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Dec 17, 2009

Erin rated it:

Wow. I'm not sure that I've ever come away from a book disliking the author so much since Lance Armstrong. The book jacket reads as if this will be story about Amy Latus. It isn't. I think that Amy appears in this book only to give Janine Latus a reason to write it (perhaps she saw this as her big writing "break"?), because this book is about Janine and Janine only. Any references to Amy deal with Janine's reaction to what happened to Amy and how hard it was for her. I was also a More...

5 comments like (19 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Jill rated it:

Ok, I get that in the beginning Latus is setting up the family's background for enduring and living with violence within their relationships. But it's turning me off. I don't know why just yet.

*****Later*****

It has been a long, long time since I said "Yuck!" to a book here on Goodreads.

What I'm about to say may cause many people to hate me and jump down my throat due to the nature of the memoir, but I'm just giving my honest impression.

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5 comments like (10 people liked it)

Nov 07, 2008

Jocelynneb rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Jun 30, 2008

Liz added it

This book was a very quick read for me, I read it cover to cover on a 4 hour flight. The writing is stellar, and the subject matter is very compelling.
I disagree with people who chide the author for telling her own story. I always thought that was the point...her story of abuse and her story of her sister's death.
I cried many times during this book. Janine's love for others, her sisters, her mother, and other women in her life rang out loud and clear and familiar.
Viol More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

May 03, 2008

Jann rated it:

Even though the basic premise of the account was her sister's death, every element of the book didn't tie into it. Instead, what she did was establish a pattern of abuse that made it more understandable for these two strong, smart, beautiful women to accept a pattern of abuse that is unacceptable for anyone.

To be fair, she can't write about what she didn't know or experience herself. We get to know Amy as a family member would know her-- in this case, as a little sister. They spea More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2008

Gwen rated it:

Wow. This book will make you decide to never, ever, ever affiliate yourself with any male ever again. It's one of the most depressing books I've ever read.

It starts off with the basic Catholic girl victimization--lecherous dad, pervy friends' dads, constant refrain that they are bad and slutty and tempt men, who can't help themselves, moving into the obligatory rape in early adulthood. And things don't get better from there.

It's horrifying to read how the intelligent, wit More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Dawn Michelle rated it:

I started reading this in the bookstore the night we picked up the last Harry Potter book. It is VERY good, but I would like to finish it. Hopefully I can either finish it in the bookstore (a la Aubrey) or just buy it, read it and pass it on!!! :)
More when I am finished!

UPDATE:
Finished the book. Finished it 2 hours while sitting in Indigo. I felt like my eyes were on FIRE!
This was a good book, but very very sad. Very thought provoking as well. But over-all, very sad More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 13, 2007

Nadia rated it:

I notice some of the reviews here pointing out that this book is about the author rather than her sister. That's definitely true, but I think it's also part of the point of the book. The author was living through a series of abusive relationships while putting on a good face for her family - all the while her younger sister was doing the same.

I think the point is the guilt. At the point in her own life when she finally came to terms with needing out, her sister's parallel story took More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 20, 2010

Karen rated it:

I am shocked and saddened by the tone of this book! Is this a book about the author's missing/murdered sister (as the title implies) or is it about the self-absorbed author?

The title is very compelling and as a fan of true crime shows like Forensic Files, 48 Hours Mystery, etc. I thought this book would be interesting. I listened to it on audio and I must say that the author's sister--the true victim here--was done a huge disservice. This is the most self-indulgent piece of work More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 01, 2009

Kourtney rated it:

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0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 31, 2007

Pam rated it:

I was also confused as to why this book seemed to spend so little time with Amy.

I've decided that the author couldn't write what she didn't know (what was going on in Amy's secretive relationship - Amy wasn't volunteering any information - maybe because she was embarrassed or ashamed - why write the letter in her desk if she didn't know that she couldn't trust her heart)- so Janine wrote about what she did know. - why SHE stayed in abusive, dangerous relationships - we live what we More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 26, 2009

Sarah rated it:

I listened to this book on audiotape, and while I did enjoy it, I feel like it wasn't what I was expecting. I mean, maybe it's because it was abridged, but it didn't seem so much about the author's sister as the author herself, whose life (and romantic relationships) are covered down to each little detail. Still, a compelling story.

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 24, 2008

Michelle rated it:

This is an awful, awful book. From the reading the title, you'd think it was about a woman's search for her sister's killer, which is what prompted me to read it. Naturally, I was thinking it was going to be a loving memoir to her sister and how justice was served in the end. Not at all! Until you're almost at the end of the book it's completely about the author's abusive relationship and how she stayed in it and received many beatings, abusive language, etc. I was so disgusted by the autho More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Santos rated it:

Okay, I bought this book yesterday afternoon and finished it this morning. I loved it and hated it. either way, I was compelled to read it. It made me cry several times. I'm not sure that it will be as interesting to everybody else, but some things just resonated for me. A quick synopsis: the author's little sister was murdered by her boyfriend. Part of the healing process for the author was to search back into her own past and examine her own abusive relationships. It was well-written a More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Katie rated it:

I didn't know this was an autobiography when I initally picked up this book.

The sister who wrote it was abused by every single male in her life, starting at the age of 12. The sister who dies in the book also accepted abuse by her husband and then subsequent lover.

To someone who has never been abused by a boyfriend or husband, it's hard to understand why these two women allowed the abuse to go on in their lives. They were smart, successful, hard-working and pretty. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 07, 2008

Jen rated it:

I had a hard time giving this book 4 stars ("really liked it"), although it deserves them. "Missing or Dead" was incredibly disturbing, rather than "likeable". Even more so because it is a true story. I find it difficult to understand women who choose to remain in abusive and controlling situations, and yet I recognized little bits of myself, my family and past relationships within this brutally honest and heart-wrenching memoir.

Latus writes like the More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Catherine rated it:

This book was an intense look at domestic abuse. The author chronicles her life and her youngest sister, Amy's life through their abusive relationships and finally to the author's divorce and Amy's death. I couldn't help but wonder why, when it was all-too-apparent that the father was abusive, would the family continue to protect him. The author stresses her family's close-knit bonds, but from my impressions, the family culture was to buck-up and put on a front, which may have attributed to A More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Kris rated it:

I had heard that this memoir was about the murder of the author's sister, so I was a bit surprised that this indident didn't happen until the very end of the book. The author spends the early part of the book dealing with family relationships, and the marriages/relationships of her and her sister. It was interesting to me that from the outside looking in, clearly there was impropriety and abuse, and yet these incidents left the author feeling that these things happened because SHE had done somet More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 27, 2011

Amy rated it:

This book majorly depressed me. All the while I was reading it, I was thinking "Why would anyone put up with that kind of mental and physical abuse?" At the same time, some of her thought patterns/decisions weren't totally foreign. What if I had been born into a different socioeconomic bracket? What if I hadn't had two loving parents? And in our teen and adult lives, aren't we all just one step away from going down the wrong path at any given time? Shortly after finishing this book, I More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Elizabeth rated it:

This book takes an intense look at abuse - emotional and physical - within relationships. Through the author's own relationships, the reader is set-up for the book's ultimate purpose which is to share the story of the death of the writer's sister.

This book is very heavy, but as others have said, it is a quick read. It is an excellent portrayal of unhealthy relationships and the tapes that play in people's brains as they move through life. If you want a peek into unhealthy family More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 27, 2011

Debbie rated it:

This book was a compelling read. It drew me in immediately with the author's memoirs of growing up in a dysfunctional family. It was honest and described the life events that caused the author and her sister to become victims of poor self esteem, abusive men, and for one of them, murder.

There were times in the book when I'd become frustrated with the author, who stayed much too long with a lousy husband. Sadly, her liberation happened around the same time as her sister's death.
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1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 23, 2011

Ellie rated it:

I don't give out five stars, hardly ever, but this book deserves every one. It's the true story of a family in which 2 great sisters become embroiled in domestic abuse situations. The author tries to solve this puzzlement. I nearly stopped reading it because I couldn't believe she stayed and stayed and stayed. BUT it's important for us to try to understand it, and learn how to help a loved one in such a dilemma. There are red flags all over the place, but this problem is so widespread an More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 02, 2008

Xenia0201 rated it:

I was disappointed with this book. Granted, the author had to paint a very painful picture of the abuse she and her siblings were subjected to, but the events leading to the disappearance and death of her sister were not discussed until the last few chapters. What this book ended up being was an autobiography that had nothing to do with the book's title. While I have compassion and sympathy for the author, she strikes me as a true narcissist. Why else would she have her own life completely o More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 13, 2009

Kathleen added it

If I Am Missing or Dead, by Janine Latus, A-minus.
Downloaded from audible.com.
Janine Latus is a journalist who tells of the wrong decisions she and her sister Amy both made with regard to men-poor decisions, which Latus points out, are made by intelligent women everyday who lack self esteem or faith in themselves. In Janine’s case, this led to getting two different breast implant surgeries for her husband’s gratification, and wearing suggestive clothes as his “trophy.” In the case More...

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Dec 24, 2008

Terry rated it:

This book is COMPLETELY different than I thought it would be. I understood it to be about the author's sister's death and the aftermath. Wrong. (The jacket copy for the hardcover edition is terribly misleading, I must say. For example, it makes is sound like the trial of her sister's murderer takes up a huge chunk of the book and it's only mentioned in passing!) The book follows the author and her relationships and marriage, and her sister's death occurs within the last few pages. On one hand an More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 01, 2011

Judy rated it:

Janine Latus has a way of telling a story that pulls you in, but I found myself getting annoyed at her continued willingness to be a victim. Yes, she had a scumbag father, and yes, she had too many relationships with men who were just, um, not nice. But at some point, you need to take a stand and be responsible for yourself, and here's where I thought she liked to point blame and yet not accept any accountability for her complicity in her own victimhood. Her husband wanted her to wear the sho More...

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Oct 25, 2011

June rated it:

This book seemed to get a lot of negative reviews, and I couldn't disagree with them more. Once you start reading, it is clear that the story is NOT just about the murder of Amy Latus (the writer's sister). The story is about growing up as a Latus girl, told from the perspective of Janine Latus. Naturally, there is a lot more about Janine's life in this book, but by the end you can paint a very clear picture of what it was like to grow up as a Latus girl - the things that shaped those similariti More...

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Sep 14, 2011

Bonni rated it:

Absolutely the worst book I have ever read! Wanted to throw it in the bin! Please don't waste your time reading this it is an insult to peoples intelligence! Wasted 3 days reading this crap. All Janine Latus did was crap on about herself! Her body, her workouts, her tiny bit of cellulite! Her breast implants and the sex she had with all the blokes in her life! A totally self conceited Pig of a woman! this was not an abusive relationship! He never bashed her... Funny how all the men in her life More...

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Jun 23, 2010

Maria (Ri) rated it:

If I Am Missing or Dead is like sitting down with a girlfriend for a heart to heart talk. Latus totally opens her life and thoughts to the reader in a convincing and unassuming way. You care about her and want her to succeed both in her career and in her personal relationships. It reveals how easily women can get sucked into a negative cycle of relationships with men and lose themselves in the process.

After reading this book, I am extremely appreciative of the men in my life, especia More...

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Jan 27, 2010

Sarai rated it:

I listened to this on CD. It's a good book and I think an important book. This is a true story about a writer whose sister was murdered, but the book is less about the sister than about the writer. Partly, that is because the sister did not let her friends or family know all the things that were going on in her life, so they found things out later, when it was too late. It is also because they are parallel stories about women who lacked belief in themselves and stayed in relationships that were More...

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