A review by bookswithbibi
Pretty Girl-13 by Liz Coley

5.0

The last thing Angela Chapman remembers is going camping on a Girl Scout trip. She returns home, only to find out that she was kidnapped three years ago, and has been presumed dead. Angie has no recollection of the past three years, and is shocked to realize that her friends as well as herself have grown and become different people.

As Angie’s story continues, we learn a lot about her state of mind.
SpoilerDissociative Identity Disorder (DID), or in other words, she has multiple personalities. Her mind developed these personalities or “alters” to protect her from what she has suffered from over the years, and each one has a specific role to play. She has to work with these alters to piece together what actually happened, and attempt at taking control of her life again.


This book is one of my favourites this year. The details and explanations of what it's like for Angie to adapt to her "new" life was so realistic and added a lot to the story. We could really connect with this broken girl and feel what she was feeling. As the story progressed, the true horrors of what she's been through come to light and there is a twist that I never anticipated.

As much as I enjoyed it, the book is not for everyone. There is some content that is disturbing, however, the way the author writes and explains what happened, I believe is very effective. She focuses a lot on Angie’s psyche and the aftermath of it all, how she copes with her new old friends and life, all the while not going into great detail of the things she’s been through.