5.0 out of 5 stars
Book 2: A very good, if dense, mystery thriller that connects the lives of two woman over 40 years.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 13, 2022
I want to preface my review by saying that when I purchased ‘Girl, Forgotten’ by Karin Slaughter, it was described on Amazon as being a ‘standalone thriller’, so I assumed that there were no tie-ins to her other books. I was mistaken. ‘Girl, Forgotten’ follows Andrea Oliver from ‘Pieces of Her’, just grown up and newly graduated from the United States Marshall Services (USMS). I haven’t read ‘Pieces of Her’ or watched the Netflix adaption, so there were elements that I felt were underdeveloped by the end of the book. However, I am assuming that they may be addressed in ‘Pieces of Her’ so I have added that book to my TBR pile and will edit this review once I get around to reading it. ‘Girl, Forgotten’ is a richly developed story and even without reading ‘Pieces of Her’, I didn’t feel disoriented with the narrative.
Set in the fictional town of Longbill Beach, Maryland, the book begins on April 17, 1982, where the 17-year-old and pregnant Emily Vaughn is getting ready to attend her senior year high school prom. Emily has been ostracised by her former friends and expelled from high school due to her pregnancy, but she refuses to just disappear. Her only emotional support is her Gram who unfortunately suffers from dementia and can’t protect Emily from the hardships she is enduring. Emily makes her way to the prom, and we meet several characters along the way who pose a threat to her and the baby. Sadly, by the end of the evening, she became the victim of a brutal attack that leads to her death, with the perpetrator remaining a mystery in the intervening years.
Jump to forty years later and Andrea has just completed the gruelling 20-week course to become a United States Marshall and join the USMS. Andrea had struggled to find her place in the world since she found out two years prior that her parents were not who she thought they were. Her mother, Laura, had hidden the fact that Andrea’s biological father was a psychopathic cult leader whom she had turned into the police. The fallout from this admission had shaken Andrea’s world apart and she is now trying to move forward, one foot in front of the other. Andrea is assigned to protect a federal judge who has received credible death threats, however, this is just a cover, her real mission is to discover the truth of Emily Vaughn’s murder and uncover if it has any ties to her own past.
The narrative jumps back and forth between Emily and Andrea and through the alternating chapters, we discover long-hidden secrets that ripple between the two women. With Emily, we go back six months before the prom as she learns of her pregnancy and the innocence of her youth begins to be stripped away. Andrea journeys to Longbill Beach and starts to unearth the mystery of what happened to Emily on that fateful night forty years ago. She discovers that there are forces at work who will do anything to keep the secrets of that night hidden and comes face-to-face with evil. As the two women move towards the finale, the intricate dance of their journeys is tangibly interconnected even over the decades separating them.
Emily’s character undergoes a transformative process throughout the book. Whilst she has a rather privileged life, it only looks perfect from the outside. Her parents are rather neglectful and abusive in their own ways, and the only person who offers her unconditional love and support is her Gram. But, with her Gram suffering from dementia and having fewer lucid moments, Emily turns to her friends for support. Referred to as the ‘clique’ and friends since childhood, this is the group that Emily believes in unconditionally. However, she quickly becomes disillusioned by their selfishness and conceit, realising that the rose-coloured glasses of her childhood cannot withstand the transition into adulthood. Faced with the reality of being a pregnant teenager and seeing the life she longed for fall apart, Emily must quickly grow up. As the layers of her childhood are ripped away, the true strength of her character shines through. What happens to Emily made my heart break. This was someone who went from being rather naïve to someone who found their inner strength to fight for themself and their baby.
Andrea is an interesting protagonist. She hasn’t become a deputy marshal due to a burning desire for justice, but rather as a protective measure against her father. That doesn’t stop her from giving her all to the judge’s protective detail or the case of Emily’s murder. She is not perfect and makes mistakes, but, like Emily, she has the strength of character and courage to follow her convictions. I do wish she had not referred to her USMS training as much as she did throughout the book. Every time she had to investigate something new, you could almost guarantee she would mention or think about her USMS training, after a while, it got slightly repetitive and redundant. There were also some elements to her backstory that weren’t fully explored, however, I think these might have been contained in ‘Pieces of Her’ which I hadn’t realised was the first book in the series.
Overall, I enjoyed reading ‘Girl, Forgotten’. The story is dark and complex, with the mystery multi-layered and compelling. I will say that it was rather dense in terms of subject matter, and it does contain a range of triggering elements to be aware of. Our two main characters, Emily and Andrea are well-written and developed. Both women are bought to life by Ms Slaughter, and I felt a connection with them. The background characters were also detailed and have enough substance to make them come to life. I do need to give a special mention of Bible whom I just loved. I would happily read a spin-off series from his POV any day. I highly recommend the book to anyone who has read and enjoyed other books written by Ms Slaughter, or who enjoys a good murder mystery/suspense novel.
4.5 out of 5 stars! Rounded to 5 stars.
‘Girl, Forgotten’ is the second book in the Andrea Oliver series by Karin Slaughter. As of August 2022, the series consists of:
Book 1: Pieces of Her
Book 2: Girl, Forgotten
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