Something Missing

One of the best surprises of the year. Lovely, fun, interesting take.

Martin's a thief–a very peculiar kind of thief. He keeps going back to the same places time and again, mostly stealing staples–food, household supplies, etc.–enough to get by on, but never enough to get noticed. This book takes effort to get through–the quirky, even funny, premise will carry you through the first chapter or two, but then the excruciating detail that the Narrator gives about every little thing threatens to drag the story to a halt. I wanted to stop more than once, but there's something about Martin that made me want to stick with it.

I'm so glad I did, it was so worth it. After all the painstaking detail about how Martin gets into people's homes, learns their habits, decides how much to take, and then inventories it and so on...a new side of Martin starts to break through. One that cares about people. He starts taking risks–and everything, every dull, obsessive detail that you trudged through pays off.

The book becomes thrilling, endearing, heartwarming...by the end, I couldn't believe how much I liked Martin and was pulling for him.