It's a little hard for me to pinpoint exactly how I feel about All the Missing Girls. I both enjoyed this book and found it immensely annoying while I was reading it.

The mystery itself kept me turning the pages, wanting to find out what happened. First one girl disappears and then 10 years later another girl disappears. In case you're counting, "all the girls" is just two girls.

My problem with this book is that it felt like a giant carrot was being waved in my face the entire time. The narrative devotes a lot of effort to talking about the passage of time, secrets, so many mysteries, finding monsters everywhere, eyes that are constantly watching, and everyone disappearing even though only two people did. You can see how all that dramatic writing gets old after a while. And I don't think all that carrot-waving really paid off in the end. The twists were ok, but I guessed some of them ahead of time.

Another issue is that the main character isn't likable. She's angsty, emotional, illogical, and paranoid. In fact, all the characters are like that, going through most of the book doing stupid things and acting incredibly guilty. Often, characters mention having unspoken agreements to never talk about this or that. It seems to me these mysteries exist solely due to the gross lack of communication between everyone.

One interesting thing about this book is that it's written in reverse chronological order. While I applaud the author for trying this technique, in the end it feels like it just contributed to the confusion of why everyone is acting the way they are.

Should you read this book? Sure, it's an interesting enough story. But just be prepared to be annoyed and exasperated like I was.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

Intensely powerful and eye-opening, this book follows eight families in Milwaukee as they face eviction. For some or all of the families, the threat of eviction was a constant cloud over their lives and in many cases they go from eviction to shelter to next home to eviction again, often in just a month or two.

Once a tenant has an eviction on their record, most landlords will no longer rent to them, so they can only rent in the poorest and most crime-ridden parts of town. They are perpetually behind on rent and have to make a choice between paying for that or utilities or food and clothes. If a tenant is not current on rent, the rights and protections that a tenant would enjoy under law are void, so landlords often do not bother to upkeep for maintenance, further degrading their already dire living situation. The book shows how these issues and more contribute to a never-ending cycle of grinding poverty, removing any hope for these families to claw out of it.

I like that the book pairs so much of the anecdotes with meticulously researched data. And it doesn't just talk about the problems, but also suggests public policy changes we can make to help alleviate this all-consuming problem for so many in our country. I would highly recommend this book to everyone.

Readaroo Rating: 5 stars!

A heartwarming story about three sisters coming together in the last days of their mother's life. I've read a few of this author's books, and I feel she's really returned to top form with this one. She writes with warmth and charm, crafting characters that are likable and complex even though they are flawed. It's a beautiful look at love, family, and redemption, perfect for light summertime reading.

Readaroo Rating: 4 stars

This is the quintessential English murder mystery, easy to get into with lots of slow delicious buildup and interesting characters. It reminded me of the classic style of Agatha Christie, a style you don't find much of in present-day murder mystery books. Slow doesn't mean boring though, and it wasn't long before I was completely immersed, turning the pages to figure out whodunnit.

At times, it did feel like the author could have edited the book to be more concise, since parts of this first-person narrative was the character going over the same facts multiple times and turning the same things over in his mind. With the slow pace of the story, the resolution came surprisingly fast and was over quickly, with everything wrapped up a little too neatly.

Still, I enjoyed the characters, the author's writing, and the nostalgic feeling I got from reading this, and I'm looking forward to reading more from this series.

Readaroo Rating: 3.5 stars

This is an ok story, but there were so many things I didn't like about this book. I thought the book would be mostly about the four siblings, but it also devoted much attention on partners, children, children's friends, neighbors, and various other people. Once you add all those people in, there just wasn't much time for character development.

The characters were all selfish and unlikable, making odd decisions that I couldn't relate to at all. Who would pre-spend money from a shared inheritance account when they haven't gotten the money yet?! And even though the siblings were all financially stupid, their partners indulged them. I really can't understand any of their behaviors.

The book also had some technical flaws. It mostly followed a sequential timeline, but sometimes not, so you felt like you were randomly jumping around for no reason (it wasn't too build up suspense or to add to story-telling). At times, there were pronoun reference ambiguity (come on! how is this not caught during editing?). And the way the author explained one of the story lines regarding the publishing world was really hard to understand.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars