Okay, you guys. I have to admit that I'm having some anxiety about this post! I love to read but I've never written a book review before and I hardly know where to start. I feel as if I'm writing a book report for school again!
I suppose I will start with the reason for this book review post. A few of the ladies from
The Blended Blog started a Virtual Book Club a month or so ago! For February, we picked several book, read as many as we could, and then were joined by some other awesome ladies for an online book discussion (wine optional but recommended). Does this sound good to you? We would love for you to join us in future months! Blogger or not, please sign-up using
this link.
To wrap-up our first month of reading and discussion, we're doing a blog hop review of each chosen book. If you're stopping by from
Sheila's blog, welcome! And when you're finished here, head over to visit librarian extraordinaire,
Leslie! But first, let's take a look at the book I chose for our group this month,
All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda.
About the Book:
The story follows our main character, Nic, who must temporarily leave her carefully-crafted life in order to attend to business back home, a home to which she never intended to return. Once settled, Nic works to prepare her childhood home for sale and checks in on her mentally unstable father. But when a local girl goes missing, Nic's world starts to fall apart. The incident churns up memories of Nic's childhood best friend who went missing ten years earlier. As more clues are uncovered and as Nic loses her grip on reality, it becomes clear that the two occurrences are linked, but how exactly and who is responsible?
The narrative structure is what sets this novel apart from others in its genre. The story is told in reverse chronological order. The suspense is amplified as the reader works backwards to discover what has happened in this small town.
My Thoughts:
I really enjoyed this book! I would liken it to several other popular suspense novels that have been released in recent years like
The Girl on the Train and
Gone Girl. These are typically the kind of books that I like to read so it's no surprise that I flew through this one.
At first, the telling of the story in reverse order threw me (I didn't realize this was the ongoing structure until several chapters in). Once I recovered from my confusion, I liked it! I definitely wouldn't want to read all of my books this way but it made for a creative reading experience and upped the suspense.
One potential downfall to this book is that the main character, Nic, isn't particularly likable (in my opinion at least). She really starts to go crazy and it's frustrating to witness when she doesn't seem to be doing anything to help herself. Normally when I don't like the main character, I struggle to like the book. In this case, however, my feelings about Nic didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the story.
I would definitely recommend this book if you are a suspense reader. I give it four out of five stars!
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