Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Pretty Girls

i really don’t know how to feel. SUCH a page turner, it was so hard for me to put this down, & when i did, i couldn’t stop thinking about it. my faults with this book, though, are that i feel like it was too gruesome. i feel like 50+ pages of disgusting, gory details could’ve been left out and we still would have gotten the same story. it was a LOT and personally a heavy read for me. i LOVE crime/mystery/murder books, but at some points this was a really hard read for me. other than that, i loved the story! so insane, some of the plot twists had be audibly screaming through out the whole chapter. if you can handle gore, this is definitely for you!!

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michellewords's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I finished this book two days ago and I'm still spinning. Pretty Girls is AMAZING! This book is absolutely incredible and everything I want and need in a book/audiobook.
Pretty Girls is also one of the most graphic fictional books I've ever read. TW: sexual assault, rape, violence, snuff, porn, violence, gore, and various forms of murder/death).
That said, I loved this book so I don't know what to say.
The book takes place decades after a young woman (Julia) has gone missing. Another girl in the city is missing and it triggers some heavy memories of the 3 POV characters: her sisters ( Lydia & Claire) and her dad.
The most interesting chapters were from her dad's perspective. His chapters read like a journal or a series of unsent letters to his missing daughter with tales of the past and his experience trying to find his daughter's assailant. These chapters felt so real, I swear he felt like my dad at times.
Lydia and Claire are equally as interesting. Lydia is an ex-con ex-addict and self made mom of a teen daughter. Claire married smart and rich. She's feisty, but has skated through life until a terrible event with her husband in an alley.
This book has it all. It read like a true crime podcast, with bits and pieces of the fill story revealed a little at a time. Though you find out the truth earlier than I expected, the story gets bigger and wilder. I love the genre nods from other thrillers (house fire, international crime ring, interviews with prisoners, a knife fight, and some pretty awhile VHS tapes).
The ending, like so many other thrillers, goes for a little longer than necessary, but that's a minor quip.
I love this book and I've already recommended it to multiple people and I'll probably keep recommending it for a while. Such a great mystery with a lot of thriller moments. It's so good

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loudonuts's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

a gruesome story that was ultimately about the bond between sisters. it didn’t exceed my expectations but it was an okay thriller. at the beginning the hyper descriptive violence was shocking and intense, but by the end of it, it felt pretty gratuitous. was the aim to desensitise me, or was it just bad at keeping me engaged? unfortunately i’m not sure.

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