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This is a hard book to recommend because it doesn't fit nicely into any category, some people will gush about it and others will hate it. There are many good bits that are weakened by a touch of poor writing, often weighed down by cliched phrases and the author's tendency to underestimate the reader's intelligence - like her frequent use of irony, only to then explain why that's ironic as if we couldn't get that on our own. The guy who abducts her (who she calls "The Freak") gives her a book about natural pregnancy and she has to say: "Yeah, that was The Freak, because, you know, abducting a woman, locking her in a cabin, and raping her is real natural." We got it, already. Then there's the part where she says "that's irony for you" and it actually isn't.



This is not a comfort read, but it doesn't strike me as something that will impress the more serious, harder-to-please readers either. But it's not only the irony, I also think Stevens made the wrong decision when choosing to write her novel in the style of someone talking to their shrink post-abduction and return. The chapters are called "Sessions" and the informal language used throughout gives the impression of bad writing (whether Stevens happens to be a good writer or not). Obviously, if you recorded a real person's sessions with their psychiatrist and wrote them down this would not make a well-written novel, and whatever effect she wished to create by doing this - perhaps she thought it would seem more real? - just kind of fell flat.

If you like books that are dark, creepy and gritty, then the plot should sit well with you. It's about the kidnapping of a realtor, Annie O'Sullivan, who is taken to a cabin in the woods (haven't heard that one before) and subjected to physical, mental and sexual abuse. I think this book's greatest strength and the reason I still gave it three stars despite its many faults is the exploration of a victim's mind and how someone facing abuse day in and day out can learn to almost accept it as a way of life. This is something I have always been interested in when it comes to such as domestic violence, how so many people stay with their abuser and are even unsure of how they could cope without them.

By starting in the present and looking back over the period of abuse, Still Missing looks at a number of issues relating to abuse, reasons why Annie is unable to deviate from her captor's rules after escape, reasons why she didn't always hate him. The idea suggested is that when life goes wrong in a way we could never have foreseen, when things turn upside down, we cling to anything we can find in our lives that remains consistent and, sickening as it seems, for some people that happens to be the rules and patterns laid out by the perpetrators of the abuse. Stomach-turning, but an interesting look at the psychology of it.

This novel works far better as a psychological thriller than it does as a mystery. The twist towards the end is not particularly good, it didn't feel natural, almost as if it was an afterthought of the author (which it probably was but you shouldn't be able to tell) and not something that the story had been progressing towards. But if you are looking for a creepy page-turner and are not too demanding of the mystery genre, then this could be just right for you. If you'd like a twisted mystery that's more sophisticated, you should check out Gillian Flynn instead.