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.
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