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Missing You
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Missing You by Harlan Coben - Spoilers - overall comments
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Ann
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rated it 4 stars
Mar 31, 2014 11:24PM
So what did you think of the book, spoilers included. Thanks for sharing your overall comments about the book with the group!
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overall , i really liked this one. at the beginning, i wondered if titus was really jeff, but figured out soon that he wasn't. when she finally "found" jeff and learned the truth about her father, it almost seemed anti-climactic to me.
I had wondered if Titus could be Jeff too early on, but that was another waiting plot twist.Also, I realize :I'll tell you later" is a valid way of building the suspense, but you can go to that well too often.
Just finished, I didn't see the end coming with Jeff. Overall I liked the book but, I found it kind of hard to follow at times
Overall I liked it too. It was hard to follow at times and was a constant puzzle to decipher and speculate over the days as I read. Audio books tend to give you plenty of food for thought and time to consider different possibilities so it is a pretty perfect audio in that aspect and the narrator's voice for Kat is a perfect soft tone. Coben writes conversational dialog very well. I found myself thinking that Kat's being involved in both cases was what saved her from being snatched up on the street by Titus when she was with Sugar rather than returning immediately back to her apartment.
I kept trying to connect the two cases in other ways and couldn't pull that together in my head as I read along. I thought the mastermind behind the abductions must either be Jeff or have killed Jeff or, who knows. The revelation Jeff accidentally killed her Father was a shock. I wondered about Aqua's extreme distress earlier in the book but couldn't but it all together.
I found it difficult to follow as well, and I am not quite sure why. Coben is usually more cohesive than this and this one seemed all willy-nilly! Was totally surprised by Jeff, and was not totally happy about the "convenient" apprehension of the criminals. Overall, I did enjoy this roller coaster :)
Liz: Willy-nilly is a good description! I was also surprised at the difficulty in figuring out the different threads, not that multiple threads were bad, it just wasn't apparent where they were all leading, even deep into the book. The idea of parallel cases converging isn't unexpected, it was the inference that they were connected from the beginning that didn't seem to pan out or match the evidence that was a bit bewildering.
Ann, I totally agree! I was constantly looking for some connection!
and we never did find out who the nephew was that got sent to the police academy.Overall, I found this outing unsatisfying. I was caught up in the action, that part was good. But, too many whiplash moments where something happens and you go "wah?" Like, Chaz suddenly becomes Mr. Helpful -- what was up with that? And the whole Jeff angle I mentioned before. It felt a little like patchwork plots to me.
Exactly Carol - "patchwork plots" is a good description. I haven't been that impressed with Harlan's stand-alone novels and the YA spin-off from the Myron Bolitar series left me "meh", not sure I'll pick up another one. I can't quite put my finger on it, but generally the characters don't seem real to me, and as so many other authors write characters that do seem real, and worthy of investing my time with them, I'll still have plenty to read.
Ann wrote: "I can't quite put my finger on it, but generally the characters don't seem real to me, and as so many other authors write characters that do seem real, and worthy of investing my time with them, I'll still have plenty to read...."
Yes, agreed. It's too bad, I really want to love them because Harlan the person is such a kick. But the characters seemed cartoony, one dimensional kind of. Like they're following plot points on an outline rather than living the moments. Quite a contrast to Broken Harbour, where I can feel everybody's pain. Which is not always fun, but I finish the Murder Squad books feeling like I really lived a drama.
So do we set it oon fire before we fling it at a wall?
Barry wrote: "So do we set it oon fire before we fling it at a wall?"Well, I don't know that I'd go THAT far!
Barry: in my case, the library would have frowned upon it, but the CD's would have made nice frisbee-esque missiles. Barry wrote: "So do we set it on fire before we fling it at a wall?"
overall I thought the same as everyone else. Liked the book but since I had it to the side more than reading it in the middle I got confused until I was able to get back into the book. I really enjoyed it when I first started it and ended up liking it in the end even though at one point I felt lost. It reminded me why I like Harlan's books or at least the ones I read already (a little behind on his books). Ended up giving it a 9 rating. remind me next year to go back to the 1 to 5 rating. I forget each year and really don't want to start it now.
