Reviews with content warning for Animal death - The Shining Girls

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The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

30 reviews

anniepatt's review against another edition

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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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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caitlynfox's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.5

First things first- reading this on kindle was a disservice to myself as this is a novel that jumps between years (time travel will do that) so I never really knew where I was. It was still decently easy to follow but I think being able to pop back and forth easily would’ve been nice.
That being said, Kirby is my new girl, we love a homegirl who can hold her own guts in and get shit done… literally. The time travelers wife if she was a bum ass man/serial killer.

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knretaleato's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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thero159's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

2.0

Let me start by saying that I really like the premise of the novel- a time travelling serial killer who is being hunted by the victim that survived. I thought this sort of plot offers intrigue, mystery and tension. Unfortunately, that is not what I got out of The Shining Girls.

The fact that we follow the serial killer means there is no mystery. We know who the killer is. We know how he gets away. And we don’t need to worry about motive because this killer doesn’t have one, except that he just likes to kill and is an unstable individual. As for Kirby, the survivor. Yes, she is trying to solve the mystery of her almost murder. However the way she goes about it is so haphazard and illogical, she basically just stumbles through the case and in some places almost jeopardises the case with her actions.

I will say that I did like the glimpses that we get of the killer’s victims. We get to see them as more than victims. We get to see them as women who had so much potential but their lives were cut short. These chapters offer a glimpse at the tragedy behind the novel but unfortunately these chapters, that are essentially the heart of the novel, are few and far between. In fact a chunk of the story almost feels like filler content. Dan and Kirby’s relationship as a journalist and intern, Kirby and her mother’s tumultuous relationship and even the killer’s love life all feature in the novel but quite honestly do little to contribute to the novel’s themes. In fact, all these diversions simply slow the pace of the novel and minimise the tension created by the serial killer’s actions.

Speaking of the characters, I do have to mention that I did not like any of the main characters. Naturally, I disliked the serial killer but his lack of genuine motive or really any character aside from being a sadistic killer makes him uninteresting to read about and when his chapters take up almost half of the book, that is not great. As for Kirby, although I can sympathise with what she went through, I found her to be a contrarian and frustrating character to read. She also comes across as really stupid and in places really entitled. In fact, it was the characters who were murdered that I felt the most emotion for and each of those characters only featured for a couple of chapters. Also, I did love Tokyo the dog.

My final and biggest issue was the lack of explanation for many of the key elements of the plot. The two big questions are how does the time travel work in this world and what makes these girls so special that they ‘shine’? Never once is it explained how the house is connected to all the various time periods. We get a limit placed on how far back and how far forward the house can ‘move’ but that is it and again, no explanation for this limit either. As for the girls, it is stressed throughout the novel that they ‘shine’, that something makes them different and stand out to the killer but never once is it explored or explained. With both of these questions there are hints and suggestions but nothing is definite, which makes me think that Lauren Beukes hadn’t really fleshed out these concepts, leaving the reader to try and piece the fragments of information together.

Overall, The Shining Girls, as a novel, is like the girls within its pages- it had potential but was cut short before it could ‘shine’. You could have taken away the time travel and shining elements as neither concept was properly explored and you would have had a very basic serial killer thriller. The climax of the plot was disappointing and rushed; the main characters just stumbled through the mystery and the killer felt very tropey. I'm not sure who I can recommend this book to, as crime fans will find the mystery lacking and the science fiction aspect is very limited and may disappoint sci-fi fans. The Shining Girls is not a terrible book but it did leave me disappointed.

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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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theaceofpages's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

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

2.25

I have read and enjoyed several of Beukes's books in the past but this one wasn't for me. While the concept was intriguing, I struggled to really get immersed in the story. As a consequence I found my mind drifting and found myself feeling lost and confused.

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maggiejean'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? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

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