Week 47 Review: When Mimi Went Missing

From Goodreads:

The splintered relationship between two Indian American cousins is at the center of this dark, twisty YA mystery.

Shy, nerdy Tanvi has always thought of her perfect cousin Mimi as her sister. Not only did Mimi's family raise Tanvi after the tragic death of her parents, fierce Mimi has always protected Tanvi at school. At least until Mimi fell under the spell of their flawless, rich classmate, Beth . . . Tanvi's biggest bully.

Fearing another terrible year, Tanvi decides to take a desperate, preemptive strike—and captures an incriminating photo of Mimi and Beth at a party. When Tanvi wakes up the next day with a bump on her head, scratches on her leg, and no memory of what caused her injuries, Mimi is gone.

When the investigation for the missing girl takes a dark turn, Tanvi begins to fill the gaps in her memory, hoping to bring her cousin home alive. She questions Mimi's friends and enemies—including Mimi's shady boyfriend, who refuses to answer her questions, and Beth, who catalyzed the split between the once-close cousins. Meanwhile, the cops announce that they are now hunting a murderer—are they hunting Tanvi?

To preserve her family and find the truth, Tanvi must revisit the worst night of her life and the darkest parts of her past to discover if she's capable of murder—and the truth of what happened to Mimi.

My Review:
I had such a great time reading this book! The synopsis sounded really intriguing and I wanted to know what happened to Mimi. Tanvi is an unreliable narrator, who has no memory of what happened that night after she got home, and I really enjoyed watching her investigate it, wondering if she had done something, which is not a good position to be in. 

Tanvi's mom had a deliberate car accident that killed her husband and labelled her daughter as a child of a murderer, which is a pretty awful situation. That has died down since middle school, but an incident over the summer has raised the threat of it coming back in the new school year. That it was Mimi that told the bully about it, made everything even harder to deal with. 

Watching her infiltrate, the party had me so anxious, I was so worried that something was going to go wrong and it did because the picture had Mimi in it, which meant it wasn't as good as collateral damage as you would've wanted because she didn't wanna hurt me chances of the future she wanted at school in college. 

The idea that she might have hurt her cousin is an idea that haunts her. Trying to figure out what happened that night that she can't remember, it's difficult. That her cousin resented her and maybe was afraid of her, that was something that Tanvi had to struggle with. As evidence mounted that something terrible had happened, I just wanted to know the truth of that night. Hopes were raised and dashed, and Tanvi had to deal with the truth of that night as well as the whole situation with her mom and how they're intertwined. 

That ending was honestly heartbreaking to find out what had happened. That if one thing had been different, all would've been resolved right away, but because of her head injury, she didn't remember what had happened and was unable to reveal the truth right away. So there was healing from the guilt of what happened because of what happened between when she didn't remember and when she did. 

Loved reading this book and I can't wait to read more by Suja Sukumar! 

Author: Suja Sukumar 
Read: November 19th, 2024 
Source: NetGalley  
Reason Why: Sounded really good, and it's a DAC Book and a SAC 2024 Book! 
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: November 19th, 2024

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars