Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - The Shining Girls

Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

26 reviews

kerstynleigh's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I haven't been this riveted by a book in a long time. I couldn't stop listening, and when I had to, I was still thinking about it. I wish I wasn't a bit disappointed by the ending, but I'd convinced myself that

if Kirby could get into the house and destroy all the totems, the girls would be able to come back, somehow. I hated seeing woman after woman murdered that way knowing that there was no way back for them, so I think I'd made a deal with myself that they would be okay if Kirby could fix everything. But I guess if I'm being honest, that really isn't how life works, and maybe it is important to acknowledge that shining woman lose their lives for no goddamn reason every day,

so I guess I'm not really disappointed at all. This book was a gift and I'm glad I came across it. And I'm glad to hear Khristine Hvam's voice again! It's been ages since I've listened to an audiobook of hers.

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miarae's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I really struggled with this book and was close to DNFing. I found all the jumping through time incredibly tedious and it caused me to not really get invested in the story and characters. It was all too vague and the writing was incredibly boring at times, to the point I skimmed past a lot of descriptions. Downside of a time travel story, it involves too much describing of the scenery. I know the author wanted us to love the women in the story, but there were too many and their stories too short to get attached. The plot had a lot of potential but it just ended up a confusing mess.

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beccaand's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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anniepatt's review against another edition

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dark

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I've been choosing audiobooks by sorting randomly and available now on Libby, then scrolling until I like cover art. It's kind of fun to go in mostly blind. Somehow I've read at least 4 time travel books so far in 2024, and here's another one!

The villain in The Shining Girls was the most disturbingly written evil man I've encountered. Masterfully repulsive, 5 stars on that character development.

This is another one of those stories with incredible potential that just didn't resolve satisfactorily, in my personal opinion-but I'd still seek out another book by this author. I did enjoy her style.

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abookdork's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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caoimhemia's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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kleddy13's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.25

I loved the structure and the originality of the plot, and the authors writing style. I predicted the ending half way through the book which is slightly disappointing in a thriller. I would rather an ending that I could have never predicted than one that makes me happy for the protagonist. I also only felt really emotionally attached to two characters, Tokyo the dog and the abortion activist who had a very short chapter. All around I really enjoyed reading it and would recommend it, but it’s not perfect (what book ever is!)

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battybookworm's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

Unfortunately, I kind knew this wasn't going to be a top book for me. The main reason I stuck with it at all was the opening scene with the bee (I had a similar experience at girl scout camp with my peers and a daddy long legs). Beyond that though, I found the focus of this book and the layout off putting. There are elements here that are deeply complex and could be quite interesting.

I don't tend to enjoy narratives like this one, somewhat akin to Forrest Gump where they touch on multiple points in history in a sort of cursory way. It feels a bit trite I guess, I don't know.

I will also say, this book is written very specifically in the US and takes a lot of culture and history as a source for its plot. However, the author is not from the US and there were many random wording errors that made it rather disbelievingly placed in the US (some things felt rather obvious like how we say going to the hospital rather than being in hospital, likely could've been edited out at some point). I don't think this is the worst offense in books, but I do think that it allowed the author to sort of surface level many of the characters without giving them backing to actually make sense in the world. This is mostly a racial thing, basically every major character is a POC but it feels silly at the end when this is suddenly revealed.

I'm mostly referring to Dan, the Dan reveal annoyed me.

Beyond all that, my favorite part was Kirby and there's a part of me that still wants more of her. I wish the book had given her more time, made her more central. It focused so intently on Harper and his murders when we already kinda had the gist there. Kirby was complex and strange and I never felt like we saw that as internally or fully as we did Harper's getting his rocks off.

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petragrlpwr's review against another edition

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mysterious tense fast-paced

3.5

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valjeanval's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Beukes is a great writer and thorough researcher who created a cast of interesting, powerful, complicated women throughout time. It just sucks that most of them are murder victims. I think I understand conceptually her desire to give voice and depth to the as she calls them “pretty corpses” of crime thrillers, and she does that, but the genre itself is still limiting. The murderer is misogyny person, literally killing women who would otherwise change the world. It’s a solid metaphor, but a frustrating read.

Also, while the time travel element is cool, the paradoxes always hurt my brain a bit. The writing was good enough that my suspension of disbelief was only strained rather than snapping.

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