All the Missing Girls

This probably would have been a 4 or 4.5 for me, however the way it was written brought it up to a full 5. Imagine this….you are reading along, meeting the main character, having the stage set, and suddenly you jump ahead to “Day 15”. Not a big deal, although you do feel like you’ve missed out on a lot of storyline (obviously). At the end of that day the chapter ends with a cliffhanger…..do you get to turn the page to go to Day 16 to see what happens? No. Do you go back to “Day 1” to carry on from your initial reading? No. You go back to the morning of Day 14! You are left hanging with the unknown. Each day you go backwards, you get insight into the chapter you just finished reading. And since it’s a mystery, you are show more pretty much changing your mind as to what happened and/or who is responsible just about each day. It is an absolutely brilliant twist on the standard writing style with flashbacks. Oh, and did I fail to mention that during the 2 weeks this story takes place there are flashbacks to 10 years ago as well? Yep, it has that too. But don’t worry, it is written well enough that you can follow along in reverse. Knowing that was how it was written, I was actually nervous that I might get too confused but that was not the case.

This is the story of a young lady named Nic who receives a call from her brother telling her she needs to come back to their home town of Cooley Ridge, NC to help sell their father’s house. She has spent the last 10 years trying to stay away from Cooley Ridge as much as she could so this is a request she would prefer not to accept, but she packs up and goes anyway. When she left a decade ago, her best friend had just gone missing and hasn’t been heard from since. Another girl from this small town goes missing shortly after Nic arrives home, bringing up the past investigation all over again. Are the cases related or just a coincidence? What happened to each of these missing girls are the mysteries that will unravel during the 2 weeks she is home. I highly recommend that you read it to find out for yourself.

A HUGE thank you to Net Galley and Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read an advanced copy in return for an honest review. I can’t wait for the book to come out next month so that others can enjoy it and let me know how they like it. show less

It was a little confusing reading a book that tells the story backwards, but once I got used to that I was hooked.

Megan Miranda is on my faves list for a reason and the messed-up characters in this book reassured me that I'm making good decisions.

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 show more 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.

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Nic is a young woman running from her past, living in a big city now with her wealthy and loving fiancé, Everette. She is summoned back to her hometown to help her brother, Daniel, renovate their childhood house in order to sell it. Their father is in a home for the elderly suffering from dementia and all the money he had is gone. Once home, the past starts to repeat itself as a young woman goes missing the same way her best friend, Corinne, did 10 years earlier. Nic and her entire friend group, including her brother and then high school boyfriend, Tyler, were all questioned about Corinne’s last whereabouts before she went missing. And all of them lied. Now, 10 years later, Annaleise Carter goes missing, and her connection with Nic show more and the original friend group from Corinne’s case are back under the spotlight. What secrets will the cops uncover? What happened to Corinne and Annaleise? What’s in the woods behind Nic and Daniel’s childhood home? Prepare for a wild ride as everything is revealed…backwards!

I thought the storytelling was phenomenal! Having the plot told backwards was so interesting and refreshing. The book was paced so well that I finished it in under 24 hours. That’s the positive. Now for the negative.

*SPOILERS*

What was the deal with Daniel hating Tyler so much? Just him being a toxic big brother? What was with him punching Nic for seemingly no reason?

SO many tropes! Woman is engaged to a nice guy. Woman goes back to hometown. Woman reconnects with old flame. Woman breaks up with new guy for old flame. Woman decides to stay in hometown. Why? There was literally nothing wrong with Everette. The author had to try so hard to justify Nic breaking up with Everette by saying he didn’t really know her and wouldn’t be able to handle it. Oh, and he grabbed her arm really hard. Not cool, but also, seems out of character, from what was given as his background.

I’m tired of the mean girl frenemy type of character that goes missing and the main protagonist has a nostalgic and warped memory of said friend. She was a bitch so she deserved it? She was a bitch, but everyone stayed friends with her? She was a bitch, but it felt good to be loved by her? She was a bitch, and would have wanted Nic to hit her because Corinne asked for it and *knew* what she was doing? What?! I am pretty sure she was hoping you would swerve sooner. And making her a villain by her purposely stepping out onto the road just to cause Nic to miscarry…is so flawed. How would she know it would work? Why would she do that? In this case, she died, but why did she think she wouldn’t? And if she didn’t want to die…why did she step out in front of a moving vehicle?! I’m so confused. Lots of internalized misogyny and victim blaming in this book. show less

"Man. . . cannot learn to forget, but hangs on to the past; however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him," - Friedrich Nietzsche . This is how Megan Miranda begins her book, and this is the theme throughout this taut and thrilling book. Nicolette Farrell is our protagonist, and throughout I kept asking myself if she was an unreliable narrator. I questioned all her thoughts and remembrances. The story is told in such a way that only pieces of the past, and slowly reveals the reason why she ran away from home and Cooley Ridge when she was 18 and recently graduated from high school. Nicolette went away and tried to run from the memories while she went to university and then became a school counsellor. She has a brand new life with show more a man and she's happily engaged and living in Philadelphia. But things at home are heating up. Her dad is losing his memory and her brother has put him in a home. Her brother's wife is pregnant and Nicolette's old boyfriend is seeing a new woman. All of the buried secrets from ten years ago are threatening to erupt and Nicolette and her brother are worried their father is going to say something that will bring the family into peril. Just before Nicolette left a girl went missing in Cooley Ridge and has not been seen since. After ten years, another girl is missing. Are the two disappearances connected? Nicolette thinks so, and she goes back in her mind to when the first girl went missing. The book is told in reverse order. It begins on day 15 when the second girl has gone missing, and moves back day by day from there. Nicolette doesn't know who she can trust or even if she can trust herself as the whole sorry business unfolds. The book kept me guessing throughout, and I didn't see that ending coming in any way, shape or form. Megan Miranda writes absolutely great thrillers. I really enjoyed The Last House Guest, and I loved this one too. I will be keeping an eye on her books from now on. show less

To paraphrase Hannibal Lecter, we covet with our eyes, what we see. The cover of All the Missing Girls is what first caught my eye. An empty ferris wheel, in the dark, rising out of the trees into a cloudy sky. The title hinting at a mystery and likely tragedy. Then the description of two missing girls, disappearing ten years apart, but linked in the way that small town tragedies are often linked; everyone knows everyone and you never really leave. Add to that a unique narrative device of telling the story backwards, from the 15th day after the second disappearance to the 1st, and you have all the ingredients for a great story.

Megan Miranda tells a great story and she does it with interesting, flawed, even tragic characters. Characters show more who you can’t trust, but who you become very invested in. The story is told through the eyes of Nicolette Farrell, who left Cooley Ridge 10 years ago after the disappearance of her friend Corinne. Pulled back to help deal with her ailing father, she is no sooner back than another girl goes missing. Annaleise, the missing girl, happened to be the alibi for Nic and her brother Daniel, as well as their friends Tyler, Jackson and Bailey. All of whom were the focus of the investigation ten years earlier.

Miranda brilliant spills out the information, a drab at a time, pulling the narrative forward even as time moves backwards. It’s a little bit difficult to wrap your head around the concept. The characters already know what the reader is just finding out because the action is in their past, but your future. Add to that the fact that none of the characters is completely honest, with themselves or with each other. The story moves ahead with one bombshell after the other as layers are peeled back. Along with facts of what happened with the disappearing girls, truths about the characters and who they really are get revealed.

All the Missing Girls will haunt you even as it thrills you. There is a bit of a resemblance to Shirley Jackson and The Haunting of Hill House in the way that this small town grips you and pulls you back into its clutches even after you think you’ve escaped and moved on. This is a great story that will have you turning the pages to get to the satisfying and haunting conclusion. Highly recommended.

I was fortunate to receive an advance copy of this book. show less

All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda is a 2016 Simon & Schuster publication.

“It is quite true what philosophy says; that life must be understood backward. But then one forgets the other principle: that it must be lived forwards. – Soren Kierkegaard

‘All the Missing Girls’, is a crafty, twisty/bending mystery told in a very innovative way, backwards, like a countdown, leading up to the big climax.

When Nicolette Farrell gets a phone call from her brother, Daniel, regarding the health of their father and the need to sell the family home, Nic, reluctantly agrees to come home to Cooley Ridge.

A decade ago, Nic’s best friend disappeared, upending everyone’s lives forever. Nic is the only one of her friends to leave home, and show more forge a new life. But, now that she has returned, her past comes to roost in the present, when another young girl disappears, opening up old wounds, revealing stunning secrets, and churning up old memories, lost loves, jealousies, and hidden crimes.

Before Nic can move forward with her life, she must discover the truth about what happened ten years ago, and find out what happened to her young neighbor, Annaleise. In the meantime, she floats between the past and present, struggling with memory, nostalgia, angst, but most of all she’s afraid of how the past may affect her future, as her father, ex-boyfriend, Tyler, and her brother, are all under suspicion and every step she takes is being watched closely…

I loved the stylish presentation the author employed, which really challenged me and certainly staved off any hint of boredom. The story is told from Nicolette’s POV, who takes us on a moody, atmospheric journey into her past, which will throw turn her carefully planned future into complete disarray.

Nic was deeply affected by her friend’s disappearance for many reasons, stirring up feelings of guilt and remorse, while her feelings for Tyler remains unsettled. To top things off, she must cope with the drain of her father’s dementia, getting the house ready to sell, and the complicated relationship she has with her brother.

The new missing persons case, puts them all back on the old rumor mill, creating a renewed interest in the cold case.

All of this creates an aura of edgy suspense, and produces a creepy, heavy feeling of foreboding, that had me sitting on pins and needles. The characters are all secretive, complex, and even a little dangerous, which made me wonder what they knew, what lies they had told, and why. No one is above suspicion!
I can’t say I felt a ginormous sense of peace once all was said and done, nor do I know exactly how to feel about how everything turned out in the end, but I did find the story absorbing, and immensely satisfying in a dark and twisty sort of way.

I definitely get why this book is so popular and am thankful I finally got a copy, after months of waiting. However, it was definitely worth the long wait.
4 stars show less

"We were a town full of fear...But we were also a town full of liars."
Megan Miranda crafts a murder mystery told backwards- with present day at the beginning, seeping further and further into the past and its secrets. This style is a bit disorienting at first, but it's unique and makes you pay attention to the details as you try to figure out how each event connects with the others in order to solve the mysteries of the missing girls .
No one is immune from suspicion, and there are arrows pointing to every player in the game. Even if you think you have it figured out, you really have no idea.
I didn't necessarily want to give in to the hype, but here I am, crying Uncle! This is brilliant, original, a jaw dropping piece that has me show more disgusted and cheering for the characters and their stories at the same time. Don't miss this one, truly. '
*I received an arc from NetGalley for an honest review show less