Review: Missing

Missing by Tom Patterson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This wasn't what I expected at all, so it was pretty disappointing.

What I expected, based on the blurb: Dude decides he's done with the trappings of society so escapes into the bush to live off the land and so learn to appreciate the simplicities of life.

What I got: After years of being a screw-up, drug-addled criminal retreats into woods to grow (and sell?!) weed with less chance of being caught.

The fact that this covered more of Mark's life of drugs than his time in the bush was already a massive drawback, but then to discover that there was no redemption arc, no new outlook on life, no rediscovery of the true joys of life ... it was just so disappointing.

Honestly, there's just not enough to this story to make it a worthy book.

The writing is a giveaway of that, because it is choppy, short sentences that skips over details. Titled paragraphs rather than chapters, and an unclear timeline that jumps all over the place and confuses chronology. The book is separated into different parts which are each labelled with a year, but then that part seems to cover multiple years; Mark goes off into the woods to live off the grid, but then he's showing up at his brother's place so regularly they have to tell him off for it. Then he has a job, and then he's back living off the land? There's just not enough words to tie all these things together neatly with any kind of logic. To be perfectly candid, the writing is terrible. Plenty of descriptions of the bush, though.

There are so many siblings that the lack of description and logical order means they all kind of blend together, meaning I didn't care about who was who. All I got was that Mark was the loser of the family. That sure didn't make me sympathetic to his plight, especially when he didn't seem to grow as a person at all.

This is a true story, and I really expected to be inspired by this person who decided that, instead of being beat down by life, they would retreat into simplicity and learn to appreciate life through nature. Instead, I just found myself feeling sad that this man who was so willing to go to extremes did it all in the name of drugs.

I am sure there are some who will enjoy Mark's story - perhaps even sympathise - but it just doesn't strike me as being note-worthy. There are so many others more worthy of having their story shared.

With thanks to A&U for an uncorrected ARC

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