Book Review: 11 Missed Calls | Elisabeth Carpenter

A deep character study of two women connected by a thread that spans time, secrets, and loneliness. Elisabeth Carpenter has written a story in 11 Missed Calls that feels as though it needed to be told. Spanning two different time periods, with each woman at the same age in their story, there are both parallels and contrasts between the mother, Debbie, and the daughter, Anna. This is a book driven by the characters and their search for answers and wholeness.

I always struggle with the tendency to pair “Mysteries and Thrillers” together as a book category, because though many books involve both, others involve only one. I went into this thinking it might be a thriller, but it is actually what I would call Women’s Fiction with a subgenre of Mystery. It’s a book about the missing piece in one woman’s life, and how 30 years later that has led to a missing piece in her daughter’s life. It is a book about the search for belonging.

About the Book

In 1986 Debbie gives birth to her daughter Annie. But ever since Annie’s birth, Debbie has struggled to feel like herself again. When her husband Peter offers to take Debbie and their kids on a holiday to Teneriffe with their best friends Monica and Nathan, Debbie finds herself dreading the vacation. She doesn’t feel quite right, and a holiday is the last thing she wants.

And then Debbie goes missing…

In 2017, Annie (now going by Anna) is turning 30 with a husband and daughter of her own. Anna loves her father Peter and step-mother Monica, but she’s always felt the hole in her life of her biological mother. Anna can’t understand why her mother would abandon her. Though Debbie is most likely dead as her father and Monica tell her, Anna can’t accept that.

And then a strange email arrives…

Someone hasn’t told Anna the whole story, she’s sure of it. And with or without her family’s help, she’ll do whatever it takes to find the truth.

Reflection

The most interesting part of this book for me was Debbie. I wouldn’t say I related to her character, but I did relate to the feeling that you just don’t feel like yourself, but you don’t know how to tell people what’s wrong. You don’t actually know what’s wrong yourself. Debbie was such an honest, raw character. At times her chapters were hard to read, because I felt so empathetic for her situation. The paranoia that others are talking about you, but being unable to defend yourself is so true for many people at different points in their life. Debbie feels at times like a liability. Like she can’t be the mother to her children she wants to be, or the wife to her husband that he deserves.

Debbie is a completely root-able character. I found myself wanting everything to work out for her! Of course, as we know from the teaser, Debbie goes missing. The tragedy of knowing that and reading the weeks leading up to it is so compelling. You know that it is headed towards disaster, but you still hope she pulls out of it!

And then we have Anna in the present. Anna was only a month old when her mother went missing, so she has no memories of her. But that doesn’t prevent Anna from knowing there is a piece of her missing.  I felt for Anna, because the rest of her family (her father, her step-mother, and her older brother) do remember Debbie. And they expect things to be easier on her because she never really knew her mother. But for Anna, that isn’t the case. Even still, Anna questions whether she has the right to ask questions. In a way, Debbie’s disappearance has created isolation for each of the family members, as they cope with it in their own way. For Peter and Monica, there is the guilt that they moved on. For Robert, there is the pain of abandonment. And for Anna, there is the yearning for answers.

This is a slow build. The mystery of what happened to Debbie is an interesting one, but if I’m honest it took a back seat for me to the story of these two women. I found the book driven by Debbie and Anna as characters. I wondered if they’d ever find that feeling of wholeness that they seek. I won’t tell you what they find, but I do recommend trying this one if you’re a fan of women’s fiction.

Thank you to Avon Books and Elisabeth Carpenter for a copy of this book to review.