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Type of bind: Hardcover
EAN num: 9780066237763
ISBN number: 0066237769
Label: HarperTeen
Manufacturer: HarperTeen
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 288
Printing Date: February 01, 2008
Publishing house: HarperTeen
Age index: Young Adult
Release Date: February 05, 2008
Sale Popularity Level: 175248
Studio: HarperTeen
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
He could be any man, any respectable, ordinary man.
But he's not.
This man watches the five Herbert girls—Beauty, Mim, Stevie, Fancy, and Autumn—with disturbing fascination.
Unaware of his scrutiny and his increasingly agitated and forbidden thoughts about them, the sisters go on with their ordinary everyday lives—planning, arguing, laughing, and crying—as if nothing bad could ever breach the safety of their family.
In alternating points of view, Norma Fox Mazer manages to interweave the lives of predator and prey in this unforgettable psychological thriller.
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Rated by buyers 
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The Herbert sisters are completely ignorant of the man watching them. They don't realize his growing and dangerous fascination. They are completely oblivious to the fact that their safety is in jeopardy.
It's only a matter of time now.
THE MISSING GIRL is a tremendous read. Thrilling, suspenseful, and riveting, Mazer easily pulls the reader into the intricately woven story, causing shock, horror, and yet compassion as well.
This is a bold story that will rise above and beyond your expectations as the author charms her way into the readers' hearts through her beautiful characters and terrifying plot.
This is one book that is impossible to put down.
Reviewed Author name: The Compulsive Reader
Rated by buyers -
The nameless man watches the five Herbert sisters as they flock to school, chattering to each other. The man loves the chatter. He loves the sight of the innocent girls. They don't notice him, which he believes is a good thing. He wants to blend into the background and continue to obsess over them.
The Herbert family, never prosperous, has fallen on hard times. Poppy, the father, can't work due to an injury, and Mommy's job in a nursing home kitchen doesn't cover the expenses of a family of seven. The parents struggle with finances and depression. Seventeen-year-old Beauty Herbert (who hates the irony of her name because she knows she's plain) works after school at a flower shop. She contributes to the family but plans her escape from them the minute she turns 18. She is determined to shake off the dust of their small town and find opportunity elsewhere.
Still, Beauty worries about her sisters. Will she be able to actually leave them? There's quiet and responsible 16-year-old Mim, who should be fine without Beauty (although Beauty doesn't know Mim's enormous secret yet). Fourteen-year-old Faithful has changed her name to Stevie. Stevie is a temperamental, wild disaster who wears the family out with her loud dramatic outbursts. To Beauty, Stevie seems headed for calamity, especially after Beauty spies her making out with a boy.
Fancy is 12 years old physically, although she will always be younger mentally. The family dotes on her, and she loves her special education classes. Fancy talks into her new tape recorder, dictating a free-flowing ramble of thoughts and ideas whenever she wants to chatter but no one has time to listen to her.
We meet 11-year-old Autumn as she tries to convince her mother that she's way too sick to go to school. Autumn has problems with her classes and, at the school counselor's urging, tries to write down her most private thoughts in a journal.
Beauty, Autumn and Fancy relay their stories to readers, telling us about their teachers, hopes, dreams and problems. One sister struggles with fluctuating powerful crushes, and the difference between real and fantasy relationships. Author Norma Fox Mazer, using various points of view (first, second and third), gets the girls' voices pitch-perfect. The setup, as well as the telling title, is an ominous backdrop to the family story as we become acquainted with the characters. We know these girls, and we're terrified for them as we learn more about the man who is watching them (a man who is proud that he killed countless pets until he finally found the perfect, obedient ones to keep). He inches closer to the Herbert sisters --- and we forget to breathe as we turn each page.
Mazer handles the dark theme of THE MISSING GIRL expertly, weaving empowerment, family love and hope into a tale that is likely to haunt readers long after the book is read.
--- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon
Rated by buyers -
When this book arrived, I had just planned to thumb through it. I'd never heard of the author or much information about the book. I was a bit curious.
The book itself is small and chunky. I don't know what it is about that particular shape, but I find it extremely attractive. I found myself scanning the pages.
After reading the inside flap, I had to read a little more. Before I knew it, I was a quarter way through and hadn't even left my office chair! There was no stopping then. I tossed the rest of the day out the window and moved to a more comfortable spot. The inner dialogue was...amazing is the only word I can think of. Mazer goes from the sweet, innocent voice of a young girl, one who I can pick out of a classroom to a chilling voice of a pedophile. The pedophile's voice is so chilling, it will have you afraid to take your eyes off your own children, even for a second.
The book is listed for teens, but adults should read it. I found myself rereading spots in the book, amazed at this writer's gift.
Rated by buyers -
THE MISSING GIRL is a taut thriller I read in one long sitting. Mazer's characters are completely individualized and beautifully-crafted, and, while the story is tense and terrifying, it is also about family, courage, and strength. Highly recommended.
Rated by buyers 
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The five Herbert sisters live their lives totally unaware of what is going on around them. They are each living out their own personal dramas totally self absorbed, that is until "the man" decides to treat them as his own personal flock of birds and follows their every move with disturbing fascination.
Told in a back and forth style you slowly see the predator mind calculate his subsequent move and his justifications and the young girls are totally unaware of what is going on around them until it's too late and the inevitable takes place.
This book starts very slow and doesn't build steam until the very end which unfortunately is too late. The five sisters ranging in age from 17 to 11 all seem to have the same voice and it's hard to keep them and their ages straight. Billed as a YA psychological thriller, I unfortunately wouldn't call it either. It doesn't go in depth enough and I was more bored than thrilled.
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