Name: The Shining Girls
ISBN: 9780007464630

Lauren Beukes

The jaw-dropping, page-turning, critically-acclaimed book of the year: a serial-killer thriller unlike any other from the award-winning Lauren Beukes. ‘GONE GIRL has not exactly gone. But THE SHINING GIRLS have arrived’ (The Times).

The Shining Girls

Fraser Simons

Saw the trailer for this and decided not to wait for the show at the end of next month, because a killer navigating time, somehow, in order to target specific people, is an interesting concept. It brings with it a lot of questions, even just around the central conceit. 

This shifts perspectives very often, sometimes to the killer, often to the women being hunted by him. Multiple time frames, quite a few characters, sometimes even the friends of the women will get perspectives. It’s heavily plot driven, with characters being very subservient to the frenetic pacing. Only the killer and one woman in particular feeling anywhere near fleshed out. But, even then, it’s a byproduct of spending more time with them. 

You need to be invested in the concept, plot beats, and macro story, and not things that, typically make me connect to a story: character work, diction, description. As a result, this feels very much like a commercial thriller, just with a different, much larger conceit being asked of the reader. 

I can’t say I cared for any character much, and have mixed feelings about the ending. It’s extremely filmable and I think the show could easily surpass the book because there’s more opportunity to characterize the women and showcase the work the author did to depict each time period. Everyone felt like stock archetypes interacting with the plot beats. Some of the reasoning was contrived, but also not contradicted because of the style of writing. 

Overall, go in with the expectations of a macro reader and popcorn, commercial fiction thriller and I think you’ll be happy. It’ll be interesting to see if the show is able to inject some more nuance.