Moving between past and present and the different narrative voices of Leigh and Callie, the story reveals, often in disturbingly graphic detail, how their early years were blighted by a mentally disturbed, neglectful and often violent mother. Then, during their very early teens, how both were subjected to sexual abuse but whilst Leigh managed to fend off her abuser, Callie was groomed and then repeatedly raped over a period of time. From the start it’s clear that, although there’s an unbreakable bond between these two sisters, their relationship is complex and frequently ambivalent. One of the main strengths of the story for me was the many ways in which the author captured not only the positive aspects of their sisterly bond, but also the dysfunctional ones. I’m sure we all recognise those instinctive, inappropriate responses which usually have deep roots in historic, unresolved feelings of guilt and resentment. Both characters were so well-portrayed that, even when I found myself feeling frustrated by some of their frequently self-destructive behaviour, I felt able to empathise with them, often feeling angry on their behalf that no one in authority had offered them the support and protection they’d needed when they were younger.
In fact, whether likeable or intensely disagreeable, major or minor, each of the characters in the story felt multi-faceted, credible and crucial to the integrity of the complex plot-development. However, my one caveat is that, in order to fully engage with the story, I did need to work hard to suspend my disbelief that two young girls would be capable of so successfully covering-up the crime they committed, an act on which the central premise of the storyline is based!
The themes explored in this novel include paedophilia, rape, kidnapping, torture, family breakdown, addiction, drug-dealing, parental neglect and abuse, mental illness and psychopathic behaviour and, in her familiar style, Karin Slaughter pulls no punches in describing all these scenarios in graphic detail. Inevitably this made for an at times very disturbing, shocking and thought-provoking read and there were moments when I felt I could hardly bear to carry on feeling so immersed in such a dark and terrifying world. Although there was perhaps a little too much repetition of descriptions of some of the violent acts, I think that, on balance, the explicit detail was not gratuitously included, instead it served to evoke some of the realities of the pain and fear felt by victims of violent assaults. Fortunately, I found enough glimpses of lightness and humour to offer some temporary moments of relief from the darkness!
In her novels Karin Slaughter always includes reflections on the contemporary political, economic and social topics and concerns which are the background to her characters’ lives and, with the present-day story being set against the background of the pandemic, this story provided her with an extra dimension for such reflections. However, I felt that there was far too much repetition about the day to day minutiae of Covid safeguarding protocols, to the extent that not only did I frequently feel irritated by the frequent references to them (each of us is all too familiar with what they are!) but also felt that they added nothing to the developing story, in fact often quite the opposite because they detracted from its hard-hitting power. As did the amount of detailed information she included on the huge death toll, the economic consequences, the rapidly rising unemployment figures, the failures of the politicians and, more generally, on issues such as drug addiction, the everyday sexual harassment experienced by women, sexual abuse, male violence and predatory behaviour, to name just a few themes. Whilst I always appreciate some social commentary to provide the background to characters’ lives and the wider influences which are affecting them, there were just too many occasions when I felt the author’s reflections verged on the polemical, thereby losing much of their impact for this reader and serving only as a source of irritation! I think it also affected the pacing of the story by adding a degree of unevenness to what should have been an inexorable mounting of tension within the narrative arc of this disturbing novel.
In fact, whether likeable or intensely disagreeable, major or minor, each of the characters in the story felt multi-faceted, credible and crucial to the integrity of the complex plot-development. However, my one caveat is that, in order to fully engage with the story, I did need to work hard to suspend my disbelief that two young girls would be capable of so successfully covering-up the crime they committed, an act on which the central premise of the storyline is based!
The themes explored in this novel include paedophilia, rape, kidnapping, torture, family breakdown, addiction, drug-dealing, parental neglect and abuse, mental illness and psychopathic behaviour and, in her familiar style, Karin Slaughter pulls no punches in describing all these scenarios in graphic detail. Inevitably this made for an at times very disturbing, shocking and thought-provoking read and there were moments when I felt I could hardly bear to carry on feeling so immersed in such a dark and terrifying world. Although there was perhaps a little too much repetition of descriptions of some of the violent acts, I think that, on balance, the explicit detail was not gratuitously included, instead it served to evoke some of the realities of the pain and fear felt by victims of violent assaults. Fortunately, I found enough glimpses of lightness and humour to offer some temporary moments of relief from the darkness!
In her novels Karin Slaughter always includes reflections on the contemporary political, economic and social topics and concerns which are the background to her characters’ lives and, with the present-day story being set against the background of the pandemic, this story provided her with an extra dimension for such reflections. However, I felt that there was far too much repetition about the day to day minutiae of Covid safeguarding protocols, to the extent that not only did I frequently feel irritated by the frequent references to them (each of us is all too familiar with what they are!) but also felt that they added nothing to the developing story, in fact often quite the opposite because they detracted from its hard-hitting power. As did the amount of detailed information she included on the huge death toll, the economic consequences, the rapidly rising unemployment figures, the failures of the politicians and, more generally, on issues such as drug addiction, the everyday sexual harassment experienced by women, sexual abuse, male violence and predatory behaviour, to name just a few themes. Whilst I always appreciate some social commentary to provide the background to characters’ lives and the wider influences which are affecting them, there were just too many occasions when I felt the author’s reflections verged on the polemical, thereby losing much of their impact for this reader and serving only as a source of irritation! I think it also affected the pacing of the story by adding a degree of unevenness to what should have been an inexorable mounting of tension within the narrative arc of this disturbing novel.