All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
I was so excited when I first heard that Megan Miranda was coming out with her first adult novel. I have read two of her first YA books, Fracture and Vengeance, and loved the writing style, the characters, and the paranormal aspects incorporated into the story.
In full disclosure, Megan Miranda lives in my neighborhood, and our kids go to the same school, so there was a lot of local buzz amongst some of my friends when All the Missing Girls was published. I picked up a library copy earlier this summer, shortly after its release, and enjoyed it so much I recently bought a copy for myself!
But here’s the thing I’ve learned about leaving – you can’t really go back. I don’t know what to do with Cooley Ridge anymore and Cooley Ridge doesn’t know what to do with me, either. The distance only increases with the years.
I certainly know the feeling. Like Nic, I haven’t been back to my hometown in almost 10 years. Nic Farrell is heading home, after nearly 10 years, from NYC to small-town North Carolina. She left Cooley Ridge not long after her childhood friend Corinne Prescott went missing. Ten years on, most of her high school friends are still living in town. Mysteriously, another young girl goes missing shortly after she returns, Anneleise Carter.
Annaleise was the alibi for the group of friends the night that Corinne went missing a decade previously. And here is where things gets interesting. After Annaliese’s disappearance, the story jumps forward by two weeks, and the reader proceeds to read the story in reverse, working backwards from Day 15 to Day 1. It worked amazingly well. I was worried the twist in chronology and telling a story in reverse would feel gimmicky. It didn’t. Hats off to Megan Miranda for making it work in such a splendid fashion!
I don’t judge a book by its cover, but I am also in love with the cover of this book! Just the right shade of mystery and suspense. Especially considering the fact that the ferris wheel weaves itself throughout the tale, and sometimes feels like a character in and of itself.
Megan Miranda will be one of the authors at the Bookmarks 2016 Festival of Books in Winston-Salem this coming weekend, and I can’t wait to go! It will be quite an amazing line-up of authors, including Jonathan Safran Foer, Victoria Schwab, Jaqueline Woodson, Sarah J. Maas, John Grisham, Azar Nafisi, Terry McMillan, Kate DiCamillo, and many others!
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
4thhouseontheleft 