By: Mary Kubica
My Goodreads Review: 2.5/5 Stars
My Summary:
Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica is a thriller set in a suburb in the US. In this community, three people go missing within a month: Meredith, Shelby and Delilah. The story unravels through the perspectives of Meredith, Kate, Luke and a kidnapped little girl. Each new section goes back and forth between the period the women went missing and 11 years later, to the present time. Many suspects arise throughout the story leading the reader down many different paths.
My Review:
I purchased this on audio, and I don’t think it worked well for this story; I think I may have enjoyed it more had I read it. I found it hard to be patient listening to the narrators when I was eager to get to the next page. I think if I had been reading this book, I would have been able to read it quicker and get to the excitement sooner. So, I think my review may be a bit skewed because of this.
As for my thoughts about the book, unfortunately, I didn’t love it. Many aspects of this story seemed unrealistic and sometimes improbable. When it became clearer what happened to these women, I became even more confused about how this could be possible. Now that I know what happened to them, I find it hard to believe that the detectives, forensic specialists and autopsy doctors would not have figured out the truth about what happened to these women. In both instances, I think it would have been relatively obvious the crime that occurred. These mishaps make me feel that they were placed there only to steer the reader in the wrong direction. I also found some parts of the book irrelevant to the story, and I was confused about why they were included.
Unfortunately, I found the ending the most unrealistic. I will try not to spoil the ending with this paragraph, but I apologize if anyone feels I have. The way everything happened, how someone with no experience could have done what he/she did is remarkably unrealistic. People don’t just turn into calculated evil humans within 5 min. It was just too improbable for everything to happen the way it did. As a result, I was completely disconnected from the ending.
That being said, it wasn’t until the end of the story that I began to see the improbability of everything that occurred throughout the story, so while reading it, I was definitely intrigued and glued to each plot twist. I also really enjoyed the back-and-forth timeline that explained how everything happened when the people went missing 11 years ago. Each of the characters added their own layer to the story showing the importance of each perspective. Therefore, I was pleased with the story for most of the book; it was probably about ¾ of the way in where I began to put the pieces together and felt disappointed with where the story was headed.
Final Thoughts:
I really wish I had read this book rather than listened to it; I think I would have enjoyed it more. However, I did enjoy some of the book and was intrigued with each new piece of information, but, unfortunately, as the story came to an end, I found myself completely disappointed and only focusing on the improbability of it all. I noticed this book through Instagram, and I must say this is yet another book I was referred to by Instagram that ended up being pretty disappointing.
Turning Pages with Trish 