weekend read: Songs for the Missing

I can’t believe I finished this book. I haven’t read one this boring in quite some time. I’ll keep this short and as painless as possible.

Songs for the Missing by Stewart O’Nan starts out good, you meet Kim the main character that goes missing within the first few chapters. Then the point of view switches around from her parents, her younger sister, her boyfriend, and her best friend. I felt O’Nan did this mostly because there was no real story here and he could drag out the suffering if he told the same non-existent and boring story from different points of view.

Kim was eighteen and enjoying the last few weeks of her summer break before leaving for college when she disappeared on her way to work. I wanted to sympathize with the parents because that is every parent’s worst nightmare come true, but I just couldn’t muster up too much emotion. The only reason I kept going was to see what really did happen to Kim and even that was anti-climatic. By the end, I was just skimming the pages trying to finish it. That is a horrible sin in my English-teacher world so that should tell you exactly how painful this book was to read.

Songs for the Missing by Stewart O’Nan. Has anyone else read this? Was it just me or was it horrible?