A review by emilynied
Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This book dove right in within the first fifty pages and at times was quite challenging to get through. It's descriptive, disturbing and challenging as a reader. I initially picked up this book thinking it would be about a character post-abduction, re-entering the world and the psychological effects of a year spent kidnapped. The book, however, spent most of its first half describing the details of Annie's year kept in the mountains, probing into her innermost thoughts, emotions and fears. The book is interesting in that it tells Annie's story through meetings with her therapist, but we as the reader don't ever meet this person, as the story is told in purely first person. She talks to the reader as if we are the therapist, which makes for some interesting storytelling and cliffhangers between "sessions," broken up into chapters. I think I would have liked to see some sort of therapist "character," but the pacing felt super fast to me and kept me so intrigued - I read this in like a day. 

The second half was what really surprised me. Rather than seeing Annie work through her trauma and experiences, the plot really focuses on the mystery surrounding the abduction and the web of potential connections and crimes that the reader (or just me?) never even suspected. I really liked the mystery here, but would have liked to see more of Annie's character arc as that felt pretty unresolved to me - the entire ending felt a little stilted and sudden after the last big bombshell dropped.
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