Slaughter guides Pretty Girls into an in-depth look at a family forever defined by its tragedy. Each time a young woman is reported missing, Julia’s survivors feel as if their own emotional wounds have been reopened. As Claire delves into Paul’s background, she begins to realize how little she knew him … Slaughter keeps the tension high as Pretty Girls alternatively follows Lydia and Claire and the letters their father wrote to Julia, documenting his endless search for his missing child and pinpointing when savagery entered their lives. Slaughter’s unflinching descriptions of violence are never gratuitous but are not for the faint of heart.
A hell-raising thriller … Slaughter executes a number of tricky plot twists, some clever and others preposterous. (Would the F.B.I. really offer witness protection to someone who’s a ‘borderline psychopath’?) But all these sweaty maneuvers are in the service of a genuinely exciting narrative driven by strong-willed female characters who can’t wait around until the boys shake the lead out of their shoes.
In order to realistically tell this story Slaughter focuses an unflinching eye on the occurrences, and where other writers would see a stop sign, Slaughter forges boldly ahead. Some may say her descriptions are too graphic but I applaud her for making these scenes real. You can not be a passive observer and read this book. You are brought into all the full revelations ... There is so much passion, poignancy, humor and horror that the pages overflow. This is not a short novel but even with its length the reader finds it ends much too quickly. You have grown to know these people and you want to know more … Pretty Girls is one of the year’s most fascinating stories, told with the creatively inventive touch of a true master of suspense.
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again … Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing. Slaughter is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.
Pretty Girls is one of the best books published in 2015 thus far. It also may be one of the most controversial … The plot, while easy to follow – Slaughter’s narrative, as always, is first-rate – corkscrews magnificently throughout the book. She doesn’t just upend the china cabinet and kick it down the stairs; she also jumps up and down on it a few times before story's end … The journey on which Slaughter takes her readers is a graphic and horrific one. The book will be difficult for the faint-hearted, though perhaps it is that group that needs it the most. While a work of fiction, it has the power in its message to literally save lives.
