Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Sisters. Strangers. Survivors. I'd sooner change the tag line to: Volatile. Vapid. Very Lucky. I tried so hard to like this book, I tried to like the characters, the plot, the mystery and it somehow managed to fail on all 3 counts. I hate giving one star ratings, not because I feel that one can't dislike a book that much, rather I feel that others tend to look at them as more 'gut reactions' rather than having substance, thus I will endeavor to critique this book fairly and honestly. I want to get this out of the way. My opinion of this book has nothing to do with the subject matter. It is dark, it is graphic, it would be visceral if written better, but I set out reading this book looking for horror, for something to usher in Halloween 2017. To be clear, the subject matter is not on the table. This is what the author chose to write about and I chose to read, so no problems there just know that it is not for the faint of heart so tread carefully if you decide it's something for you. Let's start with the major theme: family. sisterhood. relationships. This story is set around a family of three girls, one of which was stolen away in the early 90s. We the reader are left to deal with the aftermath. Drugs, obsession, withdrawal, every family member has a different way of coping and we are left to sort through the mess left of their lives post tragedy. At first glance, not bad. My problem comes in with the relationship between the two main characters and remaining sisters, Lydia and Claire. They haven't spoken in years, they live their own lives and yet they are thrown in an impossible situation that they must navigate with no more connection then blood. But as the situation becomes more bleak and the stakes are raised their relationship doesn't change. We watch Claire come a little into her own. She becomes responsible (if ridiculously rash) and relentless. Lydia on the other hand plays the victim (physically and mentally) through the entire book. She blames Claire for not believing her although it is made clear that she was an irresponsible drug addict for the majority of her young adult life. Slaughter spends a ridiculous amount of time having Lydia express to Claire how she doesn't forgive her even as she hitches herself to this hot mess of a plot line. She charges ahead full blast, gets into trouble and then continues to badmouth Claire through the whole book. Her relationship with Claire was broken because Claire didn't believe her so she instead spends the entire book not believing in Claire. It was understandable in the beginning, but I couldn't get past being in the final 100 pages and reading Lydia's derogatory thoughts about Claire, especially after all that we had learned at that point. It's not just the sisters that are a mess, but the mother is as well. She goes from inattentive to overly capable in the blink of an eye. Suddenly she's willing to do anything for her daughter(s), she's driving decoy cars, buying burner phones, and attempting to acquire bullets. Helen comes out of left field and is decidedly too convenient considering the relational context built for the reader. I could spend all day talking about the poorly construed relationships but in the interest of time and reader ship I will move on. What's next? Let's go plot. What we have before us is essentially a murder mystery. The death of Claire's husband leads us on a wild goose chase and for some poorly explained reason no one can help solve the problem but angry, unforgiving Lydia. The cops are bad, the politicians are dirty, the best friend is creepy and the Feds are too smarmy; ridiculously staged to create over obvious doubt in the reader. Thus the scenario pushes the sisters into a fight/flight situation with only each other to rely on. The problem here is that these people don't ever really become an obstacle to over come. Everyone is dirty so they can't be trusted, but Claire and Lydia are never in a situation where these people are actively working against them. There is a scene is which we figure out the cops are dirty, so we just avoid them for the rest of the book. They never come to investigate or to cover up facts. I also have a hard time handling the fact that we couldn't have found a not dirty law enforcer somewhere within the 50 billion towns we drive back and forth between? How is there a giant conspiracy and yet the conspiracy is absent for the majority of the book? I've highlighted some very (in my opinion) major flaws so far, but some of it could have at least been alleviated through clever storytelling. But alas, the writing itself is flawed as well. For one, the story itself does not lend itself well to 1st person narration. There are supposed to be some pretty horrifying scenes in the book. Slaughter, as her name suggests, does not shy away from torture and rape. And yet when every grotesque scene is described as "I looked at the computer screen and saw... [insert your imagination]" there is no feeling to it. It doesn't awaken a fear or terror in the reader. In fact it comes off highly fake. The narrative voice is passive. There are no "actions" described only reaction to perceived action. Slaughter doesn't employ feeling, or scent, or sounds very well and that takes a lot away from the narration. Once I figured out that I wouldn't like the characters and that the plot was highly stylized and ridiculous I continued to read for the mystery. But seeing as even the mystery was exposed by about 40-50% through there wasn't much to continue to motivate my reading,unless you count the feeling of "how much more ridiculous" can this get? If we're giving it a rating based on this Pretty Girls would have scored a 5 especially based on the absurd ending. Sadly that is not a normal criteria by which I rate my books so I will sadly have to stick with the aforementioned one.