ARC Review--The Missing Season by Gillian French

From the author of Edgar Award finalist Grit and The Lies They Tell comes a tense, atmospheric novel for fans of E. Lockhart and Marieke Nijkamp, about friendship, truth, and the creeping fears that can't be outrun.

Whenever another kid goes missing in October, the kids in the old factory town of Pender know what is really behind it: a monster out in the marshes that they call the Mumbler.

That's what Clara's new crew tells her when she moves to town. Bree and Sage, who take her under their wing. Spirited Trace, who has taken the lead on this year's Halloween prank war. And magnetic Kincaid, whose devil-may-care attitude and air of mystery are impossible for Clara to resist.

Clara doesn't actually believe in the Mumbler--not like Kinkaid does. But as Halloween gets closer and tensions build in the town, it's hard to shake the feeling that there really is something dark and dangerous in Pender. Lurking in the shadows. Waiting to bring the stories to life.

I received this ARC from the festivities of Independent Bookstore Day. My review is completely honest and voluntary, I was in no way compensated for this review.

The Missing Season is my first Gillian French book! It sounded like an exciting and eerie mystery with a strange urban legend in the woods that was possibly kidnapping teenagers and having them never seen again! Spooky cool, right? Well sadly, this book wasn’t real high on the mystery element and focused more on the everyday goings for our heroine Clara, who had just moved to this small little town.

So for about two hundred pages this book read like a contemporary, at least to me. Sure, they brought up the legend if The Mumbler occasion, trying to scare the new girl. Though one boy, Kincaid was convinced of its legitimacy. But then that story fizzles out and we watch Clara go from good girl to bad as she and her new friends start committing vandalism all in the name of fun.

Then finally, someone goes missing, and honestly, it took so long to get to this point, that I just couldn’t bring myself to care anymore. That’s how disappointing this one turned out for me. I kept waiting and waiting for someone to vanish or be killed and it was roughly 200 pages into a 304 page book to get that point. Speaking as a mystery reader, that was just too long. Had I liked contemporary reads it wouldn’t have been so bad, but as you all know, I don’t read those anymore.

There was some romance between Clara and Kincaid. It was the sort of budding kind that started from a crush to a kiss to going further and further. Too add some zing to the mix, Kincaid is also the crush of Clara’s newly found friend and neighbor, Bree. But by the time Clara told Bree about the relationship, I was already losing interest in the story.

I will admit that I flipped towards the end to see if they revealed the whodunit clear and easy. They did. But I honestly could not recall who this character even was! I guess that says something about how drawn into the story I was…or wasn’t in this case.

I’m not going to say that The Missing Season was a terrible book. It truly just wasn’t for me. I’m the reader that needs paranormal and fantasy in her life. Or a really good, on the edge of your seat thriller/mystery. I was hoping this one would fall into the latter, but it just wasn’t there for me. The mystery took way too long to get started that by the time it did start, I was already skimming pages to further the book along. I definitely think this book would appeal more to the contemporary reader who enjoys a good mystery every now and then. But as someone who doesn’t like contemporary outside of thrillers and mysteries this one just didn’t jive for me at all.

 
Overall Rating 1.5/5 stars


The Missing Season releases May 21, 2019