are still around and it appears that not much has changed; Cooley Ridge is stuck is a lost time along with her old friend.

     Shortly after Nic’s return home another woman, a neighbor this time, also goes missing.  Things slowly unravel as we begin to learn not only about the current situation but also the past.

     The concept behind this story is just as important as the story itself.  The timeline runs backwards! We start at the 15th day (chapter 1) after Nic has gone home works backwards to the first day she got home.  It all circles back around to the beginning to give us this amazing puzzle of what happened ten years ago and present day.

     I don’t know how Ms. Miranda wrote this book so well giving us just enough breadcrumbs of information to keep us enthralled.  Dropping bits within each and every day/chapter so that the pieces fall into place for you even though you are working backwards through time would have taking me some serious brain power!

     At first, I read slowly just trying to work out how I was going to keep this all straight but I soon realized I just needed to relax and enjoy the ride.  The time sequencing doesn’t seem like it should work but it does…you have no clue what is going on but it slowly starts to work.  Every new “day” gave me a new idea of who was the guilty party! Every paragraph, every sentence changed the story and my theories.

If you liked Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train you will like this dark, twisty story!

4.5/5 stars 

Coming July 12, 2016 from Simon & Schuster

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