Still Missing
by Chevy Stevens
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Book Reviews of Still Missing
Book Review: Couldn't put it down, great story, brilliant book!
Summary: 5 Stars
THERE ARE NO SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW!
I've been waiting for months for Still Missing to be released. With all of the advance press and buzz it has been generating, people have been writing tons of reviews containing intimate story details that I didn't want to hear about before reading the book, and I've found it very difficult to keep forcing myself not to read them. So I won't do that to you in this review.
What is commonly known about Still Missing is that it is focused around Annie, a Realtor, who is abducted while running an open house. When I started the book, I expected the entire story to be about the abduction, her survival, and eventual escape. I was wrong. The abduction, and her survival through it (and being that the book is written in the first person as Annie talks to her therapist, the fact that she survives is no secret) is only half of the book. It's the vivid and introspective view into what happens to Annie AFTER the abduction, including some completely unexpected plot twists, where the story gets interesting.
Annie is a raw person. The author has spent a great deal of time developing Annie's psychology and internal thought processes, and this is shared with the reader, making Annie a three-dimensional person with real feelings and a real life. She says what is on her mind, and she doesn't hold back. She has the ability to utilize language you would expect of a truck driver, and uses it as she sees fit. But she is not crude - she is a sharp-witted, intelligent, smart-mouthed survivor whose brilliant comebacks often had me laughing out loud. I fell in love with Annie, her damaged psyche notwithstanding. Still Missing is told in the first person, and the reader really gets to feel as though they are a part of Annie's mind. By the end of the book, I felt like I knew her as a real person. For these horrible things to be happening to someone who I felt I knew, was almost unbearable.
And that's the beauty of Still Missing. Yes, there are some grisly details - there has to be, in order for the reader to be able to understand Annie's justifications, and realize the true horror of the situation. However, these are masterfully intermixed with different, saner events within the story's timeline, filling out the background story and the characters involved. This gives the reader a rest from the horror - but that doesn't mean that you won't be blindsided around the next corner!
Eventually the flashback timeline joins the present day timeline, and just when you think you've got the story figured out, and are expecting things to wind down - some totally unexpected plot twists are thrown your way. Annie's adaptation to these plot twists make for my favorite part of the story - they really show what she is truly made of.
Still Missing is publicized as being "unputdownable" and this statement is truth in advertising. I could not put down this book, I HAD to know what was going to happen next. Practically everywhere you look, popular summer reading lists are proclaiming Still Missing as the "book of the summer" - and with good reason. Reading articles online about Still Missing, I saw that this is Chevy Stevens' debut novel, and on the strength of it she was signed to a three-book deal: a virtually unheard-of event. The publisher has mounted a massive campaign behind it, and rights to the book have been sold worldwide. There is a very good reason for all of this: Still Missing is a GREAT BOOK!
Will Still Missing appeal to you? I am a middle-aged family man. I loved the book. My wife loved the book. In fact, I haven't met anyone who didn't love this book. It left me thinking about it for days afterward - and to me, that is the indication that I have just read something great. I would recommend it to anyone.
Book Review: Unique Psychological Thriller With a Few Twists (B+ Grade)
Summary: 4 Stars
Thirty-two Annie O'Sullivan has a nice life. She has a golden retriever, Emma, a boyfriend who loves her, and a pretty okay job as a real-estate agent. Her mother may smother her with the questions and criticism as most loving mothers do when it comes to their daughter, but Annie treats her mother with kid gloves most of the time, just to get her off her back. One sunny Sunday afternoon, Annie is doing an open house. As she's packing up for the day, one final visitor comes to look at the house. What Annie doesn't know that this smiling, well put together man will drag her down to hell and make her second guess everything she knows about herself.
Annie is forced at gunpoint into a van by this man she labels The Freak. He injects her with a drug that makes it easier for her to be transported deep into the woods and to a remote cabin. The Freak now owns Annie and forces her to live a new way of life on his terms. She must follow his rules, schedule and this means when she's allowed to bathe use the toilet, and bed time. Annie doesn't know why The Freak has chosen her, even though he has pictures of her from every angle of her life and tells her he's saving her from herself. He threatens those she loves if she doesn't behave. Annie has no choice but to survive, even if that means pretending to accept The Freak in ways that will destroy her very soul.
As the months go by for Annie, she loses all hope. She's The Freak's victim, forced to do things with him that makes her slowly die inside. Annie has no choice but to accept her new life, until the day comes when she can escape this monster and go back to civilization, but as a shell of her former self.
Still Missing is a powerfully written book from Annie's point of view in the present as she talks to her therapist, interwoven with her time with The Freak, a truly disturbed individual who abuses Annie in such a way that she would be better off dead than alive. Annie gives a very analytical approach to her situation and the after affects. You will ache alongside Annie as you read the abuse she is forced to endure by this mad man.
What makes Still Missing a unique psychological thriller, is that there are a few twists, especially one major one that you won't see coming and may make you gasp in shock. At one point, I wanted to cry for Annie because she's given something so special that helps her live to see another day, but then it's taken away from her in such a manner that will make you grieve alongside her. As a reader, I was very emotionally involved and wanted to make The Freak suffer for what he has done to Annie.
This debut by Chevy Stevens is a wonderful, intricately written book. Still Missing will hit you hard in the gut, and as you read the last page, your heart may become logged in your throat as Annie comes to terms with her anguish and despair in a truly brave and inspiring way.
Katiebabs
Book Review: You will take parts of the book with you to your grave
Summary: 5 Stars
I love being wrong about books. Take STILL MISSING, Chevy Stevens's impressive debut novel. I was absolutely sure that it was going to be a dry psychological study of the aftermath of a tragedy. The narrative consists of a series of monologues that take place in a psychiatrist's office. Annie O'Sullivan is the patient, the survivor of a kidnapping and period of brutal captivity. My initial thought was Okay. We already know she lives. So what's the point? But it wasn't long before my hair was standing on end. Have you ever tried to read a book where you were so terrified of what would happen next that you had to cover your eyes? That describes a good third of my experience with STILL MISSING.
So what occurs? In a series of sessions that substitute for chapters, O'Sullivan lays out what transpired over the course of her kidnapping, captivity, escape and the aftermath. O'Sullivan, a real estate agent, was conducting an open house for a client when she was taken by a total stranger. The abductor, who is christened by her as "The Freak," is a monster. There are no two ways about it. He spirits her off to an unknown location where she is secreted away in a secured cabin and subjected to an abusive regimen for the purpose of rendering her totally docile for as vile a purpose as one can imagine. When she is unexpectedly given an opportunity for escape and retribution, she does so.
What more can happen? As it develops, O'Sullivan's ordeal is not over. In fact, the aftermath of what she has gone through is just beginning. She talks about caged birds who, when confronted with an open door, don't fly out of their confining quarters. Just so. The second half of the novel is about O'Sullivan's tentative steps toward recovery, though it is clear that, at least in some areas, she can at best achieve an acceptance of "the new normal."
The remainder of the book not only deals with recovery, but it also concerns revelations, some of which are shocking. And it is here where the reader acquires the full revelation of how powerful a writer Stevens truly is. Don't think that the climax is far-fetched; I would be willing to lay odds that anyone reading the book can think of a number of people who are capable of doing what is done to O'Sullivan, and who can justify it with the same degree of conviction as is displayed in the final pages of this incredible work.
Stevens is currently working on her second novel. If STILL MISSING is any indication, her literary abilities run long, deep and strong. Her characterizations are vivid and unforgettable, and she has the ability to chill with but a few carefully chosen words, to create unforgettable imagery in a short passage. You will take parts of the book with you to your grave.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Book Review: Something's missing...
Summary: 3 Stars
I just finished reading "Still Missing" and was left thinking... Well, something's missing, though the book does close with a wonderful line. I've read many reviews calling this a "fast read," but for me it may have been too fast in that it read almost like a movie. I kind of felt rushed while reading it.
I think "J. Hoelscher's" customer review here on Amazon said it quite well in that this "book doesn't know what it wants to be -- a psychological examination of being held hostage by a maniac, an attempt to describe the details of being held captive as a sex slave, or some sort of crime thriller." Now, I don't think any book has to be just one of those things. A good crime thriller can include a "psychological examination" of what happens to the victim, but where "Still Missing" falls short is that it's trying to be a little bit of all those things.
For me, this novel worked best when focusing on the "psychological examination" of Annie, but just didn't work very well at all as a crime thriller. The "twist" at the end just seemed absurd. It was as if the author had told the story of Annie's living in hell with "The Freak," but didn't really know what to do beyond that. So, we get this messy, implausible "shocker." Personally, I think I might have left the mystery of The Freak -- who he was, why he did what he did -- a mystery. Leave the reader wondering, just as Annie would have been left wondering, why this had happened to her? Sometimes a little ambiguity at the end is preferable than trying to tie everything up with a nice bow.
Finally, I thought in trying to make Annie seem like such a strong woman, this author did something I really am tired of seeing writers and movie directors do, make that willful, independent, strong woman a cussing machine. Don't get me wrong. I've got nothing wrong with f-bombs, but I don't think so many of them were necessary here. I think we could have seen what a powerful woman Annie was without her routine choice of words being something that would have to be bleeped on TV. Can't a woman be empowered in a work of fiction without being given a hard, "macho" edge?
Anyway, I would call "Still Missing" a good read and Annie a memorable character. But in this case, more about her emotional struggles and less about The Freak and the whole "conspiracy" behind Annie's abduction would have made for a great novel.
Book Review: Started Out Great, Lost Steam Halfway Through
Summary: 3 Stars
When I read the premise of Still Missing, I was immediately intrigued. I'm a huge mystery buff and this one seemed like it had a pretty unique storyline. I was a bit worried that I wouldn't feel the tension or suspense since you know the narrator makes it through her horrific ordeal right at the beginning of the book. I was so wrong! This book was extremely suspenseful (just the way I like them). So why the 3 star rating? Because I felt like the author lost steam halfway through.
This book started out pretty amazing. I had visions of giving this the full five stars and tons of praise. It was suspenseful, but the narrator told her story in such a matter-of-fact way that it made it that much more chilling and haunting. Annie O' Sullivan suffered through every woman's worst nightmare and the author doesn't shy away from it. Even though, I knew Annie was going to end up alive, I still flinched and cringed every time The Freak went near her. I just couldn't help it. And my heart just broke having to read through every thing that Annie was going through while recounting it to her therapist. I loved that this was how it was narrated. I thought the whole sessions thing was very unique.
Once I found out what happened to The Freak and how she ended up escaping from her torment, Still Missing started going downhill (not that I was upset at anything that happened to The Freak, I'm just trying to provide a timeline as to when I stopped loving it without adding spoilers) for me. After that, it felt like I was reading two completely different stories. It just started going all over the place. Other reviewers have pinpointed my main problem with Still Missing. The book just doesn't know what it wants to be, so everything is packed in there. Also, the whole "twist" was just very, very out there that I had a "suspend disbelief" (or belief? I'll never know the correct way to say it) moment.
So, I loved the psychological part of Still Missing. This book excelled when it was getting into how Annie was coping with what happened to her. However, it was a bit of a fail when it came to the whole crime-thriller aspect of it. In fact, I think I would've enjoyed the book more if it had been sans big, unbelievable, twist that every mystery writer that I've read (except maybe Tess Gerritsen and Dennis Lehane) seem to think they need to make it great.