Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - All the Missing Girls

This was good! The first 100 pages I was kind of bored and didn’t understand why it was told the way it was. As the story went on and it was unraveling I was invested and wanted to know what happened. I do have to say nothing was really shocking.

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rosytosey's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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noladawnreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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bringmybooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

First of all, LOVE WHEN AN AUTHOR'S COVERS ALL HAVE A SIMILAR VIBE

✨ 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚 ✨ B̷O̷R̷R̷O̷W̷ B̷Y̷P̷A̷S̷S̷

I've now read 2 of Megan Miranda's books (& currently have pretty much her entire backlist either on hold or loan through Libby) and I can tell you now these are books that I'm going to want on my shelves for anyone that says, "Hey, do you have a twisty thriller book that I could borrow? Something I won't be able to put down? Nothing too dark or messed up but, you know, something with grit?" So naturally, as aforementioned, I am *stoked* that they are all going to look so beautiful together!

Now on to this particular book - as I've only read two, I'm not sure if this is a tactic that Miranda employs in all of her works, but I love the way she plays with time and the narrative in this and The Only Survivors. All The Missing Girls hooks you with the prologue, drops you right into the beginning, then jumps two weeks into the future after a local girl goes missing and takes you back, day by day, to the fateful day when everything blows apart. Sometimes I had to remember what I already knew (and what the characters didn't) to try and keep all the threads straight, but I loved how it came together at the end!

I liked the characters in this one a lot, even as you only kind of get surface level with any of them (seems to be the way of it with thrillers, sometimes?) and I love the way Miranda explored relationships, especially those between teenage girls. I saw the undercurrents of relationships like those portrayed here in my own adolescence, and can only say I'm grateful I wasn't too near their orbit. Oof.

(Speaking of which, if you are looking for something like this but that touches way deeper on those bonds we forge as young adults and how those relationships can ripple out in ways we couldn't possibly see coming, check out Tana French's The Secret Place - it's the fifth in the Dublin Murder Squad series but can *technically* be read as a standalone, ALTHOUGH I highly recommend the entire series. Kind of a psychological thriller mystery? Anywho. Love it.)

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suneaters's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Corinne's disappearance has left a large impact on her hometown. Corinne's boyfriend Jackson, her friend Nic, brother Danial, and Nic's boyfriend Tyler are all involved, but not all secrets can stay buried. Nic is the only one that ends up leaving the town while the others stay behind. She comes back to help her ailing father. Then, the girl Tyler is dating (Annaleise) goes missing. The story is told backwards to reveal the truth of that night Corinne went missing and what is currently happening in the town.

When Corinne went missing, Annaleise was the one that gave the group an alibi. She has been blackmailing Patrick and now tries to do the same to Nic, thinking Nic has money because of Everett (her rich fiancee). One of the pictures Annaleise took shows a body on the porch and she thinks it is Corinne. What happened was Nic hit Corinne with a car. Her father, in trying to make up for his bad parenting, buried the body under the garage. Annaleise ends up calling Daniel's wife Laura to implicate the family in Corinne's death, but Laura ends up killing her to save the life she has after being brought to the brink. Nic figures out what Laura did and warns her brother Daniel to get rid of the gun. Daniel gets rid of Corinne's body. Nic says she doesn't know about the body when Daniel and Tyler find it, but Nic mentions her ability to get Tyler to do what she wants. With this and the way she mention taking the dare and Corinne's surprise, we wonder if the "accident" was on purpose. Nic saw a dare in Corinne's eyes to keep driving when she was on the side of the road as a hitchhiker just like how Corinne had dared Nic to ride on the outside of a ferris wheel. Nic has been trying to make sure her father doesn't talk to the police and that's really why she came back, so he won't sell the house with the body in it or tell the police what happened to "that girl". At some point, Nic's fiancee shows up to help, but Nic keeps having to lie to him and he begins to realize Nic isn't the girl he thought she was. Nic realizes she has to stay in Cooley Ridge to keep an eye on everyone who knows what happened to Corinne all those years ago. She breaks up with him, gives Tyler an alibi, and ends up pregnant with his child and living with her father in Tyler's house. In the end, she is trapped in Cooley Ridge even though she tried so hard to escape. Generally, a depressing story of female friendship twisted into something awful and a group of people trapped together by their own lies.

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