I DNFd this one.
I'm so sorry to say it. I really wanted to like it and yet, I'm still thankful to the publisher and the author for granting me advanced digital and physical access to this one before publication day.

Book Review!

Missing White Woman by @kellyekell
Pub Date: 4/30/24
Rating: fiiiiveeee stars!

Thank you @netgalley & @mulhollandbooks for this ARC!

Yaaaaall ! This book had me on the edge of my seat alllll day. We follow Breanna and her boo Ty as they go on a little baecation in New York. On the last day of the trip she gets up and finds a body in the living room?!? & her boo is nowhere to be found! 🙃🙂 On top of that the body is of the missing white woman that has been posted on every news network and social media platform.

I ateeee this on UPPP! Suspenseful, left you wanting more anddd a nice epilogue to give you even more closure 😅🤭 If you’re into thrillers or like who done it books, this is for you!

Really drawn to the premise of Missing White Woman and also loved the setting being in Jersey City and seeing familiar places. I was all in for the beginning - but unfortunately it lost me a bit after that. The pacing felt off to me - dragged for a while in the middle and then when I saw I was 95% in I didn’t understand how it could possibly wrap up that quickly. Unfortunately this is one that won’t stick with me but I’m still excited to try future books by the author. Thank you to the publisher for the free ebook to review.

This book had a lot of topics relevant in today's society - stereotyping, herd mentality, and internet sleuths. I enjoyed the storyline and twists and turns throughout. I don't feel like we got to know Ty enough to have a clear opinion. I also am not sure I trust what he was really up to. The ending was also a bit blah. I felt like there were a few loose ends and questions. But despite that, it was still a 4 star read. Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

A romantic getaway turned murder investigation book immediately draws me in. However this fell a little short for me. The pacing felt slow and I struggled to finish the book. Once I did though, it was an enjoyable read.

"Missing White Woman" is fast-paced and suspenseful. This is my first read of Kellye Garrett's but I know it will not be my last. I enjoyed the layer of social critique along with the murder mystery. Recommended for fans of "Gone Girl" "Strangers on a Train" and "Rabbit Hole." Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Author Kellye Garrett follows up her 2022 bestseller Like a Sister with a new thriller that’s chock full of twists & turns.

Breanna’s excited to spend a romantic weekend getaway in New York City with her new boyfriend Ty. It all goes wrong when she wakes up to find a dead body in their Airbnb & Ty nowhere to be found. Is the victim Janelle Beckett - the missing woman whose disappearance has gone viral?

Janelle’s disappearance went viral because a Tik Tok influencer used her platform to amplify the disappearance. In the guise of “just asking questions” the influencer casts Breanna as a suspect. Breanna becomes the internet’s new favorite target & her life gets picked apart by online sleuths.

I liked Breanna’s character arc. Her life has been stuck in a rut for ten years because of a drug conviction in college. She lost her scholarship & her dreams. She can’t move on because she’s burdened by the conviction. The dead body & Ty’s disappearance force her into action to clear her name and Ty’s.

This was an intriguing mystery with plenty of twists and turns. The story also looks at racism, friendship, and the internet’s/media’s influence on public opinion. The pacing is good and Garrett once again provides an intricate story with insightful social commentary

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this title. I discovered Kellye Garrett through Like a Sister because of Bahni Turpin's wonderful work on the audiobook. Like a Sister drew me in and completely captivated me and Missing White Woman did not disappoint. Perfect for fans of true crime TikTok and an excellent reminder of the humanity behind people involved in cases. Missing White Woman reminded me of the hours I spent obsessed with new details on the Gabby Petito case and how uncomfortable it is to look back at that media consumption. With enough twists and turns to keep things interesting, I would recommend Missing White Woman to true crime fans or fans of suspenseful thrillers.

Another winner from Kellye Garrett! After finally reading Like a Sister, I was so excited to get my hands on Missing White Woman and I enjoyed this one equally as much.

I was mesmerized by this suspenseful, twisty thriller that manages to cover both racial inequalities and toxic true-crime culture all in one amazing story!

Days into her romantic weekend getaway with her new boyfriend Ty, Breanna walks down the stairs to find a dead woman splayed out on the floor. And she's not just any woman, she's Janelle Beckett, who has captured the nations attention as a beautiful, blonde missing white woman. In a city Breanna isn't familiar with, she's overwhelmed by how to handle the situation - will the police assume she and/or her Black boyfriend are a part of the murder?

As she unravels more of what happened to the dead woman in her Airbnb, she's forced to face her own past and the challenges of true-crime truth seekers on TikTok in her present. The ending comes together masterfully and will stay in my mind for years to come!

I don't want to give anything way, but I was so impressed by how Kellye Garett created a character whose past experiences mad her the perfect vessel to experience this story through. There were so many moments where I felt as torn as Breanna about who to believe and what was truly happening, and I love when authors manage to make me think about real life challenges from multiple perspectives in the midst of a truly thrilling story.

It's funny since their titles are so similar, but I think fans of Local Woman Missing will love this, as well as fans of Almost Surely Dead.

This was a completely propulsive and darkly fun ride. A great thriller that kept me guessing for the most part, and despite having a few “hmmm, I dunno…” moments I fully enjoyed it and all the characters.

When Bree takes what’s supposed to be a romantic weekend away with her workaholic boyfriend Ty—she’s disappointed when he keeps disappearing to tend to a needy client and she’s left to her own devices. Then, a white woman goes missing near the fancy AirBnb they’re renting and she begins to feel unnerved by the neighbours’ attention, like it’s all connected, and maybe she should fear for her own safety, too, which is magnified by being one of the only Black people staying in the area. Soon, she’s obsessively following the investigation and the beauty influencer who takes up the cause, encouraging her millions of followers to sleuth and put pressure on the local police. Then, on her last morning in the city, Bree wakes to find a dead woman in the house, her boyfriend gone, and all hell breaks loose.

Garrett weaves real issues into a compulsively readable plot—like the way rabid social media followers can get a taste for blood, sway public opinion and effect innocent people and the way BIPOC are victimized by the police system when you’re guilty until proven innocent. Bree is the perfect vessel for this narration because she thinks, feels and acts in such a relatable way. There’s nothing I hate more in a thriller than the MC making some dumbass moves and thankfully there’s none of that here—she’s smart, intuitive, and when she realizes she’s going to have to solve this thing her own damn self? Loved it, I was rooting for her every step of the way.
I hadn’t read anything by Kellye Garrett before—I was just drawn to this purple cover and in the mood for a thriller—but believe me, she’ll be on my radar from now on!

The title, cover, and premise drew me in. I enjoyed this thriller! This is an important topic and angle. A great way to shed light on it.

This was a great book. I loved every paragraph, every sentence and every word of this masterpiece! I read it in 12 hours, which is a lot for me to do! It had everything and more laid out in the novel! I sure hope There is more to come from this author! I am totally hooked!

Thanks to NetGalley and Mulholland Books for the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately I really didn't enjoy this! The "missing white woman" syndrome is real and I thought this had the chance to be an interesting commentary about it and it fell very short. Underdeveloped characters, very little actual action (or resolution), and a "twist" that I guessed from the very beginning of the book.

It was supposed to be a romantic getaway weekend in New York City. Breanna’s new boyfriend Ty took care of everything. But when Bree comes downstairs the final morning, she’s shocked. There’s a stranger lying dead in the foyer, and Ty is nowhere to be found.

A Black woman alone in a new city, Bree is stranded and out of her depth. There’s only one person Bree can turn to, her ex-best friend, a lawyer who shares a very complicated past. As the police and a social media mob close in, Bree realizes the only way she can help Ty, or herself, is to figure out what really happened that night.

This was a compelling read with an interesting premise. I loved the characters, Bree and her relationship with Ty, then getting to know Adore was also a lot of fun. I found the later relationship to be the primary focus of the book and rather nuanced and complex. I also loved the tie ins with the Instagram live episodes. They added some levity to a heavy topic and really helped break the book up and make it a fun read. The problem I had with this one was the pacing. I just can’t see how others are saying it was fast paced, as I found it to be quite the opposite. I found it slow and easy to put down. I struggled with it because it just felt like hardly anything was going on. I hate it when I am trying to get into a thriller and my mind wanders all over because I’m just not pulled in. I wanted to like this one more than I did, because it had so many elements going for it that would work, however, just in the end, the pacing is what did it in for me and made this a four and not a five-star read.

I think that this is a solid thriller, albeit on the slower side pacing wise, and it is a good read.

This might turn out to be one of my favorite thrillers/suspense novels of 2024! Garrett has a fantastic, convincing writing style that brings the reader along for the ride. There were moments when I found myself cheering for Bree and Adore, while in other scenes I wanted to hear another perspective (like the neighbors, or Billie's inner thoughts). The pacing was more rapid at the beginning, but the slower unravel of the mystery was solid. I would recommend to fans of Alyssa Cole, Lisa Jewell, and Gillian McAllister.

I really enjoyed this fast paced, twisty thriller! Bree and her boyfriend Ty take a weekend trip away and stay in an Air BnB. The blissful weekend takes a terrifying turn when Bree wakes up in the morning to find the body of a local missing woman dead in the kitchen, and her boyfriend nowhere to be found. This book is written by a Black author, and (obviously) the missing woman is white, so race is definitely a prevalent topic throughout the story. I feel like the author did a great job of discussing race in a nuanced way that didn't overshadow the thriller element, but made it known why it's such an important aspect in the situation at hand. The pacing of this book was so quick, making it hard to put down. The twists were well thought out and completely took me off guard, which is always something I appreciate in a thriller book. The only aspect of this book that I didn't completely love was the use of social media. Although it is 2024 and social media is a part of mostly everyone's everyday life, as well as a big part of how this story unfolded, I felt like this book was a bit oversaturated with the references to Twitter and TikTok. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to thriller readers!

Missing White Woman by Kellye Garrett
This BOOK! I could not put it down! Filled with twists and issues of today. Our main character, Breanna finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation. She has to deal with race, social media and the police. I will definitely be checking out Kellye Garretts other titles. I recommend giving this book a read, available April 30th!
Thank you NetGalley for allowing me read this ARC

The cover and concept immediately grabbed my attention. But then…The synopsis is more interesting than what actually happened in the book. It was basic. Bree (MC) had no depth and was quite flat. The beginning dragged. While the ending blazed through much too quickly. Abruptly it ends and then I was left questioning what the hell actually happened. I would have liked to get more definitive answers on how the murder took place. I appreciate the social commentary on the missing white woman syndrome and internet trolls/vigilantes. Overall, this lacks depth on all fronts for me though. Thanks to NetGalley & Mulholland Books for my ARC!

📜Missing White Woman
✍️Kellye Garrett
📠Mulholland Books
📚Mystery/Thriller, Fiction
🗓️Pub date: April 30, 2024

⭐️⭐️⭐️

✨Thank you @NetGalley and @mulhollandbooks for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

✨Breanna is whisked away to Jersey City for the weekend by her new boyfriend, Ty. The Airbnb he rented is gorgeous and has sweeping views of the New York City skyline.

✨Admist what is supposed to be a romantic and relaxing weekend turns into Ty constantly on his phone or working, and Bree left wondering if she should have come at all. She is left to her own devices and goes for her daily runs by herself.

✨With flyers at every corner, everyone is on the hunt for a local missing white woman, a popular dog-walker in the area. Splashing across all news and social media outlets is the woman’s face—Janelle Beckett.

✨So it comes at immense surprise that on her spontaneous extended weekend and the last morning of her trip, Breanna comes downstairs to find a woman dead on the floor—none other than the missing white woman—and Ty nowhere to be found. Breanna must turn to the only person who can help her, her ex-best friend.

✨This book fell somewhat flat for me. I felt like the writing was a bit basic, and character development could have been stronger. It does touch upon sensitive racial divide issues, which I felt permeated the book, rather than letting the plot speak for itself.

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