Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

Title – Elizabeth is missing

Author – Emma Healey

Publisher/Published – Penguin / June 2014

Genre – Contemporary, Mystery, Crime

Summary from Goodreads

Meet Maud

Maud is forgetful. She makes a cup of tea and doesn’t remember to drink it. She goes to the shops and forgets why she went. Sometimes her home is unrecognizable – or her daughter Helen seems a total stranger.

But there’s one thing Maud is sure of: her friend Elizabeth is missing. The note in her pocket tells her so. And no matter who tells her to stop going on about it, to leave it alone, to shut up, Maud will get to the bottom of it.

Because somewhere in Maud’s damaged mind lies the answer to an unsolved seventy-year-old mystery. One everyone has forgotten about.

Everyone, except Maud . . .

My Thoughts

5 out of 5 stars.

When I first started reading Elizabeth is Missing, I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy it because I don’t usually read contemporary novels so it was a little out of my comfort zone. However after reading the summary I decided to give it a go and I am so glad I did. Elizabeth is Missing is about Maud who has problems with her memory and she knows in her head the Elizabeth has gone missing but no one believes her and keeps brushing her off. What Maud is remembering is about something that happened in the past but she confuses it with the present. Maud has memories that have been jumbled with the present and it makes her confused because she knows the memory is correct but she muddles it with something that has happened sooner that she thinks. Maud was a great character and I did feel really connected to her. I have had a family member that problems with their memory and some of the things that Maud did, this family member did as well. So as I was reading Maud felt like a member of the family. I did feel sorry for her because she was trying so hard to find out what had happened to Elizabeth and no one believed her and thought she was just confused. Maud wasn’t confused she knew something had happened however she did confuse the person that it happened to. I was intrigued to see where the story was going to go and I did have an inkling on how Maud was confusing Elizabeth with. this was a really enjoyable read and I would highly recommend it to most people, especially if you want something a bit out of your comfort zone.

Favourite Quotes

• Enough food. You can never have enough. Most of it seems to go missing anyway, and can’t be found even after I’ve bought it. I don’t know who’s eating it all. My daughter’s the same. ‘No more cans, Mum,’ she says, going through my cupboards at every opportunity. I think she must be feeding someone. Half the stuff disappears home with her,
• Elizabeth is the only friend I have left; the others are in homes or graves. (this was so sad)
• “An ancient noise, like a fox bark, makes an attempt at the edges of my brain.”