The Perfect Stranger

It always makes me sad to leave a bad review, but I had to abandon this book 100 pages in - I just couldn't go on reading. I found the plot unbelievable and the pacing tedious - definitely did not work as a beach read. :-(

Megan Miranda’s latest release, The Perfect Stranger, will make for an excellent beach read this summer. While it doesn’t have the punch of All The Missing Girls, I was still caught up in the story and characters, especially in the second half of the novel. This is a slower-paced thriller, which isn’t for everyone, but really hooked me by the halfway point. I love the quiet, sleepy Pennsylvanian town that Megan created, especially since I grew up in Pennsylvania!

There are quite a few mini-mysteries going on in this novel: what exactly happened in Leah’s past, and the strange mystery surrounding Emmy being the two biggest. While I figured out certain aspects fairly early on, other parts of the mystery definitely caught me off guard twoards the end!

Leah is an interesting character, albeit occasionally annoying, and you really get to know her as the plot progresses. She’s a strong woman that doesn’t give up, and the whole storyline brings up some interesting questions. Does the end justify the means? Can you ever really “start over” somewhere new, in a new life? Kyle, the police officer assigned to Emmy’s missing persons case, is one of the weak links in the story. He seemed to be written to be a likable, good guy….but I wasn’t a fan. I do wish his character had been flushed out a bit more. And then there is Emmy, always in the background, a big question mark that is slowly unraveled.

My absolutely favorite part of The Perfect Stranger was the last chapter! I won’t say anything to spoil the ending, but it was definitely a perfect way to end the book.

If you like mysteries/thrillers that take place in quiet, sleepy communities that hide their secrets well, you’ll probably enjoy The Perfect Stranger.

I was really into this book until so many different characters, names and plots got intertwined. It became really confusing and loose ends weren't tied up. The ending was puzzling as well.

I gave up on this after about 60 pages-boring narrator (who goes from being an incompetent reporter to an incompetent high school teacher) and plot details that were meant to create suspense, but didn't. It didn't help that, as a Boston resident, I caught two mistakes about Boston in the narrator's backstory: it's Boston "Common", not "Commons" and the Prudential Center is an office tower and shopping mall, there are no residential apartments.

The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Simon & Schuster for the ebook ARC of The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda in exchange for an honest review.

Leah Stevens is a failed journalist from Boston, she has a restraining order and is being threatened by a lawsuit. She ends up running into her old friend and college roommate, Emmy Grey, who had just left a troubled relationship.
Emmy suggests that they both move to rural Pennsylvania so they can both have a fresh start. Leah ends up getting a teaching position in a high school.
Everything is going well until Leah notices one day that she hasn’t seen her roommate Emmy in a few days, so she reports her missing to the police. And as the investigation begins to unravel, it seems that Emmy never even existed. Leah needs to find out what Emmy was hiding before someone else does.
And as all this seems to be going on, a couple of people are found murdered at a nearby lake, and Leah seems to be in the midst of all of this.
Kyle Donovan is the detective on the case. And Leah begins having some relations with him.

I found this book to be a very good mystery, even though I did not read Megan Miranda's first book, The Missing Girls.
At first I found it a bit hard to get into but as I read on and I found it very hard to put down.
I rate this book 4 stars and would recommend that you read it. It is a very good mystery novel.

The author set up the story similar to "Missing Girls" telling the story through past experiences that were used to fill in the present time. Perhaps not as clear as the other book, there were some confusing things that went on. I believe that she tried too hard to make this similar. However, she did a good job of presenting Lean and Emmy and making you wonder for a very long time in the book whether there were two characters or only one. Which is really not clear until the very end. I have enjoyed both of these books and will wait for the next one to see if she tries a different method of telling the story.

This one was too confusing for me. I'm sorry I bothered to finish it. I kept expecting an ending in which everything became clear and it just wasn't there.

Last year, I read All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda and couldn’t get into it; I felt confused and mixed up throughout the plot and it didn’t allow me to really get into the story. When #cjsreads decided to take on Megan Miranda’s newest novel, The Perfect Stranger for one of our April reads, I wanted this one to feel different; unfortunately, I consistently struggled with this one as well!

The novel opens with teacher, Leah, realizing her roommate (and old friend), Emmy, has gone missing. Simultaneously, a woman winds up brutally beaten by their home and police become involved. Leah finds herself tied to the woman by the lake, her missing roommate and soon becomes a target of police questioning. Leah must try and find out the truth about Emmy while battling her own personal demons.

Similar to the last novel I read by Miranda, I felt like way too much was going on. There is the beating by the lake, the missing roommate, a dark past and a romantic relationship with a police officer. I felt as if maybe the author had focused on one of these things, it would have made the plot easier to follow. Instead, I found that all of these things were fighting for the limelight and everything felt jumbled.

I also struggled with the pace of this one; it read very slowly. I prefer a faster paced read and this one seemed to steadily climb and then settle. I didn’t find there was a real climax to the story.

This one was not for me.

I have so many mixed feeling about this book. The overall plot was interesting and unique. I think that was the only thing that kept me reading. Otherwise, I would have quit not even half way through.

There is just too many things going on in this book, it got confusing. Add to the fact that some plot lines didn't even seem relevant to the story. I was confused and bored during most of the book. Willing myself to keep reading. Hoping that the ending would bring it all full circle and I would have that "ah-ha!" moment where it would all make sense.

The author does a wonderful job of writing. Scene and character descriptions were not lacking and it was easy for the story to play out in my head. The problem for me was too many characters. I didn't feel loyal to a single one. They were all just a flit in my head depending on what scene I was reading.

The ending was very anticlimactic. There was no "Oh my goodness" moment when everything came together and it all made sense. It actually left me confused and wanting to know more. All the loose ends didn't get tied up.

The Perfect Stranger will be available in the U.S. April 11, 2017. It was a 3 star read for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for allowing me the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.