Into Her Story: Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

This week on FMCx2, your hosts Nat and Samantha are talking all things Still Missing by Chevy Stevens.

 From shocking twists to wild reactions, we're unpacking this dark psychological thriller in our own honest (and slightly chaotic) way. Whether you've read it or are just here for the suspense, welcome to our little book club. 

But readers beware... make sure you read all trigger warnings before diving into reading this twisted gut-wrenching thriller!

 As always, we start spoiler-free with a brief discussion and our personal ratings. We will then give a clear spoiler warning before diving deeper, in case you want to pause and read the book first. 

Follow us on Instagram @fmcx2podcast for updates and behind-the-scenes content. New episodes every two weeks. 

All opinions are our own and we are not affiliated or sponsored by any authors, publishers, or brands.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to episode two of FMC Squared.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

On this week's episode, we read Still Missing by Chevy Stevens, and Samantha is going to read us the back of the book so you guys can kind of get a feel of it before we start jumping into conversation.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

On the day she was abducted, Annie O'Sullivan, a 32-year-old real estate agent, had three goals sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for a dinner with her ever-patient boyfriend. The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she's about to leave, Annie thinks it might just be her lucky day after all. Interwoven with the story of the year Annie spent as the captive of a psychopath in a remote mountain cabin, which unfolds through sessions with her psychiatrist, is a second narrative recounting events following her escape, her struggle to piece her shattered life back together, and the ongoing police investigation into the identity of her captor. The truth doesn't always set you free.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

I just want to start by adding in that there are definitely trigger warnings in this book, and I can't fully remember if they were mentioned in the beginning of this book, so I just want to give you guys that same um justice when it comes to that. Those are gonna include kidnapping, rape, and loss of a child. From here, I'm just gonna jump right into my own personal review. Um, this book don't mind me because I'm just a little dramatic. This book honestly was kind of like gut-riching, and I don't really read a lot of books that kind of like make my stomach turn, but this book was a bit much for me in the beginning, and then it just kept being a lot, like over and over and over again. And honestly, it's really an unnerving psychological book, and it really just plays with your brain. I personally rate it four out of five stars. Um, it was definitely something that kept my attention, and I was flipping through those pages, like my life depended on it, and my mother's.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Now, I will say that, like I said, I am typically someone who likes to listen to my books, it just is easier for my lifestyle. So, with this, I will say I did listen to the audio version of this. I personally use Audible. The narrator for this for me was phenomenal. I thought she did an incredible job. I listened to the sample, and I immediately decided to give it a listen, and honestly, I was not disappointed. So if you're someone that likes to listen, I gave her as a narrator a five out of five. The only thing that would have made her narrator even better was if she would have had some kind of crazy, more like you know, background noises and stuff to like feed into the feel of it. But her voice, she really acted it more than red. So I will say if you like listening, give it a listen. Um, for my rating, I was giving it more of a 3.8, but I will round it up to four because to be honest, um, it was an incredible book. I did think it was really good. It threw me for a loop. Um, wow, the ending was a shock to me. Also, there was just a lot more to the book. You know, at a certain point, I kind of thought, like, there can't be more, and there was. So, yeah, the book for me, the reason I didn't give it as high of a rating is because, like Nat said, and I a hundred percent agree with this, it was a gut-wrenching book. It is dark. There is darkness in this book. So when you're reading it, you know, it's a thriller for sure. And if you're someone that likes true crime and all this, you're gonna, I think, enjoy it. Right. But what I will say is, um, you know, it for someone that really gets into a book like I do, I feel like I'm like watching a movie when I'm listening to it. I was almost excited to get done with the book just because my cortisol was like I was like needing a little bit of a chill out, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Yeah, I know 100%. I definitely read a self-help book after reading that book because I was like, I need to like mentally. Help me, Male Robbins. Like, I need it.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yes. Now that we've got our reviews out of the way, trigger warnings out of the way, um, we're gonna be spilling some tea about the book.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

It's about taking hot.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

So if you think you wanna read this book based off of what we said, and you might want to come and book club with us after, pause here and come back. But if you just want to hear the tea, then stay a while.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Stick around. Alright, so we've given you a chance. We're getting into it. We're getting into it. We're gonna jump right in. I'm just gonna go and give like my short, like nice but sweet version too. Because I haven't heard it from you, and I'm literally dying. Okay, so this book is about, and this is how I will explain it to someone that I'm trying to like get them to read it. Yeah. This book is about a real estate agent that gets kidnapped from this very sick man. I mean, he was groomed as a child by his mother, and he, oh my god, this cabin this girl is staying in is completely abduction-proof, I guess. I don't even know what you would call something that sick. There's things nailed to the floor, there's there's everything is plastic, even the glass plastic.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Yes. Yeah, it was terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

And then and then the he forces her to use the bathroom at certain times, eat at certain times, and you know that that plays a neurological effect on her in the future. And this girl cannot even sleep in her bed anymore. She can only piss at certain times. It honestly, it's just overall.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Like he makes her wear certain things. He literally bathes her.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

He bathes her and shaves her.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

I mean, listen, don't get me wrong. I'm married. Uh, I would love if my husband had hope in the shower and give me a like shave my legs. But also, I'd be terrified though. But yeah, like a freak. Oh my god. This is terrifying. Listen, can I just say I used to want to do real estate, but I always was like, you're gonna be alone with strangers, and then I read this book and I think I was so bad, Ranchie. No. If you're in a female in real estate, kudos because you are brave for going out there with all these random people.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Yeah, and honestly, if I was a woman in real estate, I would preferably not even read this book out of fear that it may make me not want to do my job anymore.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yeah, honestly, don't read this book if you're a female in real estate. But also like carry pepper spray, conceal carry if you're allowed and you're into that. Yeah, look like Wolverine, just have like, you know, get long nails. Shank a ho. Yeah. But okay, so when you get to the point where she's captured, she's taken to this cabin. Yes. This crazy guy has her. I thought maybe this whole book is gonna take place with Annie, who's the main character, and this crazy guy she calls the freak in this cabin, and that's gonna be it. And maybe the solution because it's called still missing will mean that she was never still missing. Exactly. Or maybe the solution at the end of all of it, I thought, is just that she gets out somehow. But there was so much more.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Yeah, this this honestly took a twist. I I just want to start off by saying, number one, when I first originally started reading the book, I did not think that it was gonna go so far into depth about like what was happening to her in the cabin. And I just feel like, I guess that just wasn't my expectation. I didn't necessarily think that a book about kidnapping was gonna be lighthearted, but I didn't necessarily think that she we were gonna be in the room with her getting rape on a day-to-day basis. Like I didn't like There was a lot of chapters.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

A lot. I'm not gonna lie, it was at least a third of the book was about her being. That's why at a certain point I was like, this is where we're at. But now I do know that obviously the perspective that she was given, which obviously alludes to on the back of the book, is that you're getting the perspective because she's telling this to a therapist. Right. Which is the only reason why I'm like, she obviously somehow got out of the situation.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yeah, so you definitely and I and I think that's another reason why it keeps you reading it, because it's like obviously we're reading this in past tense. Yes. But I want to know how she got out. And I mean, yeah, y'all, this this Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

And I'm glad that you said that how dark this was because listening to the audio version of this, and like I said, she was really good at doing it. So when she was doing it, uh it was kind of like she was acting, so I just felt like, you know, I don't know, you get more tied into it when someone else is also putting their emotion onto it. And you're also obviously listening to it, so you're kind of like in this world with it. Right. So it was like at different points very dark, and I did take pauses from this too. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Yeah, there was definitely some times where I was like, I've gotta put this down. Like, this is this is a bit much. But to further kind of go into detail, she did end up getting kidnapped, real realized that the cabin is completely proof. There's just no way for her to escape this man. Um, he's odd as fuck. There's no there's no reason to even go into depth about him. We're not even gonna give him that type of shine. But he's literally weird. Yes, and um, he ends up impregnating her, and I don't know. He's like psychologically like dis detached from this baby. No, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

He's got like he I think is so obsessed with her that he sees the baby as competition because she's in love with this baby, and all of a sudden it's like, Whoa, I wanted this picture, perfect family, but I still want you to be like basically my my thing. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

And and I mean to to kind of go into that as well, it highlights after a while, Annie forces herself to not love her baby, to at least present to him that she doesn't care for her baby. Yeah, she has to, in a way, become detached when it comes to caring for her child because she's intimidated that he will do something to the child, yeah, hurt the baby. And I mean, in in the end, he did basically.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah, ultimately the baby gets sick and he doesn't believe in medicine and also doesn't want to take the baby to the city where the biggest. Exactly. Yeah, because he's like, they're gonna ask questions about the mom and like where the baby came from and birth certificate, and I don't want to answer those questions. And she wakes up one day and the baby is not moving and it's in his arms. So she's always questioning in her mind did the baby die because it was sick and we didn't take him, or did he do something because the baby was weak? Right, exactly. But talking about weak, he literally left her for like five days without food at some point.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Exactly, because she did something. I think she like probably breathed the wrong way. Like this guy was a nut job. No, he was absolutely insane. Um, the fact that she couldn't get like food or water, like that's crazy. Yeah, I honestly, and then the way he like no one knows where that baby's body is at, honestly. They never even discovered that. That's another thing. She literally left with this like oh this fucked up mentality of not knowing where her kid was, not even be able being able to bury her child's body because he just had to take that shit from her.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Honestly, he was just a sh I And can I just say how fucked up and ironic it is that she named that baby hope. Hope damn bitch. She never even found a big body.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

She never even found that baby body. That's not I'm not that hopeful no more about finding that baby body.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

But let's just say there was more than one villain in a story. For sure. Eventually, this guy got the chop.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Right in the back of the head.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Yeah, no, literally. Like he actually got an axe to the back of his head.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

He eventually, I think, got her so stockhomed that he thought I can turn my back to you.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

But you know, on a side note for that, I always say that. Like, whenever I'm like, well, what happens if you get kidnapped? Honestly, if I got kidnapped, I would just fake that I have Stockholm syndrome and gain my kidnapper's trust to then betray him. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

The same way he betrayed me by kidnapping. If someone came in and shot up a place and I had ketchup, I would squirt that fucking ketchup all over me and be like, eh, I'm dead.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

And just not breathe at all while they're coming around. I mean, you just gotta play the game right. Exactly. And I feel like that's exactly what she's doing.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

You just gotta play dead but alive. Yeah, exactly. In this certain circumstance. Yes. So let's get to at a certain point.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Yeah, her mom, Annie's mom. Well, we start learning things about Annie's mom that the people around. Yeah, the people that that are around her. We didn't know that her stepfather has been this um basic fuck up, honestly, that keeps start trying to start these career of entrepreneurships and shit like that, and nothing ever works. And they're basically like scraping by for money, and they've basically ran Annie dry at this point. She tried to put them on a budget, remember? Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Um, and then also the mom apparently has like a criminal stepbrother that just they've never talked about that was in jail. Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

So Oh, oh, oh, and and the dad and the sister died, remember? Is that not the story? They did. The dad and the sister died in the car accident getting Annie ice cream. Exactly. And her mom held that shit over her head for almost anything.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

And literally hated her.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Yeah, she literally hated her. She said that she thought.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Trigger warning about the mom. Yeah. Literally. No shitty. No shitty. But honestly, though, I think at different points, both of us were reading it and we were just like, oh no. Yeah. I'm like, This mom is next level a monster.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah, no, definitely. She's sick. Just to jump right in towards the end of the book. And it's so crazy because this book is being told in like the now time. Like, Annie is also finding out this information at the same time as the readers.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, this book really takes you through past, present, present, and then drags you along as Thinker. Yeah, it's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Well, Annie finds out that basically her mom set up this whole abduction. She even tries to get her abducted in a second time.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Is that crazy? Yeah. Literally, her stepfather tried to abduct her a second time. All of them because she thought that it would maybe work the second time around. Even though everything her daughter had been through. This honestly, if I could reach through a book and smack a lady, it would be this girl. Bro, I would literally choke slam her. She was a monster.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Yeah, it was ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Equal to, I think, almost the guy that took her.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Oh, a hundred dollars.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Because she took zero accountability.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

No, absolutely. She, she. Oh my god. I am so triggered by her mother. She literally puts an uneasy feeling in my stomach. I can't even fathom that a human being would even do something like that.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

So the nitty-gritty of it, this mom, her plan was she said, I've seen people get kidnapped before. They come back, and then a movie is made about their experience, and they make a lot of money. So because her stepfather is shit at business, she wants money. Yeah. And then all of a sudden she concocks, maybe I'll have someone abduct my child, my daughter, my adult daughter, have her abducted, even though I've already lost a daughter and a husband. Yeah. Why not gamble the last one? Yeah, why not? We'll have them taken and bring them back after a week. That's what she wanted. And then we'll make a bunch of money. But she had a lunatic from jail that she knew nothing about, do it, that has a was a weirdo with people and women specifically. Completely odd. And then she was like, Oh, but I didn't mean for you to get raped, have a baby, and then lose the baby and be gone for a year. It's not my fault.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

It's not my fault. It was an accident. You were only supposed to be there for a week. That wasn't what it was ridiculous. Like it was absolutely ridiculous. And then after that first abduction wasn't enough, she proceeds to try to get in Annie kidnapped again.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

I can't believe the stepfather actually even tried that. Like, that makes me like, damn, she can't trust anybody. No, she can't.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

I mean, and that's the the shit. And then her best friend and her ex They fuck. They literally fuck while she was kidnapped for a year. They literally has is her dog. Poor dog. All she's got is. That's so much pressure for a dog. That is a lot of pressure, but honestly, that dog. Yeah, that dog could be a big thing.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Because her dog is gonna stay at her crazy mom's house while she was gone.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

And she, yeah, it was just a lot to unpack.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

It was a lot. And yeah, I was dying. I was literally texting that multiple times because a lot of this revelation of who actually orchestrated all this does happen within like, I don't know, the last 50 pages. Yeah, yeah, but it's really late.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

And it it definitely gets you like flipping them hoes, literally. Because I'm like, I've gotta finish this shit. Because the whole book, like we said, a third of the three-fourths of the book is about her being kidnapped and raped by this guy, and that's really just it. And that's really all you expect from the story. And then suddenly shit just goes in for a tornado war win, and it's just I will say, okay, I have two complaints about the book.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Okay. My complaints are I really couldn't have cared less about her whole little like relationship with the police dude. Yeah, I don't feel like it added anything to the story very much.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

I feel like she was trying to give us a happy story, but it really just wasn't. It didn't.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

And then that brings me to my next complaint. The ending, the happy ending. I don't care if it's not happy. I just needed more of a glance into five years in the future. Right. And this is where Annie's at because it kind of mentioned she was going to art school, right? But then she went there and had a weird situation and she left and she went to her friend's house. And so you don't know if she ever went back to art school or if she stayed. Did she sell her house? Did she not? Yeah. I kind of wish it would have just given some clarification. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

And and one of the things that I do want to notate in this book too, um, in regards to like what Samantha said, that second kidnapping happened so fast. And just the crackdown on the case and the investigation in general, it's like we ran right into the investigation, and like two chapters later, the investigation is solved. Honestly, I'm glad you said that now. Yeah, because it's just like it just all happened so fast. I feel like maybe the author spent too much time on that sick gut rich inside and didn't give us enough about her not still being missing. Because honestly, that investigation part could have been really juicy.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

It could have been a it could have been a lot more in depth. And I just feel like it was rushed. Probably because she realized she spent too much time on being nasty and odd and freaky and dirty and trifling.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Listen, we were just talking about it. We've read some really smuddy stuff. Yes. Um, and but this one, it's a different kind. It's not something that I it's not consensual, I would think. It's not something that, like, I would say you're gonna, it's it is gut-wrenching. That is the perfect way. You're not getting turned on by it. That's for sure. You are getting turned off for sure. Getting dry. It is definitely more true crime, definitely more thriller, definitely more dark thriller. Yeah. Uh, but for those of you that like that, I mean, get on it because uh four out of five stars. It was a good book.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

I can't complain at all.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yeah, I mean, listen, if someone likes dark thrillers, I would totally recommend that too. 100%. I wouldn't recommend that to someone that has lost um a child or a real estate Yeah, or a real estate agent. Honestly, like you probably would quit your job after you're gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

No, literally, 100%. I would never go into real estate after reading this. No, a hundred percent. I would have to have an assistant, aka a body card.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Literally, I'd have a I'd have like this is my Doberman Retriever, and these are my 17 knives and pistols, and let me show you the living room.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Literally. And he was like on some Ted Bundy shit.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Like, he really charmed her into He thought he was like this perfect specimen of a husband that was like, I have brought you here to the woods. I kill deer, you my woman, you make me baby.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

It was like some little house on the prairie shit. And he was like clouds in the attic street.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

I want the record to show that was Nat and not Samantha, okay?

SPEAKER_00 20:31

It is not the 1920s.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

So that being said, we are really happy you guys hung around for the second episode.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

And for next week's episode, we're gonna be reading House of Harlow by Crystal Sutherland. I'm making that assumption, I'm pretty sure that's how it's pronounced. And um, we're gonna kind of go into depth about what this book is about. So if you guys decide to read along with us um so that you can be here for the conversation, that will be amazing.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

So this book is essentially about three sisters that are in Scotland. When they're children, they disappear, no one knows what happened to them, and when they return, they kind of all start to change and transform and become intoxicatingly beautiful and possibly dangerous. Then it goes to years later, and one of these sisters disappears. So now 17-year-old Iris is on this journey to try to find her older sister, and there seems to definitely be some magic and dark fantasy to this. This is a standalone, uh, this is not a series like we said, we're gonna try to steer away from those. Uh for now. For now. We may do a series eventually, but for now we're gonna avoid.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

So if you guys want to read ahead, go read ahead on House of Hollow and definitely join us for the next podcast. We can't wait to hear from you guys. And we'll see you soon. Bye.