Book Review: Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

Title: Pretty Girls
Author: Karin Slaughter
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: sex, language, violence-- this is a book for grown-ups

It's been twenty years since Claire and Julia's sister Lydia vanished without a trace after leaving a bar near the University of Georgia, where she was a student. In that time, Claire has gone on to marry a man who became a tech millionaire, and Lydia spent time in and out of rehab, on welfare, and raising her daughter as a single mom. The sisters don't talk at all, until Claire's husband, Paul, is murdered before her eyes in an Atlanta alleyway. After the funeral (wake cut short by a break-in), Claire reaches out to Lydia to help her get a sense of her situation, and soon they're back on the trail of finding Julia. The book is incredibly dark, with lots of scary scenes (Paul may have been involved in making rape and torture videos marketed on the dark internet), and some truly evil characters.

It's been a few weeks since I finished reading Pretty Girls. Sometimes I think it's lazy of me to let some time elapse after finishing a book before reviewing it, but often that time helps me see how much I remember a book. I figure that if I can't remember a book after only three weeks have passed, it probably wasn't all that good, even if I found it engrossing in the moment, and that's the case with Pretty Girls. At the time, I couldn't wait to see what really happened to Paul, and if Claire and Lydia could escape with their lives, but weeks later, all I remember is the discomfort I felt when I Slaughter described the places where the torture of women took place.

Book Review: The Short Drop by Matthew Fitzsimmons

Title: The Short Drop
Author: Matthew Fitzsimmons
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: violence, incest, sexual abuse, swearing

Gibson Vaughn, ex-con, ex-Marine, and hacker extraordinaire is experiencing life on the skids. He's lost his job and his family when a powerful man from his distant past hires him to look into the decade-old disappearance of Suzanne Lombard, the girl who was like a sister to him growing up and whose father is the current vice-president.

When Vaughn accepts the job, the body count commences. If you're looking for an adrenaline rush, The Short Drop is a book with lots of plot twists, an enemy who is always ten steps ahead of the game, and violence that seems senseless at times. It's the kind of book that I read quickly and enjoyed at the time, but that I hardly remember a month later. I wish that Vaughn's character had been developed more. Most of the story hearkens back to the time when Suzanne disappeared (which happened shortly before Vaughn's father's apparent suicide) and Fitzsimmons does a nice job delving into the questions of the past, but I was curious about what motivated Vaughn in the present. I read that The Short Drop is to be the first book in a series. I hope that readers will continue to see Vaughn grow, and I know that Fitzsimmons has lots of adventures planned for the future.

Book Review: A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

Title: A Head Full of Ghosts
Author: Paul Tremblay
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Audible
Content Alert: This one is scary, and it deals with a family suffering from serious mental illness. There's also some swearing.

Merry is seven when life at home starts to fall apart. To tell the truth, it wasn't all that great before then, with her dad's unemployment and her parents fighting all the time, but when Merry is seven, that's when her teenage sister Marjorie starts to go crazy. The family turns first to a psychiatrist, then to the family priest, and finally to a team of producers who turn their family life into a reality show. A Head Full of Ghosts documents not just the events in that fated year, but also Merry's life fifteen years later, when a writer wants to interview her about the events that so marked her childhood.

While A Head Full of Ghosts provides all the bumps in the night that the reader of horror might expect, it's more than simply a horror novel. Instead, it's a book about mental illness, exploitation, sacrifice, wisdom and love. Marjorie's transformation, and the way it plays out in her family, is incredibly painful to watch, and the commentary on predatory reality shows is interesting. The final twist of the novel turns something merely scary into a truly creepy tale that won't be easy to forget.

Book Review: Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

Title: Luckiest Girl Alive
Author: Jessica Knoll
Enjoyment Rating: *****
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: This one is pretty dark-- violent, non-consensual sex, consensual sex, swearing

Ani seems to have the perfect life-- she's an editor at a magazine in Manhattan, she lives with her stockbroker fiance, she has a perfect body and perfect clothes and is planning the perfect wedding. But the veneer of perfection is thin, and underneath that perfect exterior is Tiffani FaNelli, the girl she once was-- the chubby insecure girl whose mom talked too loud and whose parents never had enough money for her to really fit in at her private school in Philly. Although Ani would say she has risen above her past (and we learn more about the dark secrets of that past as Luckiest Girl Alive unfolds), but she is not happy. In fact, the book opens with visions of Ani stabbing that perfect fiance with knives from their wedding registry.

I know that Luckiest Girl Alive is getting mixed reviews. Ani is an unreliable narrator, and she's pretty unlikeable too. While Knoll worked as a writer for the same kinds of magazines that Ani writes for, I don't think she made Ani unlikeable by coincidence. She name drops. She's obsessed with brands and with keeping herself thin. She's marrying a guy who seems more like an accessory than a partner. All in all, she's kind of a nightmare. She was a nightmare fifteen years ago, when she started at the Bradley School too. But Knoll does a great job making readers interested enough care about his damaged girl, and then lays out a harrowing, totally compelling story of what happened to Ani during that pivotal freshman year. I can't tell too much without giving things away, but this book is full of twists and turns, and deals with issues far more important (like sexual abuse, school violence, and class issues) than having the perfect boots for the season.