Vanished by Mary McGarry Morris

Published 1988 · 194 pages · 76,500 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction

How hard is Vanished to read?

Vanished scores 44 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 40 out of 100
Accessible contemporary vocabulary.
Sentence structure: 42 out of 100
Clear, direct sentences.
Abstraction: 45 out of 100
Family, secrets, and truth.
Information density: 45 out of 100
Mystery detail.
Narrative indirection: 50 out of 100
Past revealed gradually.
Symbolic density: 45 out of 100
Disappearance carries weight.
Ironic distance: 40 out of 100
Engaging thriller mode.
Resolution withholding: 45 out of 100
Mystery resolved; questions remain.
Structural complexity: 40 out of 100
Mystery structure.

How Vanished is regarded

Vanished holds a literary regard score of 51 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

About the author

Mary McGarry Morris