Monday 2 February 2015

Oh, Pretty Girl..

Title: Pretty Girl Thirteen
Author: Liz Coley
Pages: 344
Publisher: Harper Collins
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary (from Good Reads): 
Angie Chapman is only 13 when she gets lost in the woods in the middle of the night.

The next thing she knows she’s returned home, scars around her wrists and ankles, physically exhausted. Her parents collapse into tears when they see her, but Angie doesn’t understand – until they tell her she has been missing, presumed dead, for three years.

Angie doesn’t remember anything from her missing years. But there are people who do – people who could tell Angie every terrifying detail, if only they weren’t locked inside her mind.

With help, Angie begins to unravel the darkest secrets of her own past.

But does she really want to know the truth?

This book definitely gave me mixed emotions. I really couldn't decide whether to give this book 3 or 4 stars because there are things that made me want to give it 4 stars, but then there were other things that made me question that rating. 

First off, this book had me from the beginning. The book tells the story of a teenage girl that's been held captive for the 3 years but has no recollection of it whatsoever. This book had such an interesting concept to it which I enjoyed. It was really interesting to learn about new concepts, and it actually introduced me to something that I never knew. The book is definitely a chilling and touchy subject. It's not really very graphic, which I think was quite good, as although there are flashbacks, I feel that sometimes too much graphic content in a book can ruin it. This definitely hit the nail on the head with having just the right amount of information so that you felt sympathetic towards Angie, but it wasn't too the point where you felt like the information was a bit overwhelming. I think that Coley did a good job of dealing with such a touchy subject with this book.

Now here are some of the things that got me a bit. I really felt like the author tried to incorporate too much in this book. How much misfortune can you throw at one person! This really got on my nerves as I felt that the author was just forcing things in to the story to make it more interesting, which yes, I suppose it did but at the same time, I just felt like some things were unnecessary. I also thought that there would be much more of a media presence round the case of missing Angie and her return, but strangely there was not, which was surprising too me. Obviously I realise it's not the main focus of the book at all, but it's just surprising that there was little mention of it until perhaps the middle to end of the book.

Other than those few bits, I did enjoy reading Pretty Girl Thirteen, and it still does make it's way into my mind a few times. I think it's one of those books that's got a gritty, intense story line that can really effect you after you finish reading it. That's definitely the effect that it had on me. 

I would definitely recommend this book, but more so to people that don't mind intense, gritty and chilling books. 

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