Missing Girls

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Summary: Lois Metzger's most ambitious book to date
Review: . . ."Dreams, memories, and haunting tales of the past surge through the pages of this story and bring the reader deep into Carrie Schmidt's awakening heart. In strong, fresh language, Lois Metzger has written a unique story, remarkable for its insights and original in its characterizations of teenage girls, who are surprising and yet completely recognizable. We know these girls, we know their fears, angers, and desires, and under Lois Metzger's sure hand we want to know more." --Norma Fox Mazer, author of WHEN SHE WAS GOOD

Lois Metzger is the author of the acclaimed novels BARRY'S SISTER and ELLEN'S CASE (both Atheneum/Puffin).

Praise for Lois Metzger:

"Few if any novels [for teenagers] revolve around court cases and none have the zest and impact of this captivating, sophisticated, and poignant tale, full of riveting testimony and high suspense. . .Lois Metzger is a master of the young adult novel." --The New York Times Book Review on ELLEN'S CASE

"Masterfully written and well-researched, this accomplished novel deserves space on teen bookshelves." --Publishers Weekly, starred review on BARRY'S SISTER

Rating:
Summary: Very Moving
Review: I did enjoy reading Missing Girls a lot. Carrie reminded me of my best friend & Mona of me. just by the way they act & their family. I was interrested in lucid dreaming just like Carrie. I don't think it ever happened to me...not that i recall. I liked hearin Mutti's stories of the war. What made me happy, yet sad was that Carrie does look like her mom, when she was younger. Carrie is very surprised to also find out her mom, Liesl, was a vey depressed girl at one time, just like Carrie.She does find her place...even though her & Mona are "missing girlz" at least they found each other. Just like I found my bud, T.With each other we can ease our pains & help each other out. Like Mona had said, Carrie wants some1 to come in the pit with her, like Mona. That's how i feel with her. This book was good & it really reminded me of "real" life. If you are interrested in dreams or even the war ou'll like reading Missing Girls. It's good book for any girl or even a guy. Do enjoy!

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Summary: Rating
Review: I just finished this book after it caught my eye @ the library. @ first I didn't think it was gonna be good but I picked it up, it gripped me and I never put it down until it was finished an hour later! I recomend this to all people and it was very well written!

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Summary: The Missing Girls
Review: I THOUGHT THAT THIS BOOK WAS A GREAT BOOK.I WOULD RECOMMANDTHIS BOOK FOR TEACHERS, PARENTS, AND CHILDREN OVER THE GE OF 14. THEREASON WHY IS BECAUSE THERE CAN BE SOME WORDS THAT HAS HARD WORD THEN THE VOCABULARY CAN BE HARD TO SAY. I LIKED MOST OF THE BOOK.I THINK THAT YOU NEED AN OPEN MIND OR EVEN A STRONG MIND TO READ THIS. WHAT I MEAN IS THAT YOU NEED A MIND THAT YOU CASN SIT THERE SAND READ HOURS AFTER HOURS. AND YOU NEED A MIND THAT CAN READ ABOUT DEATH, GRAVES AND THINGS LIKE THAT, I WOULD GIVE THIS BOOK 5(*) STARS BUT IT DID NOT RELATE TO ME THAT MUCH SO I GAVE THIS BOOK 4(*) STARS. AND ALWAYS REMEMBER IT IS A GREAT BOOK.!

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Summary: NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW of MISSING GIRLS
Review: Review by Molly Rouch, 5/11/99

The gap between ideal and real behavior can be so acute that it bends the mind. Carrie Schmidt, the protagonist of Lois Metzger's rich and moving third novel, Missing Girls, has a strategy to handle the pressure. "Not on the map, not American, not foreign, not home on the earth," Carrie keeps the world at arm's length.

While alienation is not unusual for a 13-year-old girl, Carrie has more than adolescence to blame. She is the new girl at a new school in Queens, where she has just moved in with Mutti, her grandmother, who, to Carrie's embarrassment, "practically wore a sign around her neck-IMMIGRANT." Her father, "lost in a dark cloud of silence" since Carrie's mother died four years ago, works in Las Vegas.

Set in 1967, "Missing Girls" is the story of how Carrie manages to build a sturdy bridge spanning "the pit inside her, where her insides should be, the pit that had opened up when her mother died." Metzger's admiration of young women, evident in her previous novels, "Barry's Sister" and "Ellen's Case," is taken to new heights in the character of Carrie Schmidt. Carrie is a genuine eighth-grader: self-effacing, sometimes dishonest, generous with her friends, dramatically moody, irresistably sympathetic. Tempted to divide the world into neat categories of good and bad, she is often paralyzed by her inability to be the "miraculously pleasant" girl of her imagination. In Metzger's nuanced prose, Carrie's transformation from paralysis to vitality is so true to the halting cadence of adolescence that her self-doubt and confusion along the way are palpable.

When "Missing Girls" opens, Carrie pays little mind to her family's history; she has been ignoring it ever since her mother died. But soon Carrie is forced to face the past. Her Viennese mother was 12-younger than Carrie is now-when Hitler invaded Austria. She was sent to Scotland for safety, where she lived with a beekeeper and his family. Now the beekeeper, Angus Fraser, has decided to visit, instilling in Carrie a desperate and unspeakable dread: "I only know I don't want to see him."

As Angus's visit approaches, Carrie spends more and more time at her new friend Mona's house. She wants to be a part of Mona's family. She especially wants to have Mona's pretty, all-American mother, Mrs. Brockner, for her own. Mrs. Brockner is "the real McCoy-sturdy, bouncy, comfortable inside her own skin."

Carrie becomes so committed to being Mrs. Brockner's good girl that she forgets the anniversary of her real mother's death. But even as Carrie pushes her feelings away, she becomes fascinated by the subconscious landscape of her own dreams, which she studies obsessively.

Metzger builds "Missing Girls" on the skeleton of dialogue. Her conversations pump the story rich with oxygenated warmth. Mutti, who was imprisoned and starved in nine concentration camps during the war, tells stunning, immediate stories of the daily horrors of the Holocaust. Mona, less than enchanted by her mother's sleek exterior, talks frankly with Carrie about daughterhood. Even Angus Fraser gets the chance, finally, to talk with Carrie about her mother.

It is through these connections with Metzger's fully realized characters that Carrie learns to reconcile herself to her imperfections. "You're not a happy ending or a sad ending," Angus tells her. "You're a story-in-the-middle. That's what it is to be young."

Rating:
Summary: Sad, sweet book of awakening
Review: The title craftily compares 13 year old Carrie to the real 'missing girls' of the book, a background story of young girls who run from unsatisfying home lives, sometimes to be found dead, sometimes remaining missing. Carrie has symbolically run from her own unsatisfying life, by withdrawing, overeating, and choosing not to relate to her grandmother, who she is living with. Her grandmother, a survivor of the haulocaust, has her own demons.

When Carrie becomes friends with Mona, Carrie experiences a false awakening as she tries to fit into what she perceives as the perfect American family, which is a contrast to her immigrant grandmother who can't seem to get the American way of life. But she learns that appearances can be deceiving, and Mona and Carrie begin a journey to understand their genuine selves. Carrie faces up to fears, comes to terms with her mother's death (four years earlier), and turns a subtle and mostly silent love for her grandmother into a wonderful relationship they both need.

There are morals to the story, but the book is decidedly devoid of the sickly sweetness and neat tie-ups that are characteristic of literature for young adults. I highly recommend this book for teenagers and adults alike.

Rating:
Summary: OK, not great
Review: This book was ok, not great. When the main charecter (Carrie) moves in with her Grandmother, she faces a new school, and new friends. When she meets Mona, a young girl her age, they slowly become friends. As Carrie learns some unbeleivable facts about mothers, including her dead one, she finds out many things about life.

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Summary: My absolute fave!
Review: This is about a girl(Carrie)who meets another(Mona). They haveone thing in common-dreams. I like this cuz' it faces the truth aboutmothers who died and mothers who don't care. It also is great forthose who like dreams. Only one thing-I hope there's a sequel!