Lost points for centering cryptocurrency as a plot device

    When Breanna, a woman of color, goes to an Airbnb in another state, where a white woman is missing, for a vacation with her boyfriend, Ty, she ends up finding a dead body and Ty is nowhere to be found. Internet sleuths are on the case, but that's not always a good thing, especially when you have a Black man suspected of killing a white woman, and a Black woman is the only one left to tell the tale.
 
     I enjoyed the book a lot. It had a great fast pace. But I did figure out one of the mysteries early, though others were harder for me to figure out. The book was much better than if it had been a white couple at the Airbnb, the racial elements added additional tension and a more complex narrative.
    While I'm a consumer of things like true crime books and podcasts, I am disgusted by murder tourism and everyone thinking they can be a detective with zero training. I think civilians can do certain things like going through documents to find things and then bring them to the attention of qualified people. We shouldn't be confronting people we suspect of crimes or bombing their social media with hate before even the police have announced the criminal much less, they are convicted. I think this book tackled those topics well.
 
 Narrator Rating: 4.75 stars
  The narrator did an excellent job! I wish there'd been more tonal shifts for different characters when they talked. 

A romantic getaway gone awry! 

I can't believe I almost missed this book, but I'm so fortunate that a last-minute interviewer need helped place this book in my hands. Bree and her boyfriend, Ty, go on a weekend getaway to Jersey City/Manhattan. Bree thinks Ty has just been distracted with work the whole trip and tries to push the annoyances out of her head when suddenly a body is found in their Airbnb. Missing White Woman will keep you hooked as Bree tries to navigate finding justice while not ending up subject to a police system and media system that is primed to disbelieve her. Kellye Garrett crafts an interesting read that comments on social media's involvement in true crime and public opinion as well as how certain biases make it difficult for individuals of different races or backgrounds to fully rely on the police force and the community. Overall, this is a gripping book that lets you sit with the information, and I loved the inclusion of TikTok and other social media platforms to layer into the work. I wish the ending had a bit more time to settle and go over the events of the crime. Between wrapping up the information regarding the murder's motive and the new findings in the epilogue I was a bit unsure of how everything went down, but I guess not knowing the full events is part of the journey. Bree is left only with the pieces she has at her disposal. 

(As someone who lived in Jersey City and worked in Manhattan, I loved seeing the different names of streets and places. Shoutout to the PATH!)

Bree goes on a weekend getaway with her new boyfriend (Ty), who she doesn’t know as well as she should because that would mean getting closer and revealing things about herself too–including the arrest that changed the trajectory of her life and ended her friendship with her former best friend (Adore). So when Adore pops up like a blast from the past to come to her aid, them pairing up to unravel the mystery also leads to them unraveling their fallout. I thought I knew where the plot was going and was humbled the entire way. The synopsis doesn’t do the plot twists justice. I didn’t eat this book up, it ate ME up.