Mel's Reviews > Pretty Girls

If Karen Slaughter is your cup of tea, you must be a both-elbows-on-the-bar guzzler of the hard stuff, straight up. At best, when she is cranking out the kind of books that have won her numerous nominations, including Edgar Award nominations and several GR nominations, Slaughter produces the kind of world we get a thrill out of reading about, but don't want to inhabit, writing dark criminal thrillers that leave you with an unshakable chill. For those about to bury themselves deep into an overstuffed chair, perhaps with a cup o' tea, and delve into this one, I'd suggest a Valium and side of Pepto on hand, because Karin is going deeper and darker. Get ready to throw back the really hard and ugly poison.
Take that as a warning; and now allow me to explain why I would give a talented, award winning author 1* and comment at all when I would prefer to lay down a quick one liner and move on, because having to recall this book at all, bring it back to a conscious level, makes me want to toss my breakfast. It is engrossing; a thriller for sure that kept me breathlessly turning pages, until I hit the wall. Pretty Girls, instead of raising the hairs on the back of my neck, raised the bile in my stomach. Of course, fellow readers, this is MHO biased by years of research and experience. Part of me said just pass on a review, while the little voice of Conscience perched on my other shoulder (Mr. Buzz Kill) was screaming, "Say your piece!"

Every October I gorge myself on spooky, scary, thriller, chillers in books, movies, and music, with a comprehensive seasonal Playlist that is enviable (even if I do say so myself!). I love Halloween and immersing myself in the season, so I won't bother with the en vogue denial, "Usually I'm not a fan of horror...". I follow the admonition of Tennyson..."Read, read, read. Read everything...trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it!" And my October reading usually encompasses a little of everything Tennyson mentioned. I enjoy a thriller now and then; one that gets your adrenalin pumping and the little hairs on your neck prickling. Besides, all serious literature and no play makes Mel a dull girl. I start playing only classical music, listening to opera, reading poetry in an affected tone, putting on pearls and shopping for Jimmy Choo loafers just to get groceries. I'm okay with that but my family hates that Mel. I need junk-reads (as in junk-food, no offense intended) to get me out of the library with my snifter of brandy and Alexander McQueen smoking slippers, and back in the bathroom with my Clorox Toilet Bowl Wand and Jack Purcell's.

I'm not unfamiliar with Slaughter of the Karin variety; I've read a few in the Will Trent series and know Slaughter is a terrific criminal thriller author that likes to push the envelope. To be a devoted fan of Slaughter you need to be someone that would rotate your neck into a ridiculous backwards angle (ala Linda Blair) for a peek when a cop waves you passed the skid marks and around the smoldering wreckage. We all have those kinds of peccadilloes, but I imagine author Slaughter to be the sort that would pull over and take pictures for a macabre research scrapbook. Slaughter is not for the weak of stomach and faint of heart (or females living alone). And with Pretty Girls she has gone beyond morbid into sick and twisted perversion of the lowest kind that shouldn't be for anyone -- where mere *violence against women* in comparison seems like a lovely tea party. Welcome to the world of Snuff...and we aren't talking the stuff your G.Grandfather hit a pinch up his nose.

NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour had a nice spot on yesterday discussing our fascination with being scared. They stated, "Horror is the cousin of Comedy," we like the scary books and movies because we know we are actually safe. Even in some of the teen-age slasher films, the panel said there is usually an element of the preposterous and of comedy. The best thrillers they opined were those that suggested the violence, gore, horror. An example was Hitchcock's classic Psycho and more recently The Blair Witch Project. The film’s ending is the perfect piece of gritty and atmospheric horror; one of the friends, a male, stands in the corner, his face to the wall, and the camera drops--that's it. No on-screen dismemberment or gore. (My son came home from seeing this when he was in high school, and slept on the floor in our bedroom -- NPR suggested watching A Bug's Life back to back as a horror-relief remedy). What they all agreed on was a general dislike of Gore Horror. [I was unable to find an NPR review of Pretty Girls at the time of this posting.]

Palahniuk with his ninth novel, Snuff, was able to take this taboo subject and leave out the slash and apply the cousin, Comedy.

From the master of literary mayhem and provocation, a full-frontal Triple X novel that goes where no American work of fiction has gone before Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera. With six hundred men. "Snuff" unfolds from the perspectives of Mr. 72, Mr. 137, and Mr. 600, who await their turn on camera in a" very crowded" green room. This wild, lethally funny, and thoroughly researched novel brings the huge yet underacknowledged presence of pornography in contemporary life into the realm of literary fiction at last.

There is nothing "funny" in Pretty Girls; it completely crosses the line. UNLESS you enjoy reading about violence against women so intense that you can't (or won't) even imagine it...I suggest you pass on this one. Pretty Girls does not hint at the violence. Slaughter instead details the acts; she gives you the smell, the feel, the sounds, the taste, in graphic and excessive detail, adding to that the titillation by explaining the torturer's sexual arousal and climax. An inexcusable psychological mind f*ck. This is some repulsive sick shit that combines sexual violence against women with male gratification; it is *obscene* and *indecent*. I worked for ten years specifically with violent sexual offenders. Our institute researched and presented internationally on this very subject so I could easily grab a few reports or recidivism and outcome studies and give you the numbers, but that would be oversimplification.

This hit a sore spot. I'm left wondering about the parameters of *Thrillers;* the psychology of it all, and once again, the extent of Art's license. We do have the choice to read or pass, though we don't all know the responsibilities that come with that kind of freedom. Thank you for taking the time to read my rant. I ask that you at least understand that I speak from experience. It makes it all the worse that Ms. Slaughter is a talented and creative writer that I have enjoyed in the past. Her choice here, I feel, is irresponsible. Finally, if you have not been dissuaded, and are the kind that enjoys a good snuff film now and then, or just kind of wondered about the taboo and wanted to check it out for sh*ts and giggles -- knock yourself out.

**Two terms often used in common parlance for sexually explicit material -- obscene and indecent -- have specific meanings in the law. ""Obscenity"" is that category of sexual material that the courts have deemed to be outside full protection of the First Amendment and subject to regulation by the state. Obscene material is defined as that which appeals to the prurient interest in sex, depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive manner, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value ( Miller v. California , 1973). ""Indecency"" is a term from broadcasting (radio and over-the-air television) that defines an even broader category that can be regulated -- language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community broadcast standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities (Federal Communications Commission, 2004).