All The Missing Girls by Megan Miranda - A Book Review
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.
Genre: Suspenseful, Mystery-Thriller Fiction
Themes:
- Missing Person
- Secrets
I can’t quite remember where I saw All The Missing Girls by Megan Miranda, but it intrigued me enough to add it to my TBR jar.
After reading All your Perfects, I was itching to read a book, so I decided to choose one from my newly made TBR jar. Alongside the A-Z Reading Challenge, I made a TBR jar filled with additional books I wanted to read this year. So when I gave the jar a good shake, All The Missing Girls was the first book from the jar.
I’ve not read anything by Megan Miranda, so this is my first read by the author.
All The Missing Girls follows Nicolette (Nic) as she returns back to her hometown, 10 years after the disappearance of her friend Corinne. Nic is back in town to clear out and sell her childhood home, as her father is living in a nursing home, after being diagnosed with Alzheimers. Before returning home, Nic received a letter from her father that read “That girl, I saw that girl”, but when questioning her father, he’s not lucid – prompting Nic to wonder what really happened with Corinne. The police files and evidence remain untouched, almost forgetting 18 year old Corinne’s disappearance 10 years ago. The chapters flick between present time and memories Nic has of Corinne before and during the time she disappeared.
The story continues to two weeks later, where Nic has been visited by her fiancé as another 18 year old girl has gone missing, Annaleise Carter, the same girl who Tyler had in his truck the day he visited Nic on the day she returned to town.
After persuading her fiancé to go back home, she receives a visit from old flame Tyler and upon his startling entrance to her home, she’s left uneasy at his appearance. She receives a phone call from her brother asking her who she’s with and when he finds out who, he’s demanding her to get out of the house – reaffirming her uneasiness. Police sirens begin to grow louder, where she demands Tyler tells her what he did. It’s where she realised the blood and dirt on his fingers, before he informs Nic that they found a body.
Reverting to the previous day, Nic is waiting for fiancé Everett to be asleep, before she uses the key from her father’s wardrobe and slips out to the woods where Annaleise was taken. She goes to Annaleise’s home and enters to find answers for her disappearance. When looking through her things, she finds artwork of Corinne and decides to take them, alongside her laptop. Later on, she goes to visit Tyler but he’s nowhere to be found and when attempting to leave, she’s encouraged to stay by the bartender as he spots a car that’s been circling the street. When returning home, Nicola hunts through Annaleise’s laptop, only to find nothing but missing records. During this, Nic reflects on the day of Corrine’s disappearance, where her brother punched her, leading Tyler to punch her brother back. Nic relalises that Annaleise was their alibi when they were questioned by the police.
Skipping back another day, it is revealed that Nic’s fiancee, Everette is in town to help Nic’s father when he’s being questioned by police about his whereabouts when Corinne disappeared. It sparks Everette to want to know the events leading up to Corinne’s disappearance, in which Nic reveals they went to a fair as a group and each person left at different times, unknowing what actually happened to Corinne.
The pair go to Nic’s brothers house for food and when enjoying a meal with his wife Laura, she reveals that Tyler was the last person to contact Annaleise on the night she went missing, sparking the idea that he was involved. When Nic attempts to place back money she borrowed from brother Daniel in his office, she discovers a key with the letter ‘A’ on it. She questions the key, before taking it with her.
Jumping back to the previous day, Nic is searching through her father’s bedroom after he tells her to get rid of things – especially with the impending arrival of the police who may have a search warrant. When searching, she finds a notebook and several pieces of paper in a fan. Before she can look into them further, she’s met with the arrival of her fiancé, who is in town to prevent police from questioning his father-in-law with dementia. The pair go to visit her father in the nursing home and when arriving, a comment is made about another visitor – that being Tyler. During their interactions, Nic’s father makes a comment about how he has to pay for it, when he is told not to speak to anyone who comes to question him.
Going back yet another day, Nic is outside her house late at night when she hears footsteps running through the woods. She decides to follow them, in hopes of discovering who they are and where they’re going. When following them, she finds them going to Annaleise’s home but is unable to identify who they are. She decided to visit Tyler to see if it was him, but is met with Corinne’s ex boyfriend Jackson, who warns her to stay away from Tyler as he’s being pestered enough by the police. During their conversation, Jackson reveals Annaleise’s obsession with Corinne’s disappearance where she would ask lots of questions and act like her. Instead of following Jackson’s instructions, she finds Tyler and asks of his whereabouts and he reveals it wasn’t him in the woods. He’s being scrutinised by the police as they believe he is responsible for Annaleise’s disappearance since the pair had been involved with one another.
Nic reflects on the stories that came to light during Corinne’s disappearance and the type of character she was – reckless and full of secrets. The reveal that she was pregnant before she disappeared is mentioned and how despite his denial of seeing her the night she disappeared, Jackson received a voicemail from Corinne begging him not to leave.
Whilst back at home, Nic spots another person running through the woods late at night, so again, she decides to follow them. Only she finds out it’s Annaleise’s brother meeting up with friends, who is seemly unfazed by her disappearance.
8 days after Annaleise’s disappearance, Nic is visited by a detective asking questions about her past relationship with Tyler and whether him breaking off his relationship with Annaleise has anything to do with Nic’s return home. The detective begins leading to the conclusion that it was a coincidence that Annaleise went missing the day Nic returned home, following the end of Tyler and Annaleise’s relationship. Before anymore questions can be asked, Daniel and Nic rush to their father’s nursing home, where he had taken a bad turn. When arriving at the nursing home, they find their father restraint and sedated, following an outburst where he believed Nic was in danger. They return home only to find that someone has been in the house looking through their belongings.
A few days earlier, Nic goes back to the fairground where events had previously went down. While there, she reflects on the events that happened before Corinne’s disappearance as a way to envision what Annaleise witnessed that day. During her reflection, it is revealed that after Daniel punched Nic, he was secretly comforted by Corinne, in a more than friendly way. A few days later to this, Jackson, Corinne’s ex boyfriend revealed that he didn’t know she was pregnant, despite what everyone else thought and that the baby couldn’t have been his. Only later on in Nic’s memories, it is revealed that the pregnancy test was hers, but Corinne hid it in her bin.
2 days after Annaleise’s disappearance, the community is searching different areas of the town. When searching motels, Nic speaks to a man who off the record says he saw a girl running through the woods and through a motel window. Nic begins retracing her steps into the motel room and when redialling the phone, it rings her brother.
The day after Annaleise is declared missing, Nic finds her brother car at her home. When searching the house, she can’t find him but can hear his phone ringing. After looking inside his car for answers, she looks towards the garage where she then begins heading. In the garage she finds Daniel digging up the concrete as he’s concerned about who laid the concrete originally and has grown suspicious as to why his father doesn’t want the house sold and why it was laid the day Corinne went missing. Nic calls for help from Tyler and the trio begin digging the concrete floor up, after digging for a while, they find a body of a girl with long hair, seemingly belonging to Corinne. After discovering the body, they decide to remove it from their home and take it to Tyler’s workplace.
Going back to the previous day, before Annaleise went missing, Nic is visited by Annaleise herself who is trying to post something through the door anonymously, only Nic catches her in the act. Nic invites her in, where Annaleise reveals she has photographs of Nic’s house during the time Corinne went missing and in the images, a body can be seen alongside a shadow of a person. Annaleise explains that she’d been blackmailing Nic’s father and now it’s Nic’s turn to be blackmailed. Annaleise states she can have the photographs in exchange for money that Nic doesn’t have. Annaleise leaves Nic to think it over, but not before taking her ring as leverage. Nic contacts Tyler and reveals what Annaleise has done, both of them questioning who the shadow could be – her brother or her father. When questioning the identity of the shadow, Nic’s brother arrives and sees the photographs – him being equally shocked at the discovery of what happened to Corinne. Nic explains the blackmail to her brother and Tyler, before Tyler contacts Annaleise to come to the house under false pretences. When Annaleise arrives, the trio attempt to persuade her to stop her blackmailing and return Nic’s ring, but before doing so she runs off into the woods and the trio loose her. During a reflection to the day Corrine disappeared, Nic thinks about how she saw Corrine at the side of the road when driving, Corrine walked out in front of the car Tyler and Nic were driving in. Leading them to swerve to avoid hitting Corrine, but when getting out and looking for her, it remained unknown whether they’d hit her.
Going back to the day Tyler arrives at the house covered in pollen, he reveals a body has been found, belonging to Annaleise. Nic begins thinking of different possibilities for her death before asking whether she had a gunshot. When Tyler confirms the gunshot, Nic thinks about her brother and how he had their fathers gun, only she remembers how Annaleise was seen entering the motel after leaving the woods, meaning that Nic’s brother couldn’t be the one who killed her. Nic thinks about the number Annaleise called at the motel, remembering that it was for her brother and sister-in-law’s house. This is when Nic puts the pieces together that it was Laura, her sister-in-law who murdered Annaleise because of her affair with her husband. The puzzles begin to connect as Nic places her brother as the shadow entering Annaleise’s house and him being the reason for the missing files – he did it to hide his affair. During this, Tyler confirms to Nic that it was her that killed Corinne when she stepped in the road.
As Tyler is revealing everything to Nic, police sirens can be heard, Nic realises that she needs to make it look like Tyler and her were sleeping together to avoid Tyler being framed for Annaleise’s murder, as he is covered in pollen from the farm where she was found. They are questioned by the police, but ultimately aren’t arrested for Annaleise or Corinne’s murder.
The story ends 3 months later where Tyler and Nic are expecting a child together and are renovating her childhood home in preparation for her father moving in with them. Annaleise’s life is cracked open and scrutinised but her murder remains a mystery.
Woah! When I first began reading this I was really struggling to get into the book and I fully thought I would end up DNFing it. I struggled to understand the writing style and the way that it was set out, but I stuck with it and I’m so glad that I did. The more I read, the more I understood Megan’s writing style and the way it was laid out.
The story goes backwards, starting from the day Nicolette arrives back home and goes back each day, with each day revealing something more about the story and events that resulted in Corinne and Annaleise’s disappearances.
Within each chapter, there are a series of flashbacks to memories that Nic has of Corinne and to the day she disappeared. At first, I found this hard to understand when it was a flashback and when it was present time, as there wasn’t any note to show it was a flashback. The only indication was that the first few words of the start of the paragraph were in bold and a different font. Once I understood when was present time and a memory, I was able to follow along more closely.
Alongside the flashbacks, I initially struggled with knowing the timeline of events as it doesn’t go in chronological order. The chapters work in a timeline that works backwards, starting with Nic’s arrival home, before jumping to the hook of the story where Tyler is covered in pollen. The story then jumps back to 2 weeks after Annaleise’s disappearance, before working back a day at a time, eventually leading up to the day of her disappearance and then going back to the two weeks after her disappearance and the day she is found. This was something I struggled with chapter to chapter, being able to understand what came before and after, but majority of the time the events continued into the next chapter. Once I understood the timeline, I was able to understand the events more. I think it was an interesting approach to the story and enjoyed it, the events were flipped in a way.
I think Megan did a very good job of describing what the characters were like through Nic’s perspective. I felt like I was able to gain a full insight into what each a character’s personality was like. Through Nic’s memory, Corinne came across as a girl who was popular and always looking for trouble. She had two close friends who would follow her around, making them easy to manipulate. Corinne came across as a good friend, but extremely reckless and manipulative. I envisioned her as similar personalities to Allison from Pretty Little Liars.
The way this book was detailed, I had very vivid images of how it could look on a screen as a series and I would love to see it happen. It reminded me a lot of Amazon prime’s Cruel Summer series, which I enjoyed. The whole story is based on the premise of secrets.
I throughly enjoyed reading this book, despite thinking it would end in a DNF. I couldn’t put down my kindle and after each chapter, I wanted to know more. The chapters seemed very long at first, but as I became more interested, they didn’t seem long enough. I think the book length was the perfect length, not too long or too short. The only thing missing was the explanation of how Corinne’s body ended up under the concrete. It was alluded to being Nic’s father, but it would’ve been nice to see how she got from being hit by Nic’s car to being under the garage floor, as it wasn’t mentioned.
I thought that Corinne could randomly turn up alive on Nic’s doorstep, so I wasn’t expecting her to be under the concrete – that was a surprise. I did suspect that it could’ve been either the father, Tyler, Nic or her brother. I just wasn’t expecting Nic to have not known she killed her. It’s always deceiving when you think it’s the main character because even though it’s their perspective, they aren’t going to give it away that it’s them straight away. They’ll always hide some truth from the reader. I fully didn’t see Laura being Annaleise’s killer, but it wasn’t shocking.
I have to say, my heart was racing ever so slightly, which makes it the first book to have made any sort of movement since Verity. The title did throw me off a bit, ‘All The Missing Girls’ implied and gave the impression that there would be a group of girls missing, not two. I guess the title is the plural of two, but I was expecting there to be more than two and potentially a serial killer in the town who was targeting girls.
It would be interesting to read other books by Megan Miranda, not anytime soon (extensive tbr), but potentially in the future.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Georgia
♥
0 comments