A review by literary__mary
Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

This book had lots of elements of a standard thriller and did a great job of building suspense. I wanted to keep reading just to see what would happen. The story unfolds through multiple POVs, switching between present and past tense. I found that some of the POVs were pretty underdeveloped, as well as a few of the characters or relationships between characters. I also found some of the plot twists or major reveals a little disappointing. Although I didn't see some of them coming, some of them just literally didn't make sense based on the person's character or didn't fit logically in the plot, which really irked me. This is the main reason I can't give it a higher rating. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Sexual assault, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Child abuse and Car accident

Minor: Alcohol, Sexual content, and Animal death

The medical trauma/SA portion comes into play through a male gynecologist character who mistreats a lot of his patients. A lot of the scenes with him in them made me super uncomfy, and I'm not sure how necessary to the plot they are.