Book Review: Missing Clarissa by Ripley Jones

Despite their seeming differences, eccentric girl genius Cam Muñoz and the pretty but academically average Blair Johnson have been best friends since the sixth grade. Now that they’re in their junior year of high school, Cam has convinced Blair to take a journalism class together. Mr Park, their journalism teacher, is the smartest person Cam has ever met, and thus one of the very few whose opinion matters to her. When he gives their class a semester-long reporting project that they can do with or without partners, she thinks she’s come up with the perfect plan to wow not only him but everyone else in their small town, if not the world.

Twenty years ago, beautiful, popular Clarissa Campbell disappeared from their Oregon town of Oreville after a post-high school graduation party. The case gained nationwide coverage, but no trace of Clarissa was ever found. The prime suspect was her football star boyfriend Brad Bennett, but with no evidence against him or anyone else, no one was ever charged with foul play involving her disappearance.

Now Cam thinks that she and Blair should partner up to make a podcast investigating what really happened to Clarissa. Her enthusiasm steamrolls Blair into agreeing, but Mr. Park is more cautious on the subject, leading the two very different girls to two very different reactions:

Why’s he grilling them? Why isn’t he excited? Cam doesn’t get it. Blair kicks her under her desk, but she barges ahead. “Do we need [podcast experience]? All we have to do is hit Record and put it online.”

 

Mr. Park’s face is impossible to read. “Keep in mind that’s a sensitive issue for a lot of people here. Tread carefully. And you might want to do a bit of research into podcasting before you ‘hit Record and put it online.’”

 

“Yes, Mr. Park,” Blair says before Cam can argue. Cam slumps back in her seat, the air around her crackling with fury and hurt.

 

Tread carefully? thinks Cam. What’s that supposed to mean? What’s wrong with Mr. Park?

 

Tread carefully? thinks Blair. What does Mr. Park know that we don’t?

While their temperaments are dissimilar, the girls’ personalities complement each other nicely as they go about digging into the cold case. Unfortunately, their differences sometimes threaten to overwhelm them, as when Cam decides to go ahead and post their first episode online without even getting Blair’s permission, much less Mr Park’s okay. When the girls come way too close to discovering the truth about someone who very much doesn’t want to be found out, they find themselves in mortal peril. Will they be silenced before they can tell the world the truth about what happened to Clarissa?

This is a really well-written story that stands head and shoulders above the rest of the podcast thriller crowd—Young Adult or otherwise. Cam and Blair are both incredibly endearing, and are characterized so perfectly that when one of them does something horrifyingly foolish and dangerous—as certain suspense heroines will do—it feels entirely organic and not just a device to advance the plot. The pacing is fast and the dialog often laugh-out-loud funny, even as the seriousness of the situation is never taken lightly.

In fact, the American media obsession with the disappearance of pretty white girls is taken to task in more ways than one. Sophie, one of the girls’ journalism classmates, has her own fervent opinion on the matter:

“You’re obsessed with Clarissa’s story, the same way so many other people are. But you know who comprises the highest percentage of murder victims? Young Black men. Weaponizing stories of imperiled white women serves to enforce political repression. The prison industrial complex isn’t interested in protecting people from harm. It’s founded on the principle of harming people who are already vulnerable. All these dead white girl stories? All this fixation on sexualized violence against white women? Those narratives normalize structures of oppression that don’t do anything to prevent more violence from happening.”

Missing Clarissa is a wildly entertaining novel with a wonderful sense of self-awareness regarding its own place in the canon. The mystery is as smart as Cam and as solid as Blair, with a strong streak of modern philosophy on social justice and accountability. I loved it.