(Finished September 18th, 2017) themusicaddict's review of "All The Missing Girls" and Philip Roth's "American Pastoral"

Hello,

I'm in the minority for reviewers of this book, but I thought this book was highly overrated. Since only two girls were missing, it should have been titled "Both The Missing Girls". The title indicates there may be some type of serial killer or some other interesting premise. However when you find out what happened to the missing girls, I went what? Just how dumb is that? I mean it's original story. But just because it has never been done, doesn't mean it should be done now.

As with a lot of other commenters I didn't like how the book went in reverse in the middle section. The book would have been better if it had went forward.

For me one of the best indicators for the quality of a book is if I want to read more books by the same author. For Megan Miranda, the answer is a big "no".  I also judge a book a lot by the quality of the ending. Honestly this book's ending sucks. A tangled mess of an ending for a tangled mess of a book. Miss Miranda is young so let's hope she figures it out.

"American Pastoral":

For the second book I'm going to review Phillip Roth's "American Pastoral", which won the 1998 Pulitzer for fiction. Unfortunately I found this book a complete bore, with virtually no redeeming values. It's just a slog, a meandering and pointless slog.

I've read Phillip Roth novels before, I loved, loved, loved "The Human Stain". What a great book, what great writing. The story is amazing, I love and feel for the characters. Probably in the Top 100 books I've ever read. Then I heard they were making "American Pastoral" into a movie. That meant that I needed to read it. This is one of the most disappointing books I've ever read.

Some quick questions: Why? What is the point? Why does the story feel so incomplete? There really wasn't any better books in 1997? Anita Diamant's "The Red Tent" and Stephen King's "Wizard and Glass" are substantially better than "Pastoral". Although different genres, in my opinion the best book of 1997 was Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air". A work of non-fiction that's so good that it reads like fiction.

Do yourself a favor and skip "American Pastoral" and read "Into Thin Air".

themusicaddict