I gave this book 4 stars because it was well written, but I didn't like the characters. I didn't like Sadie or agree with her behavior. I felt like an outsider reading this book, or more like Francine. I felt closer to Francine. ( )

I'm not going to deny that I'm still slightly baffled by The Longings of Wayward Girls. In all honesty, I wasn't expecting the story I ended up reading. Alternating between Sadie's childhood, and her adulthood 20 years later, the synopsis made me believe that I was going to be living the mystery of a missing girl. What I was presented with was the story of a lost woman, her neglectful (and terrible) mother, and the past that ties them together.
 
Sadie was a really tough character to like. Even now I'm not sure if I was even supposed to like her in the first place. From a young age her character is one who constantly needs the attention and admiration of others. Not happy to fade into the background, Sadie spends her childhood as the alpha of her group friends. With no regard to the feelings of others, and no remorse for her actions, Sadie ends up the same person as an adult.
 
My favorite part of this book was definitely the writing itself. It flowed onto the pages in beautiful, detailed sentences. Karen Brown shines in her ability to draw the reader into her world. Sadie lives in a quiet suburb, where everyone knows one another and everything is always the same. I could feel the quiet breeze, see the fields of flowers, and hear the rustling leaves. Despite anything else, the writing is really what kept me reading.
 
The mystery itself, and in fact the reason I chose to read this book initially, was very understated compared to everything else. I was a little disappointed by that fact. This story revolves around Sadie's relationship with her mother, with her friends, and ultimately we watch her as she struggles to deal with being unhappy in her mundane life. I was eventually given a solution to the girl's disappearance, but it just didn't feel like enough.
 
I know that this book will have an audience that will love it. As I said before, the writing is definitely beautiful. If I had known what it was going to focus on ahead of time, and not been expecting something else, I might have been more engaged. Not my favorite read, but give it a try if you're a fan of slow-moving, beautifully written stories. ( )

2.5 stars. Meh. ( )

it was good but it could have been better

2.5 stars

This book is too long for the story it wants to tell, by at least 50 pages. It took me 12 days to finish this 300-page book, & I almost shelved it a couple times for being too hard to connect to. Once it got down to just telling the story, I was able to run through it & enjoy it. So I wish there had been less detail.

That being said, I'm glad I finished this. It's a look at the weight of complicity, the toll guilt takes on you when you aren't held accountable. Sadie and her best friend play a mean trick on a younger girl in the neighborhood, and that girl ends up missing because of it. Years later, Sadie loses a young girl from her own life, & unravels back to that summer as she tries to make sense of it all.

It turns out lots of people own a piece of this girl's disappearance. No one did right by her, in their efforts to keep their own secrets. Inevitably, tragedy unfolds. Sadie spends the end of the book learning just how many people have some culpability in the events she set in motion.

There are missing girls and women throughout the book - girls who are presumably snatched; women who flee their lives, both metaphorically via alcohol and affairs, and literally via suicide attempts; daughters who die at birth and shortly thereafter; and their mothers who follow them to the grave. There's a lot to extract here pertaining to motherhood.

The author places the story in two summers in a small New England town. She captures that setting & period perfectly, making you feel as if you've seamlessly stepped into a painting right in the midst of the action.

So there's a lot to recommend here. It just takes too long to get hooked. If you're interested, it's worth a read. But don't drop what you're doing for this one. ( )