#13 [2025/CBR17] Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

I've read Cop Town by Karin Slaughter, which I appreciated for a number of reasons. So when I found Pretty Girls (2016) by the same author under "popular audiobooks" at the library's website, I downloaded it almost immediately. Slaughter seems to write gritty, violent books, but I was unprepared for this one. Knowing what I know now, I would not have chosen to read it. Although I did finish it, the violence and darkness was too much for me. I did think it was well-written, but I would not personally recommend it.

Julia, Lydia, and Claire are three sisters with a seemingly perfect family. Their mother and father love both each other and their kids very much. But everything falls apart when the eldest daughter, Julia, disappears from college at the University of Georgia. She is only nineteen years old. 

At first the community rallies around the family, looking everywhere for the beautiful teenager who has disappeared. But when no trace of her is found, the cops decide that Julia must have run away. As time passes, most people move on with their lives. But Julia's parents can't take the stress and split up. Lydia becomes a drug addict, and becomes estranged from the rest of her family. Their father eventually commits suicide after obsessing over his daughter's case for years.

Now, twenty years later, another young woman has just vanished. Both Claire and Lydia are very aware of the similarities of the missing girl and their sister. But when Claire's husband, Paul, is murdered in the street in front of her eyes, her entire life as she knows it is over.

***SPOILERS*** AND ***TRIGGER WARNING***

While going through Paul's computer to find his work files, she stumbles upon some pornographic videos. At first, she's not concerned, but the scene quickly turns into one of harrowing violence and murder. (I don't have any interest in going into the details here.) This leads Claire to get back in touch with Lydia and the two try to figure out what's going on.

Halfway through the book, we learn that Paul is actually alive and he was the torturer/murderer that Claire had first seen on the screen. He has a list of clients that he sells his videos to, and there are a sickening number of both clients and victims throughout the years. 

You would think I'd almost be done with the book by now, but there was still almost half of it to go. Paul kidnaps Lydia, leaving Claire alone (for some reason that was not wholly satisfactory to me at the time.) But there was more to endure. This included detailed torture as well as learning that almost everyone in the world was involved

***END SPOILERS***

This was a generally well-written book. I did especially like the beginning as Slaughter slowly introduces the different characters, and we don't yet know how they are related. However, I was horrified by that first violent scene, and I was cringing whenever things got violent in the book after that. The more violence that I see at work, the less I want to see it in my entertainment. And these scenes were especially disturbing to me. I cannot stomach people intentionally hurting others. I looked at some of the reviews, and the majority were enthusiastically positive, so others may still enjoy this book. However, this one was hard for me to get through.