Missing: A Memoir

Missing: A Memoir by Lindsay Harrison

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Since this is a memoir, I will try to be honest in my judgments, yet spare the snark for the most part. After all, it's about a real-life family living through a real-life drama; one to which thankfully I can't relate.

Missing is one young woman's story about the 40 days her mom was missing, and the aftermath of finding her body. But it is more than that. It's the story of one dysfunctional family, a messed-up mother / daughter relationship, and of growing up and recovering from an unspeakable tragedy.

Lindsay Harrison is immature, but honest. She doesn't try to make herself out to be the hero, or the one holding the family together. She lays it out there, flaws and all, and it makes her unlikeable. There were times when her bad decisions, immaturity, and rudeness made me want to shake some sense into her. I can't imagine what the family went through during this time. Unfortunately we only get Lindsay's thoughts, and reading about the perspective of her brothers and her father would have made the story more complete. Instead we are stuck inside the head of a pot smoking 20-year-old who seems to need counseling from the years of living with her manipulative, selfish, potentially mentally ill mother. Her POV just didn't do it for me.

This book is just ok. Not great. Not particularly captivating. Something was missing from making it "un-put-downable" for me, but it was still finishing from my "to be read" shelf. Two 1/2 stars.



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