The Missing Season

Every few years in the town of Pender – around Halloween, of course – a kid goes missing, only to be later found dead. Adults are quick to dismiss it as a train accident, overdosing, meeting a bad end after running away. Is this the case, or is it the fabled Mumbler, the ancient evil who lives in the marshes and feeds on children? Clara, the new kid in town, gets fed both stories and maintains a healthy dose of skepticism, but strange occurrences, more missing kids, and a dreamy guy might just make her change her mind...

This book had such a great premise, and was certainly not poorly written, but man-oh-man did it falter toward the end. The kind of faltering that makes the pseudo-meandering nature of the story even more frustrating. There were a lot of positives, but it failed to stick the landing.

The biggest positive, in my opinion, is Clara herself. I liked her as a main character and thought her musings on friendship, school, and family were realistic and well-written. I especially loved her close, yet occasionally prickly, relationship with her parents, which is reminiscent of my own relationship with my parents (ah, the joys of being an only child).

I also liked the description of Pender, and where Clara lives specifically:

I swear I've been here before. Not Birchwood Terraces, exactly, but other developments like it, named after the trees cut down to build the place: Oakfield, Elm Park, Spruce Way. We've moved three times in four years, and twice when I was in elementary school, following Dad's construction work, but somehow, we always end up right here.

Clearly, French is a talented writer, but it seemed like she had an allotted number of words for the book and used most of them on Clara's developing relationship with Kincaid, and not enough on the development of the Mumbler plot/the ending. 2.5/5, rounded down for the wasted opportunity.