All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda

Synopsis: 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.

Review: It’s always interesting to find a good thriller and I admit that the synopsis of this one really intrigued me. I’m not used to novels realized in such a format, that is to say made from the end and going up day by day to the start. It’s quite unsettling and I have to say that it’s frustrating not to have the answers in one go but it returns slowly day by day to the first one and I can tell you that it is long enough to follow 15 days like that.

We discover at the beginning of the novel, Nic, a young woman about to get married and who returns home to help her brother with their sick father and the sale of the house. Yet she thought it would be something simple but it’s not really the case. Indeed, it’s been 10 years since her best friend Corinne disappeared without a trace and it is now the turn of Annaleise, a village girl who served as an alibi for the group there so many years ago to disappear. This new event will reopen deep wounds that were left and this time, Nic is determined to understand what happened and where Annaleise is actually located, and at the same time to understand what happened to her friend after all this time.

The story begins with the arrival of Nic in town, then quickly continues on day 15, the day the police went to her home when her ex Tyler, looks muddy explaining that a body was found. From there, the days will pass, going up slowly and following our heroine trying to understand what is happening, questioning people about the two young women to discover the truth. But her search will lead her much farther than expected and as I said, it’s pretty frustrating to go day by day, especially knowing what happens in the end. It’s not going fast enough it’s true but I think it is also what the author wanted to show and I admit that I waited impatiently to read the events. We feel that something strange happened about Corinne, but I definitely did not expect so many revelations and it is true that the author takes us completely by surprise.

I sometimes had trouble with this format but it’s true that in the end I found that the revelations were well found and we remain very anxious to understand what is really going on. A pretty original idea.

 

3-5 

mellianefini

24 thoughts on “All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda

  1. I’m kind of intrigued by this format, it sounds like it would make me ask lots of questions and experience the good kind of frustration when I have to wait a bit for the answers! Might take a little while to settle into though, so thanks for the heads up!

  2. I haven’t had much luck with her previous books, to be honest, but I’m very curious about a book that basically goes backwards. Wonderful review!

  3. I received this book in the mail this week. It was a surprise arrival so initially I thought I probably won’t have time to get to it, but the more I hear about it the more curious I actually am. I can see the backwards format being really difficult but it did intrigue me, let’s hope it works out better for me.

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