Review: Missing Pieces by Laura Pearson

What if the one thing that kept you together was breaking you apart?

All Linda wants to do is sleep. She won’t look at her husband. She can’t stand her daughter. And she doesn’t want to have this baby. Having this baby means moving on, and she just wants to go back to before. Before their family was torn apart, before the blame was placed.

Alienated by their own guilt and struggling to cope, the Sadler family unravels. They grow up, grow apart, never talking about their terrible secret.

That is until Linda’s daughter finds out she’s pregnant. Before she brings another Sadler into the world, Bea needs to know what happened twenty-five years ago. What did they keep from her? What happened that couldn’t be fixed?

A devastating mistake, a lifetime of consequences. How can you repair something broken if pieces are missing?

My Review:

An emotional tale about a family who loses their daughter and what they face afterwards. 

I am actually having a hard time writing a review for this book without giving away too much of the story.  But, I will say be sure you have some tissue ready when you read it.  It feels so real.  Just the thought of losing a child is hard enough, but what the family endures afterwards is heartbreaking. 

The book is told in two parts.  The first part of the book is about Linda and Tom Sadler and how losing their daughter, Phoebe, changes their relationship and other daughter’s life.  The second part is 25 years later and focuses on sisters, Esme and Bea.  We learn how the death of Phoebe has affected their lives.  When Esme reveals some secrets to Bea, she doesn’t know if it will help or harm the family even more, but she needs to open up about them.    

This is one of those books that once you read it, you can’t get it out of your mind.

*Thank you to Agora Books and NetGalley for the ARC of this book for an honest review.