All The Missing Girls

Title: All The Missing Girls
Author: Megan Miranda
Genre: Thriller
Source: Paperback
Rating: 4 out of 5 paws


Nic hasn't been home in ten years.  Ten years since she left everything behind.  Ten years since her best friend Corrine disappeared.  But when Nic returns home to help with family ties, the past is dug up and another girl has gone missing.  The past comes back to life as a town relives the ordeal from ten years ago to find a connection.  Nic and her family struggle to stay out of the investigation, but every turn leads them right back into it.  Right back to where they were ten years ago.  All eyes are pointed at Nic and her high school boyfriend. Can they figure out what happened to Corinne and Annaleise.  Too many things are a coincidence, too much familiarity.  Will it all end?

The cover is gorgeous and is what originally grew me to the story.  I couldn't take my eyes off it whenever I seen it in the book stores.  Everything about the story hinges on one night ten years at a local fair.  Nic is encouraged by her best friend to climb over a Ferris Wheel and jump down to her boyfriend.  Once on solid ground her brother hits her and everything else spreads into chaos.  Corinne disappears and everyone becomes a suspect.  Afterwards Nic leaves town only to return to help with her ailing father.  The night she arrives, everything is opened all over again.  Another girl has gone missing and no one knows what happened to her.  The last person to talk to her, and the prime suspect is her boyfriend, who happens to be Nic's high school sweetheart.  And everyone's alibi from ten years ago. How crazy is that!!

It took me a few chapters to get into the story, and when I did, it took a few more to get used to the backwards telling of the story.  It starts the night Nic arrives then jumps to 2 weeks since Annaleise goes missing.  At this point it begins to backtrack back to the beginning filling in small details at a time until we get to that fateful night and find out exactly what had happened to the girl.  I found it an interesting way to tell the story, and it is explained a little bit as to why it was done this way.  But it is confusing and difficult to get used to.  It may even turn a few people away from the story.  Hopefully it doesn't because it is a good story.

The characters were interesting enough, and seemed typical of your small town people, where everyone knows everyone's business.  Nothing is private and rumors fly faster than Superman.  At times I found Nic to be reckless in running through the woods at night following shadows, not knowing what was out there. I liked that everyone seemed to have a little something to hide, past and present.  Something they didn't tell others, something that made up the skeletons in the closet. I loved the mystery of the monster in the woods and allows the reader to come up with their own ideas of what the monster in the woods could represent.  The looming past, teenagers having a good time, neighbors spying on each other, one's own fears. It could have been anything and I loved that feel added into the book.

I also like the mystery of the caverns.  They loomed in the background, a dangerous place to be, yet so innocent in being barred.  I kind of wish more was done with the caverns, they seemed to be the perfect thing to add a little more mystery, such as the police finding the lock broken or like signs that someone lived there (maybe a homeless person or something) or was camping leading suspicion to one of the girls hiding in the caves.  I just feels like more could have been done with the caverns, or else why mention them other than to say it was a place some one died or things get lost (perfect to add a different twist to the ending).

I did get lost in it and finished it in about 6 hours or so, I feel I may have even ignored the boyfriend a little bit because I was so lost in the story.  I couldn't go to bed until I found out what happened next.  Miranda flawlessly executed her story-telling skills in this novel, and makes me want to read more from her.  I happily recommend this book to people who like thrillers and suspense novels, but be ware, there storytelling is unique and out of the norm: Beginning, end, middle, beginning, end of sorts.