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Pretty Girls: A Novel by Karin Slaughter
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Pretty Girls: A Novel (edition 2015)

by Karin Slaughter (Author)

Series: Pretty Girls (1)

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2,9411964,684 (3.85)50
"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" --… (more)
Member:MHanover10
Title:Pretty Girls: A Novel
Authors:Karin Slaughter (Author)
Info:William Morrow (2015), Edition: First Edition, 416 pages
Collections:Your library, Currently reading, Wishlist, To read, Read but unowned, Favorites
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Tags:to-read

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Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes by Karin Slaughter

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English (188)  Italian (2)  Dutch (2)  German (1)  Piratical (1)  All languages (194)
Showing 1-5 of 188 (next | show all)
Such a good thriller! Really kept me going. Hoping the rest of her books are just as good stumbling upon this author. ( )
  eboods | Feb 28, 2024 |
disgusting fun read ( )
  ratatatatatat | Feb 21, 2024 |
I'm not entirely sure what to say about this book. I think this is the first true "thriller" that I've read, so maybe some parts of this genre were just lost on me. I was extremely invested up until the big plot twist was revealed and then I had a really difficult time taking the rest of the book seriously. I see so many people discuss the graphic elements of this book and how so much of it could be considered torture porn, but there's so much to be said about how Pretty Girls approaches grief and what it looks like to lose loved ones to homicide or have a loved one go missing. The letters written by Sam Carroll quite literally sent me into such a spiral that there were points where I wasn't sure I could get through the book. I'm not sure I would ever necessarily recommend this book to other people, but it was surely a reading experience I won't forget.

3.5/5 stars. ( )
  brookeklebe | Feb 6, 2024 |
50% mark - I can't believe this book goes on for another several hundred pages. Might consign this to the DNF pile (though I've only done that once before) or subject it to some serious skimming.

I initially picked this up for the premise, hoping to read about an intelligent woman seeking the truth behind and justice for her missing sister. (I hate that I even felt it necessary to include the word 'intelligent,' but many authors seem to forget that this is the foundation for a strong female character, and unfortunately it was no different here.) In short, this book fell far short of some very basic expectations. I doubt my verdict will change by the end of the story, due to the below proverbial nails in the coffin, but will include a note if it does. Spoilers to follow.

Claire never has to ID her husband's body after his 'death.' This appears to be standard procedure no matter how the person died, but is skipped in favor of the highly contrived plot twist halfway through the book. Even before I looked this up, the plot twist still felt poorly set up to me - how would he have bled out and gone cold in her arms if he was faking his death? Remote-controlled blood and ice packs!? I don't know how this was supposed to work. You can't expect me to read 300 pages about a dead guy and then suddenly insert him into a scene, very much alive. I've never seen a deus ex machina favoring the villain before, but this seems to fit the bill.

Claire is stupid. Lydia a little less so, but it runs in the family - and, to some extent, the plot. I tried so hard to be understanding of everyone's reactions, particularly Claire's, when the nasty truth about good-boy Paul started to come out, because that's her entire supposedly secure life going down the drain. I tried to factor in her frayed nerves and slight drug usage, when she couldn't see the obvious hints that her husband's serial-killer/rapist hobby wasn't a solo operation. I started to cringe when she brought her evidence to Mayhew and was dismissed, then questioned closely about any copies - if these guys truly wanted to cover things up, they could've easily ended her right then and there, yet I still held out the slim hope that this would be explained later. But what I absolutely could not forgive was Claire deciding, after a long period of thought, to go into a suspicious abandoned house in the middle of nowhere - UNARMED! And Lydia follows her instead of going back to get a gun (which she should've had on her in the first place)! And they just walk right into undead Paul's swinging fists! ... Sorry, but you don't need to have firsthand experience with a sister going missing for twenty years to pack some goddamn common sense. Unfortunately, this is not usually available in the Bestselling Thriller/Crime-Novel Protagonist Starter Pack.

Graphic, gratuitous depictions of sexual violence. There was truly no need to submit us to the horrific imagery of what happened to those poor kidnapped girls. The story could, in fact, have been more powerful if it was all implied and left off-screen. Violence against women is sensationalized enough in media as it is, and people lap it up for shock/entertainment only, forgetting that these women were human beings too - who had the same kinds of daily frustrations and hopes and dreams, all cut cruelly short because they stumbled into a horribly unfortunate situation. I wanted the human aspect, I wanted to know these women as they were before their lives were taken away, but instead I got stomach-churning descriptions of their suffering.

PSA: If you want to read a hard-hitting novel about the love between sisters and one woman's quest for justice in the face of a heinous crime - without gratuitous imagery - I once again recommend Sadie by Courtney Summers. I have yet to read a crime/thriller novel that surpasses hers in this regard.

Long story short, this book was very disappointing. The only good parts about it were the letters Sam wrote to Julia (these hit me hard) and the loving banter between Lydia and Rick. I still have the mild temptation to check out Pieces of Her since it was made into a show and has a different premise, and I've heard better things about other books by this author... but my enthusiasm has definitely waned since I picked this one up first.

??--------??-??----------------------??-----------------------------------
EDIT: Finished the book and the above still stands. After tons of irrelevant questions and conversations by Claire, more bumbling around, more graphic descriptions etc., I finally got to one of the only good parts of the 2nd half: Paul's death. The other was the final chapter (Sam's last letter to Julia). Aside from that, I'm so glad to be done with this stupidity, I could cry. I wish I could've just read Sam's story and his POV for this entire book instead.... ( )
  Myridia | Jan 19, 2024 |
Wow! What a thriller!

Okay so check your trigger warnings. This book if graphic with some serious subjects. I think some of it didn't have to be so graphic and it made me uncomfortable.

The characters Claire and Lydia are great! There are twists and turns in this psychological thriller. Again the material is very graphic and can be disturbing.
The father and his letter to his daughter were gut wrenching. It brought tears to my eyes and broke my heart.

I have never rad a keen Slaughter book until this INE and I will say it wad very very good. I will certainly look at her other books in the future.

I do need a break after thus book so it will be a while before I choose another. ( )
  Spiritrider1101 | Jan 18, 2024 |
Showing 1-5 of 188 (next | show all)
*****
“My girl, what happened to you now…”

There are tons of cliches that reviewers fall back upon to describe how much effect a book had upon them. It kept me up, all night, I couldn’t put it down, etc. Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter brought a new one to life for me. The entire time I was reading this astounding novel I was so jittery and on the edge of my seat that I felt like I had just downed a triple-shot of Starbuck’s strongest.

I have read a few of Ms. Slaughter’s other novels, and she is easily one of the most daring and fearless suspense novelists working today. She takes chances, and has the skill and daring to make them work, and all of her talents are brought to to bear again here, and then some. Pretty Girls knocked me out.

When teenaged Julia Scott disappears, it destroys her family. Her father Sam becomes so obsessed with her fate that it destroys his marriage with his wife, Helen. Older daughter Lydia becomes a drug-abusing party girl, and younger sister Claire subsumes her ambitions and marries Paul, a mild-mannered and orderly architect who becomes a multimillionaire.

We watch Lydia right her life; becoming a middle-class single mother with her own business, she works endlessly with her boyfriend Rick to provide a good life for her daughter, Dee. Adding to her everyday worries is the news that a girl from Dee’s school has gone missing. Claire meanwhile, has become a tennis-playing trophy-wife with a dark underside that is revealed when she assaults another trophy wife with a tennis racket.

Then Paul is murdered during a robbery in front of Claire. Lost in grief she is further shocked to find that her home has been burgled during his funeral. Searching for insurance documents on her husband's computer she comes across some hidden videos that shatters her image of her husband. Not having spoken to her sister for years, she still decides that she needs Lydia’s help.

Understand that this is less than a fifth of the way into the story, and that so many twists and turns and revelations follow that I have opted out rather than try to describe them without spoiling the beautiful house-of-cards plot constructed my Ms. Slaughter. I wasn’t blowing smoke when I called Ms. Slaughter fearless, either; this is a visceral novel that doesn't dissemble or shy away from brutality and violence, both physical and emotional. Yet even as it stares into the abyss I found this to be a work full of strength and hope, both embodied in the touching and psychologically nuanced relationship between the sisters, Lydia and Claire.

Both are fully-realized characters, and they grow and evolve and deepen as Ms. Slaughter steers them into ever deeper and darker situations that test their resolve. Just about every character in the book feels real and true, and Ms. Slaughter’s prose never fails to captivate. Her first-person narration of Sam’s story, the father, is particularly vivid, and just about broke my heart.

If all of this wasn’t enough, Ms. Slaughter shows a very deft hand in action scenes, bringing the physical violence to life without shying from the pain and blood. I may not have mentioned it yet, but her prose is smooth and assured and the setting is vivid and feels true-to life.

As the end this novel comes to terms, with grace and skill, with the fact that life is very seldom about winning and losing, but more often about surviving. That is more than enough.

Review by: Mark Palm
Full Reviews Available at: http://www.thebookendfamily.weebly.co...
 

» Add other authors (23 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Karin Slaughterprimary authorall editionscalculated
Early, KathleenNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Early, KathleenNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
A particularly beautiful woman is a source of terror. --Carl Jung
Dedication
FOR DEBRA
First words
When you first disappeared, your mother warned me that finding out exactly what had happened to you would be wore then never knowing.
Quotations
Information from the Dutch Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
'Een beeldschone vrouw is een bron van verschrikking.'
- Carl Jung
Last words
Information from the Dutch Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Do not combine with the short story "The Truth About Pretty Girls."
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"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" --

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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.
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