Bloggin' 'bout Books: Unique Format Makes Psychological Thriller Even More Tense and Exciting

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Unique Format Makes Psychological Thriller Even More Tense and Exciting

2:40 PM

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

When Nicolette "Nic" Farrell is summoned home to Cooley Ridge, North Carolina, she has little choice but to go. The 28-year-old hasn't set foot in the tiny town on the edge of the Great Smokey Mountains for a decade. Not since her best friend, Corinne Prescott, disappeared without a trace. Nic isn't thrilled about returning to her childhood home in the woods, but now that her father has been moved into an assisted-living facility she needs to clean up the place and sell it. Then she'll high-tail it back to her job and her fiancé in Philadelphia.

Nic has barely arrived in town when Annaleise Carter, a 23-year-old local girl, goes missing. The case bears a strange resemblance to that of Corinne Prescott, even involving some of the same players. Nic can't bear to go through that kind of trauma again, nor does she want to see her brother's reputation dragged through the mud again. Determined to find out what really happened to Corinne all those years ago, Nic starts digging for answers. Can finding the truth about Corinne save Annaleise? Are the cases even connected? Can Nic piece it all together in time? Or will she be the next woman to go missing from Cooley Ridge?

All the Missing Girls, a psychological thriller by Megan Miranda, offers a tantalizing mystery with plenty of twists and turns. Using a unique backward-in-time storytelling format, it's a tense, engrossing novel that will have you speeding through the pages to see what's going to happen. Because of the way it's told, the story does get confusing. Overall, though, I liked the technique and felt like it added tension to the tale. Although All the Missing Girls boasts plenty of action, it's mostly a character-driven novel, which makes it a bummer that most of its story people are difficult to sympathize with or even like. They're just not a very appealing lot. All considered, though, I still found this to be an exciting and compelling page turner. I couldn't put it down.

(Readalikes: Other thrillers by Megan Miranda)

Grade:

If this were a movie, it would be rated:

for language, violence, mild sexual content, and disturbing subject matter

To the FTC, with love: Honestly, I'm not sure how I acquired this one. Hmmmm.

4 comments:

Jenni Elyse31 January, 2018 15:52
You may not be able to answer this. Have you heard of or seen the movie Memento? If so, is this book written in the same format? If not, Memento has flashes that are told going forward and flashes told boing backwards until the end of the movie meets in the middle. It's really interesting, but you have to pay attention because if you miss one thing, then you miss something important since the events are out of order.
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Jenny31 January, 2018 17:41
This one intrigues me. Every time I see the cover it catches my eye. I should probably just read it already.
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Kay01 February, 2018 05:14
This one was quite different wasn't it? And I had watched Memento that Jenni Elyse mentions. I liked this book and agree that the characters (like in so many books these days) are hard to like and bond with. My husband hates when we are watching a TV show and it begins with an exciting scene and then has a note on the screen that say something like '14 hours earlier' or '3 days earlier'. He just hates it. He'd hate this book. LOL
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