My Thoughts:
Kirby Mazrachi is the one victim of time traveling serial killer Harper Curtis who survived his brutal attack. With the help of a seemingly run down house on the South Side of Chicago that will open up onto different times in the past and present, Kirby is just one of many “Shining Girls” that somehow glow brightly to Harper. That’s how the house let’s him know who his victims will be. So Harper hops through time, introducing himself into the girls’ life when they’re young and then returning to kill them when they’re older. That is until Kirby survives and everything starts to unravel when she starts to hunt him down with the help of a ex-crime reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times.
I loved a lot about The Shining Girls. Kirby was a strong character, a real survivor. Not only did she survive her brutal attack by Harper, but she didn’t give up when the cops would no longer investigate, when no one else would believe her or help her in her pursuit to find her killer. She’s smart, head strong, and quite determined, but she’s also funny and vulnerable. She certainly wasn’t afraid to be a girl in the male dominated field of sports reporting to work with the reporter who covered her attack when it had happened several years before.
Harper Curtis is one hell of a ruthless, sadistic, and heartless villain. He knows that he’s evil, and he enjoys every bit of being a serial killer. You get a little back story for him before he comes across the time travel house, but it’s only a glimpse of why he’s such a horrible guy. There’s no sympathizing with this villain–he’s just the sadistic devil incarnate. But you never really know why Harper wants to kill other than that the house has given him a list of girls to eliminate, and he just goes along because he wants to.
Told in alternating point of view chapters that go back and forth in time, you get an in-depth look at serial killer Harper’s movements as he stalks and kills his victims. Often detailed and gory, the crimes he commits throughout different time periods are violent and unrelenting in their depravity. As Kirby traces different murders with the same patterns and connects them together in the early 1990s, she gets increasingly close to learning who tried to kill her. And she doesn’t know just how dangerous that person is because he can seemingly disappear off the face of the earth when he walks into that decrepit house.
I give The Shining Girls a four out of five. The writing is excellent, has a nice flow and great pacing. Even with around five different points of view throughout the book, the dialogue is distinct for each character. While the writing was sound, the why’s of the time-traveling house were not explained. I’m a scientist and I always love to see how authors explain those kinds of things in their books, and the time travel aspect wasn’t even explored. It was just there and an accepted part of the story. Most of the secondary characters were a little flat and underdeveloped since you never really see them outside of when Harper kills them, and especially in comparison to Kirby’s part in the book. Also, the ending was a bit open ended. Overall, this was a great book to listen to, especially if you’re a fan of hearing both the good and evil sides to the story.
I listened to the audiobook provided by Hachette Audio
Get your own Audiobook at Audible: The Shining Girls.
There were six excellent narrators for the edition of The Shining Girls that I listened to for 10 hours and 6 minutes. Having so many wonderful voice actors made this book much less confusing and enjoyable, but I had to make sure that I paid close attention to the date and character name read at the beginning of each chapter so I wouldn’t be lost as to the time frame and point of view character that the chapter would focus on.
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I bought a copy of this when it first came out but still haven’t had time to get to it. So glad you enjoyed it, I will definitely make time to read it soon!
Tammy @ Books Bones & Buffy recently posted..THE BOOK OF APEX: VOLUME 4 OF APEX MAGAZINE Edited by Lynne M. Thomas – Review
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The Shining Girls was a great book to listen to, so hopefully it holds up in paper (or digital) format! I hope you enjoy it, Tammy!
Heather recently posted..Ashes to Ashes by Karina Halle
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Harper sounds like one crazy, sick SOB made worse by the fact that he can travel through time to kill these poor girls. Do we ever find out why they’re “shining” to him?
Mary @ BookSwarm recently posted..Mini Review Swarm of Fun Romance
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In The Shining Girls, Harper is really one of the sickest villians of I’ve read. He really has no conscience at all. And we never find out how the house works or why the girls shine. It really irritated me at the end–no answers at all when it came to that stuff.
Heather recently posted..Ashes to Ashes by Karina Halle
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Oh, I’m so glad you liked this too! I loved it too! I would have loved an explanation about the house too, but apart from that I loved everything. And I like when a writer leaves a little mystery behind.
barefootmedstudent recently posted..Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts #4
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