Review: The Missing

Here's a surprise review because I ranted about this book a lot. Is this making a dent in my review stack? No comment :P

Missing by Kelley Armstrong

Published: April 28th, 2017 by Crown Books for Young Readers
Genre: YA Thriller
Binding: Hardcover
Page Count: I returned this to the library and forgot to fill this part in, but goodreads says 384 so let's go with that.
Part of a series? Nope.
Got via: The library.
Amazon / Book Depository / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): The only thing Winter Crane likes about Reeve’s End is that soon she’ll leave it. Like her best friend did. Like her sister did. Like most of the teens born in town have done. There’s nothing for them there but abandoned mines and empty futures. They’re better off taking a chance elsewhere.

The only thing Winter will miss is the woods. Her only refuge. At least it was. Until the day she found Lennon left for dead, bleeding in a tree.

But now Lennon is gone too. And he has Winter questioning what she once thought was true. What if nobody left at all? What if they’re all missing?

Thoughts: I'm not going to lie - it kind of surprised me to realize this was published in 2017. It feels rather outdated at times. Not in like a technology way or anything - the setting having such a high rate of poverty and Winter herself being very poor makes it make a lot of sense that she wouldn't have access to a cellphone or laptop or anything, and it's very clear that it's the poverty causing the absence that kind of thing, not that they don't exist. But this is so lacking in any kind of diversity besides class diversity that I'm a little shocked. I'm pretty sure there are brown people in Kentucky.

Also, I rather suspect that a place this poor would have more disabled people just due to not being able to afford medical care, not a complete lack of them. And I don't think there was a single fat character in this. Those are both populations who are more likely to be poor. And the way Jude specifically is characterized is almost... borderline Hollywood Autism, and I was uncomfortable with that a lot of the time. It's kind of messed up combined with some of the other things stated about the character.

I think one of my biggest problems with this is that, according to the author herself, she grew up middle-class and has never really experienced this kind of poverty. Also, like myself, she's Canadian and has never been from rural Kentucky. There's nothing that specifically stands out to me, but overall I was just left with a feeling of unauthenticity. I almost wanted to be reading something by someone who had experienced this instead.

This is going to be a spoiler so skip this paragraph if you want but it's a big trigger warning as well, and I'm not going to not talk about it. This book has exactly one queer character. Winter's best friend Edie is bisexual (I assume, the book doesn't use any label for her). Edie never actually gets any screen time because, and this is the spoiler, she's been dead since before the book started. I saw it coming basically the first time she was mentioned and kept hoping it wouldn't go that direction, but then at the end it slid right into Bury Your Gays territory. And because you only find that out right before the end, it's basically brushed off. Like, thanks for creating this character just to give the MC motivation and make her sad, that's great.

While it didn't bother me as much as it'll bother other people, I will give a big mention that this has a lot of animal cruelty as well, and also a lot of misinformation about feral dogs/pit bulls, so I'm gonna link to this review from someone who knows that subject better.

I have mixed feelings about the romantic relationship in this. I'm glad it didn't go the way I thought it was going at first, absolutely. But I also think it's kind of... adult romance novel-ish, and maybe that doesn't always work so well in YA. Because frankly if you're 17 and you meet a dude who does some of the things this LI does, you shouldn't date him. You should run.

Hey also can we talk about the fact that Winter's sister is okay with their father breaking Winter's nose at one point and abusing her so badly she goes to live in the woods most of the time rather than go home because she wants to make peace? And that he probably would have kept doing that if Winter didn't have a friend who could beat him up more? Because that was messed up.

Winter at times did make me a little annoyed. She goes into very dangerous situations with no plan, no way to defend herself, and no back-up, and just doesn't think ahead very much. The book even makes fun of this a bit at one point. She should have been dead several times over. There were times where I kept thinking, "You should know better! You're supposed to be self-sufficient and wary, not reckless!"

Honestly it frustrates me looking back at this and seeing so much stuff because I do enjoy Armstrong's writing and the prose and voice really worked for me. Winter is a little bit Katniss-esque and I won't lie, some of the things that made me feel that way also made me raise an eyebrow here and there, but there's a lot in this that I liked. I literally read most of this in one sitting and barely put it down to eat even when I was starving and it was getting really late. I've enjoyed a lot of her books in the past, and I wish I had liked this one more. I loved the atmosphere and how creepy it was at times, especially when you're reading alone and every noise creeps you out, but I'm just not comfortable recommending it.

It'll be up to you if you want to read this one. I kind of can't get past the Edie thing myself. Two out of five roses.



That's all I've got!

Peace and cookies,
Laina