Review: Sorry I Missed You

Sorry I Missed You by Suzy Krause
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Where to begin, where to begin. When I first dove into this read, I really enjoyed the premise—three women, ages representative of different stages in a woman’s life, end up renting different floors of the same house. When a letter asking for a meeting arrives, fairly mangled and nearly unreadable, in their jointly shared mailbox, each is secretly hopeful that the letter is meant for her. They quickly discover that all three have been “ghosted” in different ways, whilst at the same time they discover what appear to be ghosts living in the attic. The rest of the book unravels the back story of each woman, bringing them closer to one another and to the ultimate truths they seek

So the plot works...until it doesn’t. Warning—minor spoilers ahead.

The author’s attempt to offer parallel stories for the three main characters is unbalanced and uncomfortable. Some of the explored elements of each backstory are extraneous and over explained, adding nothing to further the action, while others are deemed critical but then never followed through to a resolution. The backstories are, in fact, so unbalanced as to make at least one of them seem petty and trivial. A woman jilted at the altar is developed as a stereotype of the bitter old maid who just can’t navigate new technologies, while the murder of a teen sibling is treated in a manner that wholly diminishes and marginalizes the tragedy. I found myself angry with the treatment of BOTH stories, though for completely different reasons. To even juxtapose them simply didn’t work, making this approach feel artificial and forced. The remaining thread being pulled throughout examines one woman’s inability to reconcile her own failures with the widely recognized successes of her friends. This piece of the book lacked a solid foundation upon which to build and engage me, so each time it was mentioned, I found myself thinking, “So what?”.

In the end, I was able to look past most of the inconsistencies—until the book moved to its conclusion. It seriously felt like the author had poured heart and soul into the first 3/4 of the book and then had nothing left to wrap it up. It ends on such a ludicrous note as to ruin any enjoyment the rest of the book may have offered. Instead of “oh, how cute” that the author seemed to be pushing for, I was left with “WTF? Really?”...and that is just never a good place to stop.

Read for the journey—it’s a fun ride in spite of the lax treatment of some serious subjects. Just don’t expect much of the destination.

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