Happy Tuesday everyone! On this weeks installment of my book blogs we are once again switching up genres to another one of my favorites, true mystery. While we dabbled in it last week with “We Were Liars”,  “All the Missing Girls” is a book that is all mystery, as opposed to the bit of multiple genres as we saw in the last blog. This is one that I only read recently, but can definitely say it’s up there with many of my favorites, and I hope you guys will agree.

Synopsis- When Nic Farrell returns to her home town to help take care of her ill father, nothing can prepare her to confront the memories she worked so hard pushed behind herself when she left 10 years prior. After the death of her mother, teenage Nic was already struggling, her entire life destabilized, mourning with her father and brother. The disappearance of her best friend Corinne pushed her over the edge, and led her to leaving town for good. Corinne was never found, and eventually the search was given up for good, her book closed for good.

Almost immediately after Nic arrives back in town for the first time in 10 years, another girl goes missing, this one just a few years younger than her. The books timeline moves uniquely, opening at 2 weeks into the investigation, and traveling backwards all the way to the day Nic arrives back in town. As we follow her working her way to the beginning, readers watch as Nic slowly unravels secret upon secret, things kept from the police, kept from friends, and even kept within her own family.

When Nic unveils the special interest that Annaleise (second missing girl) had in her friend group, and the way that she held evidence crucial to Corrines case, which she had been using as blackmail for years to bleed Nic’s father of all his money, a chain reaction occurs. Soon after she is confronted by Nic, Nics brother, and her childhood friend who completed the trio with Corinne and Nic, Annaleise disappears into the forest.

As the story progresses, going backwards to the beginning of her investigation, Nic also begins to reveal the circumstances of Corinne’s death. Her revelations are shocking, and leave her tied to the town she spent so long trying to forget. As she allows the ghosts of her past to reappear, coexisting with her present, Nic pushes the line of just how far you can truly go to protect the ones you love, and at what point protecting them puts you in danger as well. After all, there’s no life without fear, and no fear without life.

First Line- “It started with a phone call, deceptively simple and easy to ignore.”

Last Line- “That I survive. It’s only one thing. But it’s also everything. Pick yourself up. Start over again.”

My Favorite Quote- “People were like Russian nesting dolls – versions stacked inside the latest edition. But they all still lived inside, unchanged, just out of sight.”

“There is nothing more dangerous, nothing more powerful, nothing more necessary and essential for survival than the lies we tell ourselves.”

(these were both too good to decide between!)

Rating- 10/10 I can genuinely say that this is one of the best mystery novels I have ever read. The unique way of telling the story backwards leaves readers unable to put the book down, as the end of each and every chapter leaves a major cliff hanger. The story starts a two weeks into the investigation, and then circles back to the beginning for the ultimate plot twist reveal. Not only is the overall structuring of the story good, but the contents themselves as well. It’s one of those mysteries that is just creepy enough to leave you slightly scared, but not too much to the point where you don’t want to keep reading until every little secret is revealed in the end.

**Image found on GoodReads- https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23212667-all-the-missing-girls