Name: Karin slaughter pretty girls
Rating: 4.001466992665036 (409 reviews)
ISBN: 9780099599432

Wendy Connelly

Karin slaughter pretty girls

Pretty Girls

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Pretty Girls - Karin Slaughter ⭐ Overall: 3/ 5 Format: Physical Characters: 2/5 Plot: 4/5 Writing: 4/5 World: 3/5 Pacing: 3/5 Ending: 3/5 💬 “Her father always said that the price for hearing gossip was having someone else gossip about you.”

Wack ass book 🤯 edge of my seat the whole time!

Kara M

★★★★★
5.00 STARS 

A very terrifying, disturbing and heart-wrenching story of a family that fell apart by a very hideous event in their past. The story was slow-paced and took its time to build up its progress. The horrifying details of the gruesome part appalled me and made my stomach turned. But nevertheless, I was pretty much amazed at how the author can paint each chilling graphics into the minds of her readers. Well, atleast it was for me. 

I particularly loved the father's diary entries so much. It was so heartbreaking, the pain and grief was filled and evident with each and every word he conveyed. It made me cried so hard, especially the last entry. It was so painfully sincere and beautiful. 

First time picking up a book by Karin Slaughter. I loved and praised her writing so much that I would probably, definitely going to pick up and read more of her works.

Kaitlynn

Wow... just wow. LOVE THIS BOOK. Definitely a little true crime vibe but I was sucked in from the first chapter!

Karin Slaughter

A Novel

rumbledethumps

The story is certainly well-told, but probably just a story I didn't care for. What started as an interesting mystery, turned into a pretty average domestic thriller.

Colleen

3.5 Stars

This review contains spoilers. Not all of them are hidden because they pertain to certain things that people should be forewarned about before reading Pretty Girls.

This is the story of a teenage girl who vanished without a trace. Twenty years later and after a long estrangement, her two sisters, Claire and Lydia, are thrown back together by a similar disappearance and are quickly caught up in events much larger than just them.

Pretty Girls is quite possibly the most disturbing book I have ever read. Because of that, this book is somewhat hard for me to rate. The plot and the characters were gripping, but there was an insane amount of violence and much of it felt gratuitous. 

I am not a squeamish person. I have read my share of dark stuff both fiction and true crime. In college, I took all of my electives in Psychology and was particularly interested in abnormal psych. I have read plenty of stuff about serial killers and psychopaths. So when I say this book is disturbing, I am trying to issue a sincere warning. That isn't to discourage people from reading this book, but I feel the need to forewarn friends of how graphic this book is.

 Pretty Girls has just about every type of violence and violent offenders other than maybe pedophiles. It has rapists, psychopaths, sociopaths, torture (both physical and emotional), sadism, kidnapping, stalking, voyeurism, snuff films, necrophilia, desecration of corpses, and a brief mention of cannibalism. Plus some less violent things such as drug addiction, alcoholism, parental neglect, embezzlement, corruption... and probably more, but you get the point. This was a veritable smorgasbord of horrific things. Oh wait... I don't think there was any incest. Ok, so other than incest and pedophilia, this book has the Full Monty of psychos. While reading this, I had the same thought that I did when I watch the movie Running Scared: "Holy cow, how many bad people can you fit into one place?!"

And these horrible acts are described in traumatically explicit detail. There is no fade to black. This book revels in the minutiae of brutal human suffering. It not only describes rape and torture but also describes the perpetrator becoming aroused by it. In detail. I had the disturbing feeling that real life sadists probably read this book and were turned on by it. The story is permeated with the putrid stench of the worst of the human race.

The book did not scare me, but it left me feeling anxious and unnerved. I confess, I had to eat a lot of chocolate ice cream and watch cute animal videos to restore my emotional equilibrium. It was easy to get sucked into the story while I was reading it, and I would binge read big sections. But once I put it down, I kept having a hard time picking it back up and would wander away for a couple of days at a time because it was hard to knowingly thrust myself back into the emotional state triggered by this book.

The story alternates between Claire and Lydia plus letters written by their father to their missing sister. I did not like most of the characters initially. At first I only liked the father and Rick. But Claire and Lydia grew on me as the story went on. I liked the father's letters best. They were lyrical, intelligent, and haunting with a southern flair that reminded me a little of Special Topics in Calamity Physics. It was a very convincing portrayal of a grieving parent looking for answers to a tragedy. But it is pretty bad when you look forward to something that depressing because it provides a break from the violence. 

So why did I keep reading despite all of the appalling violence? Because Slaughter really can write. Yes, it was more than morbid curiosity. The writing was really good. The plot was fast-paced and engaging. I did guess one of the bigger twists, but beyond that, I had NO IDEA what was going to happen. A big part of that was the anxiety of not knowing whether this would be the sort of book were good triumphs over evil or the sort where everyone dies horribly in abject misery. I won't tell you which it ended up being. But this was definitely a page turner. But beyond the plot, there was a lot of raw emotion in this book. I found myself very invested in the characters. Both of the sisters grew on me more and more throughout the book. They were complex and interestingly flawed characters who changed as the as the story went on. And that is what books like Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train utterly lacked for me: that emotional depth and character development. If you are going to put horrible characters in a book, then explain why they are horrible. What made them that way? What are their motivations? What is going through their heads? I need more than just a speedy plot and morally bankrupt people. Even the most dreadful people in this book were still interesting characters. (view spoiler)[It really says something about Slaughter's writing ability that despite of all the terrible things that happened in the story, I still felt Paul's emotions. It was pretty genius that the author could instill just enough doubt to make it hard to decide what to believe. That even after everything, hearing those declarations of love still tugged somewhere deep. (hide spoiler)] 

Pretty Girls still loses some points for the extreme violence. Although I have to say despite the gratuitous violence, it did not feel as sensationalized as a lot of other thrillers are. I would probably still recommend this book to people as long as they can handle the sadism. But that recommendation comes with a strong warning. Read at your own risk.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 3 Stars
Writing Style: 4 Stars
Characters: 4 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 4 Stars
Level of Captivation: 3 Stars
Originality: 3 Stars

Lee Child says it’s “stunning… certain to be a book of the year.” Kathy Reichs calls it “extraordinary… a major achievement.” Jeffery Deaver says that “fiction doesn't get any better than this.” Gillian Flynn says of Karin Slaughter: “I’d follow her anywhere.” See for yourself what these #1 New York Times-bestselling authors are talking about. Sisters. Strangers. Survivors. More than twenty years ago, Claire and Lydia’s teenaged sister Julia vanished without a trace. The two women have not spoken since, and now their lives could not be more different. Claire is the glamorous trophy wife of an Atlanta millionaire. Lydia, a single mother, dates an ex-con and struggles to make ends meet. But neither has recovered from the horror and heartbreak of their shared loss—a devastating wound that's cruelly ripped open when Claire's husband is killed. The disappearance of a teenage girl and the murder of a middle-aged man, almost a quarter-century apart: what could connect them? Forming a wary truce, the surviving sisters look to the past to find the truth, unearthing the secrets that destroyed their family all those years ago . . . and uncovering the possibility of redemption, and revenge, where they least expect it. Powerful, poignant, and utterly gripping, packed with indelible characters and unforgettable twists, Pretty Girls is a masterful novel from one of the finest writers working today.

Page turning thriller. Another vile villain from Slaughter with this one a bit more fleshed out than her follow up novel, False Witness. 

Paige Paul

Jenna Pascale 

Woweee - this one was a doozy. Quite the ride from the very beginning. 

It’s taken me a bit to get around to reading this one but I finally did it! My first Karin Slaughter book, but definitely not my last. 

There are so many aspects of this book that I truthfully cannot even put into words or begin to wrap my head around. The twists start from very early on and keep going. I don’t think there was a single moment in this book where I stopped guessing. There was always a theory, a prediction, an edge of your seat moment. Hell, the entire book had me on the edge of my seat from cover to cover. 

Fair warning: this is a HEAVY read. The amount of description and detail will either make or break this book for you. It is well worth the uncomfortable moments and gory descriptions in order to see it through to the picture perfect ending, but please make your decision wisely. This book is NOT meant for someone who is not an active thriller reader or someone who cannot handle the dark and gory side of things. 

Overall, the execution was impeccable. The alternating POV’s kept you on your toes and aware of every detail. The plot was fulfilled with little to no plot holes and Slaughter’s writing style was perfect. Highly recommend for those looking for a darker, thrilling read while still pulling at your heart strings.

did i listen to 60% and then decided to read a summary? yes. am i rating it because it was bad at being a thriller, relied on shock value and somehow it still managed to be boring? also yes. 

Karin slaughter pretty girls

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