Girl, Missing by Sophie McKenzie
Feb. 16th, 2008 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Lauren is adopted and eager to know more about her mysterious past. But when she discovers she may have been snatched from an American family as a baby, her life suddenly feels like a sham. Why will no one answer her questions? How can she find her biological mum and dad? And are her adoptive parents really responsible for kidnapping her?
Lauren runs away from her family to find out the truth, but her journey takes her into more and more danger - as she discovers that the people who abducted her are prepared to do anything to keep her silent ...
Having read the book jacket blurb and seen that this book had won a couple of awards, I went into it with high hopes. Perhaps this was why I ended up so very disappointed.
The idea that underlies this story (child abduction and children being sold through adoption agencies) is a serious one and yet McKenzie treats it in a rather facile, superficial way. I was particularly unimpressed with the confrontations that Lauren has with her parents, which never struck me as emotionally credible (especially when you find out the reason for her adoptive mother's reluctance to talk about it towards the end of the book). For most of the book, Lauren is unthinking and selfish, which prevented me from really feeling for her predicament and the way in which she willingly puts herself into danger time and time again made me wish that the villains really would succeed in whacking her.
Speaking of the villains, they don't get much page time and as such are somewhat one-dimensional. McKenzie seems keen to portray the main villain as some kind of mastermind and yet their dogged pursual of Lauren and belief that the only way they can escape the authorities is to kill her really stretches credibility to the limit.
The relationship between Lauren and Jem is a little more believable, particularly in terms of the dialogue between them. However, McKenzie's attempt to give Jem an uncaring father falls into trite cliche, as does his New Age Mother.
What really annoyed me about this book though was the complete failure to deal with Lauren's relationship with her 'real' family. I wanted to see more of their reaction beyond cliched sentimentality and I wanted to understand Lauren's dilemma beyond seeing her as some kind of whiney bratt who doesn't know what she wants. The way in which McKenzie resolved Lauren's "conflict" is facile and cheapens what should be a deeply emotional situation.
I think that it's perfectly possible to write an emotionally satisfying, breath-holding thriller about child abduction for a teenage audience. But this really didn't do it for me.
The Verdict:
Superficial and pedestrian in its plotting, I thought this was a massive disappointment. I would like to see a YA author tackle child abduction in a mature way, but McKenzie's complete disregard for the emotional impact of the subject matter, combined with her creation of a whiny, self-involved central character is not the way to do it. I was surprised to discover that this is an award winning book because it is so trite and under-developed.
Lauren is adopted and eager to know more about her mysterious past. But when she discovers she may have been snatched from an American family as a baby, her life suddenly feels like a sham. Why will no one answer her questions? How can she find her biological mum and dad? And are her adoptive parents really responsible for kidnapping her?
Lauren runs away from her family to find out the truth, but her journey takes her into more and more danger - as she discovers that the people who abducted her are prepared to do anything to keep her silent ...
Having read the book jacket blurb and seen that this book had won a couple of awards, I went into it with high hopes. Perhaps this was why I ended up so very disappointed.
The idea that underlies this story (child abduction and children being sold through adoption agencies) is a serious one and yet McKenzie treats it in a rather facile, superficial way. I was particularly unimpressed with the confrontations that Lauren has with her parents, which never struck me as emotionally credible (especially when you find out the reason for her adoptive mother's reluctance to talk about it towards the end of the book). For most of the book, Lauren is unthinking and selfish, which prevented me from really feeling for her predicament and the way in which she willingly puts herself into danger time and time again made me wish that the villains really would succeed in whacking her.
Speaking of the villains, they don't get much page time and as such are somewhat one-dimensional. McKenzie seems keen to portray the main villain as some kind of mastermind and yet their dogged pursual of Lauren and belief that the only way they can escape the authorities is to kill her really stretches credibility to the limit.
The relationship between Lauren and Jem is a little more believable, particularly in terms of the dialogue between them. However, McKenzie's attempt to give Jem an uncaring father falls into trite cliche, as does his New Age Mother.
What really annoyed me about this book though was the complete failure to deal with Lauren's relationship with her 'real' family. I wanted to see more of their reaction beyond cliched sentimentality and I wanted to understand Lauren's dilemma beyond seeing her as some kind of whiney bratt who doesn't know what she wants. The way in which McKenzie resolved Lauren's "conflict" is facile and cheapens what should be a deeply emotional situation.
I think that it's perfectly possible to write an emotionally satisfying, breath-holding thriller about child abduction for a teenage audience. But this really didn't do it for me.
The Verdict:
Superficial and pedestrian in its plotting, I thought this was a massive disappointment. I would like to see a YA author tackle child abduction in a mature way, but McKenzie's complete disregard for the emotional impact of the subject matter, combined with her creation of a whiny, self-involved central character is not the way to do it. I was surprised to discover that this is an award winning book because it is so trite and under-developed.
