Sue's Reviews > All the Missing Girls

THE MISSING GIRLS by Megan Miranda is her first novel for adults, and will be published by Simon & Schuster on June 28th, 2016. This is a powerful psychological suspense novel, about the disappearance of two young women and like nothing I have ever read …because the story is told in REVERSE. How brilliant! One of the best novels I have read in 2016!

At first, I really didn’t know if this structure would work being told BACKWORDS…but she made it work and I loved it! I had to keep on reading to see what happened!

The story starts with the day Nicolette Farrell (Nic) returns 10 years later to her hometown, the small town of Cooley Ridge, that she left at the age of 18 after her friend Corinne disappeared. She was never found.

The original investigation had centered around:
• Nic
• Daniel-Nic’s brother
• Tyler Ellison-Nic’s boyfriend at the time
• Jackson Porter-Corinne’s boyfriend

Daniel and wife Laura are expecting a baby.
Jackson works at the town bar.
Tyler is dating Annaleise Carter, a younger neighbour, the group’s alibi the night Corinne disappeared.

When Nic returns…Annaleise goes missing!

Only Nic left this small rural town and has a new life in Philadelphia, being engaged to a lawyer, Everett. Back again to get her father’s house ready to be sold as he suffers from dementia and is in a nursing home. Nic is soon lurched into a scandalous drama that revives Corinne’s case and open old wounds and memories.

Is the disappearance of these two missing girls-Corinne and Annaleise-linked together somehow?
The story then jumps forward 15 days and then is told in reverse. I was totally engrossed in the story. I had to find out what happened to the girls and why.

The entire story is in Nic's first person perspective, and it worked well. This was an in-depth character-driven suspense novel that covered teenage friendships, relationships where everyone had a secret and the truth was revealed slowly like a pot simmering on the stove. So many twists and turns with an ending that I didn’t see coming. But most of all this novel explores the length that a person is willing to go to protect their loved ones.

“Life must be understood backwards… but it must be lived forward.”
-Soren Kierkegaard

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster via NetGalley for my copy.