Pretty Girls: A Novel

I have always loved Karin Slaughter's characters and that is what kept me reading this book. However, it was too graphic in its description of rape, torture, and family grief for me. I ended up skimming through to get to the end. I'm afraid I'll have to delete this from my device. I really would recommend that no one read this. It was like a horror story.

In an average year, I read 25-30 books with the typical read taking two weeks. Great books get consumed more quickly. If I really get into a book, I'll read it in a couple days. Conversely, if the book is poorly written, defies logic, or has major plot flaws it can take a long time to slog through it. Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter took me almost three months to read and was not enjoyable.

I literally hit a wall when Claire's architect husband who was murdered in front of her in an alley suddenly comes back from the dead and turns out to be a psycopathic killer. The explanation as to how he could be killed in cold blood in front of his wife, have a funeral and then suddenly reappear into the plot is so poorly done that it was a total turnoff to the book. It took great effort to pick up the book and finish.

The author tries to concoct a mass conspiracy theory to explain how this event could logically happen. Unfortunately, her explaination not only defies logic, it shows a shallow, even flawed understanding of our criminal law and judicial system in the USA. The stereotype of crooked government and law enforcement extends beyond reason to suppose that everyone including the EMTs, local police, county sheriff, state police, FBI, coroner, funeral director, District Attorney, media, etc. somehow were either complicit in the coverup or turned their backs on same. To further suppose that dozens of females were abducted and sadistically murdered over a period of 30 years without government and the press making this priority #1 begs the reader to overlook the most basic system of checks and balances between multiple layers of government agencies, the press, and private enterprise.

The author tries to cover over these major plot defects by injecting snuff pornography into the story line. While the writing was readable, the entire premise of the book had more holes than Swiss cheese and the storyline panders to the patently offensive. I can't recommend this book.

Not at all what I expected from Karin Slaughter. If the point was to write a novel from the victim's point of view, the vile and graphic descriptions did nothing to enhance the story. I found myself skipping whole pages because I could not stomach such explicit volience against defenseless women. I will think twice before I buy another KarinSlaughter novel.

Unbelievable plot, ridiculous twists,gruesome sexual violence, mutilated,branded,beaten, raped with a machete(!?!?) young women, perverts, corrupt police, corrupt politicians, corrupt FBI and everything goes on and on, the dead villain comes to life ...only the sisters are the "good, moral characters"

I started off this book thinking...this is great! Then...I just kept waiting. Halfway through the book it stopped being interesting and instead became ridiculous and just kinda icky. I like dark novels, but this was just poor descriptions without much depth. The end just seemed lazy to me. I gave it three stars because I didn't have a hard time getting through it and it was an easy read. I save one and two stars reviews for those books that are just unbearable.

This book was so much more than I expected. It's fast paced. It's exciting and scarey. It creeped me out at times and I had to stop reading it a night. It made me laugh in parts, chuckle is more like it. And I cried at the end. That last chapter that was completely unexpected. Slaughter captured the emotions of betrayal, disbelief, anger and guilt very well. I don't want to give any spoilers........ READ THE BOOK. YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.

I really liked this book, but it's more of a horror story than anything I have ever read. I couldn't put it down, but I would have to take breaks from reading it because it taps into the worst and most awful parts of humanity. And it's real. It's not vampires or scary clowns, but the truly awful parts of man that exist. It also has a lot of good, which it what gets you through the read. But don't think for a moment this is a work of fiction, it's just not based on a true story. I would give it 5 stars, but I was truly disturbed to read it.

Karin just gets better and better. Pretty Girls was WONDERFUL and I found it difficult to put it down. The plot was intricate with some surprises along the way. I liked this book and Cop Town versus Sara and Will, even though I liked all books in that series also. I had gotten a little tired of them and Pretty Girls has more depth to it. This book will keep you riveted to a satisfying conclusion.

I only paid $1.99 for this garbage and that was too much. It is ridiculous beyond words. Far fetched and gruesome. Please trust this review and others like it. I had read the mixed reviews and figured for a couple of bucks I'll give it a try. Don't use your precious time trying to enjoy this read. It will not happen. A huge mish-mash of redundancy, mixed with too many needless characters and not one that is likable. Ugh!

This book was so much more than I expected. It's fast paced. It's exciting and scarey. It creeped me out at times and I had to stop reading it a night. It made me laugh in parts, chuckle is more like it. And I cried at the end. That last chapter that was completely unexpected. Slaughter captured the emotions of betrayal, disbelief, anger and guilt very well. I don't want to give any spoilers........ READ THE BOOK. YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.

I really liked this book, but it's more of a horror story than anything I have ever read. I couldn't put it down, but I would have to take breaks from reading it because it taps into the worst and most awful parts of humanity. And it's real. It's not vampires or scary clowns, but the truly awful parts of man that exist. It also has a lot of good, which it what gets you through the read. But don't think for a moment this is a work of fiction, it's just not based on a true story. I would give it 5 stars, but I was truly disturbed to read it.

Karin just gets better and better. Pretty Girls was WONDERFUL and I found it difficult to put it down. The plot was intricate with some surprises along the way. I liked this book and Cop Town versus Sara and Will, even though I liked all books in that series also. I had gotten a little tired of them and Pretty Girls has more depth to it. This book will keep you riveted to a satisfying conclusion.

I really liked the plot and premise of this book, but I just could not read the whole thing. Waaaaay to much extraneous information that detracted from the story. I got so sick of trudging through the beginning of this book that I ended up just skimming it to figure out what was going on. It's sad when you skip chapters and not much has happened or nothing pertinent to the story has been revealed. This is the first book I have read from this author, but I don't feel compelled to read any further books by her. I guess I'm disappointed because the plot was great, just poor execution.

I have read almost all of Karin Slaughter's previous books and thoroughly enjoyed almost all of them. This book is ugly, preposterous and infuriating. The plot is ridiculous, as are the characters.

If there was a way to give it a rating of zero or minus stars, I would do so.