The Gravity of Missing Things by Marisa Urgo

But the blurb makes it sound like the plane mishap is the sole focus of the book. Of course, the author doesn’t leave any thread dangling and all the tracks are well-narrated. While these don’t hamper the pace, it just feels like there’s a lot happening within a few days.

It makes the book sound like some sort of forbidden lesbian romance story. ❌ (continued from above)… it doesn’t represent the story accurately. Where the book could have worked better for me: ✔ The cover is stunning, but… (see below.) Though I could still have done without them, they aren’t SO bad. But in this book, the romantic tracks work decently well. ✔ I never like superfluous romance in non-romance-genre stories. There are just as many characters as the story requires, and the author makes good use of them. None of the characters are easy to classify into labels. ✔ While YA characters are hardly ever layered, this book makes the characters sufficiently complicated. The emotions are written very realistically.

✔ The stages of grief are covered well in Violet’s and her family’s reactions to the incident. There’s a bisexual character (who also gets to spout some amazing thoughts on what life is like for bis), and a couple of queer characters. The book is described in the end as having “humour and heart”, and I agree. ✔ Though the topic is very serious, there is a lot of subtle humour throughout the story. This helps tremendously to know the timeline of the investigation and the aftermath. Rather than only having the plain numbered titles, there are tags such as “Day zero”, “Day one, morning”, and so on. ✔ The chapter titles worked nicely for the story. After a long stint of slow-medium paced books, this felt like a gust of fresh air. ✔ It was wonderfully fast-paced, despite the number of topics it covers. The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Violet. Violet decides to take things in her own hands after she finds a letter addressed to her, written by Jenn the night before the accident, asking her to “trust me.” She is determined to clear her mother’s name. Both the girls are dealing with their own demons, and the plane event has set off things beyond their control. Soon there are loads of conspiracy theories online, most blaming Ashby for whatever happened.Īshby’s family includes her recently separated husband and their two daughters, 17 year old Savannah and 16 year old Violet. There’s no distress signal or mayday alert. Read the triggers though.Ī commercial Boeing 747 has gone missing with almost 155 people on board, including the chief pilot Jenn Ashby.

The Gravity of Missing Things by Marisa Urgo