61 pages • 2-hour read
The Missing Half
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Themes
The Lasting Effects of Trauma and Grief
When The Missing Half begins, Nicole Monroe is defined by the trauma of losing her sister seven years before. Her life is in a perpetual state of liminality, as she has not figured out how to truly exist without Kasey. Her apartment is messy and in disrepair, causing her embarrassment when she first shows it to Jenna, one of the only people she has ever had in her apartment. She deals with her alcohol use disorder throughout the novel, constantly oscillating between consuming it and discarding it. Additionally, she acknowledges that she has a “dead-end” job, which she has only been able to keep because of Brad’s kindness and his relationship with her parents. Each of these traits, in Nic’s eyes, is rooted in the grief that she feels over having lost her sister and—perhaps more importantly—the trauma of never knowing the truth.
Similarly, after her sister’s disappearance, Jenna became consumed with figuring out what happened to Jules. The effects of her grief are not as pronounced as Nic’s, as she has a stable job and has attempted to build a life for herself in the wake of Jules’s disappearance. However, the depth of her grief is not as apparent as that of Nic, whose first-person point of view offers insight into her interiority. What can be gleaned from Jenna’s actions, however, is that she has become obsessed with solving her sister’s cold case. Desperate for information, she lies to Nic the first time she meets her to convince her to talk. Later, she lies about her mother’s illness and relentlessly pursues the case on her own, dedicating a wall of her living room to tracking the facts of the case. In the end, her decision to confront and attempt to kill Kasey reinforces just how obsessed with solving the case she has become, choosing to risk her own life or prison to finally get closure.
Although they are each affected very differently, the characters of Jenna and Nic highlight just how deep and long-lasting grief and trauma can be. While Nic refuses to think about her sister’s disappearance in seven years, it is a central fact of her life that affects her stability. Jenna takes a different path through grief, becoming obsessed with Jules’s disappearance to the point where she is willing to give up her life to get closure. Through the struggles of these characters, Flowers emphasizes the importance of balance in handling grief, highlighting a middle road between ignoring or obsessing over trauma and grief as the path to healing.
The Strength of Family Loyalty
One of the primary conflicts in the novel is the duality that exists within the family structures, specifically the bonds of sisterhood. For both Nic and Jenna, their sisters were the most important people in their lives, leaving them with long-lasting grief after their mysterious disappearances. Through their stories, Flowers explores the loyalties between family members, examining their strengths and whether they hold up in the most strenuous situations imaginable.
Nic’s loyalty to her sister Kasey is deep and all-encompassing, but its strength is tested over the course of the novel. As the truth of Kasey’s disappearance unfolds, Nic is confronted with the reality that her sister may not have been the person that she knew. When she learns of Kasey’s argument with Lauren and her affair with Brad, she is mostly troubled by the fact that her sister hid the truth from her. Then, when she believes that Kasey killed Jules, she thinks about how she has a mix of emotions that are “visceral” and “violent”; however, overwhelming it all is her feeling of “love, deep and bottomless” (222). Faced with the reality of what Kasey did, juxtaposed with the overwhelming friendship and support that she receives from Jenna, Nic is forced to choose between her sister and Jenna and, by extension, right and wrong. The climax of the novel, which extends her moment of decision to explore her internal conflict, represents the ultimate test of Nic’s loyalty to Kasey. Ultimately, she chooses to kill Jenna, reaffirming her bond with her sister over everything else.
Nic faces an internal conflict over her loyalty to Brad when she learns of his betrayal. Seeing Brad as a part of her family, an “uncle,” Nic is torn when she learns that he had an affair with Kasey, which both she and Sandy lied about. Sandy faces a similar struggle, as she must decide whether her loyalties lie with her husband or the family that she built with him. As with Nic’s journey, through Sandy’s struggles, Flowers explores the power of familial bonds. As Nic and Sandy learn of Brad’s actions, they must choose whether to go to the police or keep his secret. In the end, just as Nic chooses Kasey over Jenna, Sandy chooses to support Brad, despite what he has done. In addition, at the end of the novel, in a surprise twist, Kasey reveals that her loyalty to Nic has already been established by her willingness to keep her sister’s secret, even if it means leaving her life behind.
In The Missing Half, familial relationships are repeatedly tested by secrets, deception, and even murder. Through this web of family tensions and loyalties, Flowers highlights how each character chooses loyalty, even if it means accepting the burdens that come along with it. As Kasey explains to Nic in the novel’s final moments, “[T]here’s nothing that could ever do that would make me stop loving you. You’re my sister” (255).
The Impact of Media and Public Perception
In addition to being an author, Ashley Flowers is a podcast reporter who has spent her career researching, analyzing, and reporting on true crimes. As such, she is a member of the very media that she examines in The Missing Half. A duality exists in true crime reporting, especially in an age where it has become a primary source of entertainment through podcasts, social media, and video platforms like YouTube. On the one hand, it is a form of entertainment that leads to profit, allowing podcasters like Flowers to make money off of a very real crime that has occurred. On the other, it brings new attention to crimes, especially cases that have been out of the public eye and are considered “cold,” which can lead to new investigation, evidence, and a sense of renewed interest.
In The Missing Half, Flowers explores this duality through the cases of Kasey and Jules. Nic discusses how, after Kasey’s disappearance, the media first presented her in a positive light, focusing on her attractive looks. However, as they discovered information about her past, the media quickly turned on her. In both instances, she was reduced to a simple photo or one fact, ignoring her complex existence as a human being. Nic recalls how Kasey was reduced to stereotypes, from “All-American girl” to “nymphomaniac” and even “sociopath” (85), ignoring the nuances of her humanity. Jenna’s experience after Jules’s disappearance is vastly different; she reveals that the media largely ignored Jules’s disappearance because she was older, not as pretty, and worked as a bartender. Only once the two cases were linked together did the media even report on her case. For Jenna, although the circumstance was frustrating, it also brought positive attention to the case, allowing it to be taken seriously for the first time. Through these conflicting responses to the disappearances, Flowers conveys both the positive and negative impact of the media, as it drives public perception, interest, and even investigation into cases like those of Kasey and Jules.
Ultimately, Flowers uses her novel to stress the importance of understanding the humanity behind the victims of these cases. While she acknowledges that the true crime media industry profits off the victims of cold cases, she also recognizes the importance of understanding that they are not simply statistics, caricatures, or just photos released by the media; instead, they are humans with very real lives and families. Through Nic and Jenna, she gives voice to the families of the victims, reminding the reader of the importance of humanizing the victims, their families, and everyone else impacted by the crimes.
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