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What the Hell Did I Just Read?: All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda

I'm pretty sure this will be made into a movie soon, I can just feel it. I also have a feeling that it won't turn out too well.

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.


I know that it says it's told backwards, but I didn't pick up on that until about 3 chapters in. Which is why I was so confused and could never really get over it. I appreciate not throwing thousands of characters in for the sake of building a story (sorry Gillian Flynn, you do that a lot), but I had a hard time connecting with the characters that were given. While I did have cliquey friends in high school and knew exactly who Corinne (the first missing girl) was I still thought that mystery was so predictable. And now that I think about it, this book was just mediocre at best.

I know that in Girl on the Train had a fairly predictable killer (I knew who it was 100 pages in), but I still enjoyed the whole mystery. In this I had no idea who either of the killers were until the second to last chapter. Which may be confusing because I called this book predictable. The backwards storytelling was so disorienting that I threw out my initial predictions and pretty much gave up. Honestly I don't know how to feel because I'm still not even sure what happened! I really pined for this book, I thought this was going to be GotT part deux and we didn't even get close. Ugh I'm really upset with myself that I didn't like this more. I'm pretty sure I've convinced myself to like it even though I will never have the urge to read this again or see the inevitable movie that I know is coming.

The bottom line is if you like thriller/mysteries and are okay with the story being told backwards, then go for this! Be fore warned though that this is wicked confusing and very obvious as to what happened in the end. Hopefully Miranda comes out with better suited literary journeys for me in the future. My final grade would be a C. This book was perfectly average in every way. That's all for now.

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