Hardcover, 375 pages
English language
Published June 11, 2013 by Mulholland Books / Little, Brown and Company.
"A time-traveling serial killer is impossible to trace-- until one of his victims survives. In Depression-era Chicago, Harper Curtis finds a key to a house that opens on to other times. But it comes at a cost. He has to kill the shining girls: bright young women, burning with potential. He stalks them through their lives across different eras until, in 1989, one of his victims, Kirby Mazrachi, survives and starts hunting him back. Working with an ex-homicide reporter who is falling for her, Kirby has to unravel an impossible mystery"--Publisher's web site.
I read this because I loved the HBO adaptation, and I found it really disappointing. It’s written in a noir-ish, pulpy style as a serial killer whodunnit, without the elements added for the show that I think made it interesting. If choosing between the two, watch the TV series instead.
Got to about 60%. The premise here is really interesting, and I enjoy the paranormal or magical in my thrillers. But wow, as the book progressed I got so bored. There’s no real “how” or “why” mystery here (at least as far as I could tell), so instead it’s a sequence of people you know will die getting killed. I think the tension is supposed to come from Kirby’s search for the killer, but her chapters are regularly about anything but that.
Kirby herself is unfortunately the type of character I don’t enjoy much - sassy and sarcastic at all times - so I didn’t have much attachment to her to push through.
Ultimately what put me off this book was the focus on the killer himself. It becomes obviously sooner rather than later that almost every other character is introduced only to be killed. While extremely well done, I just didn't want to spent that much time inside the mind of a killer.
I got six or seven chapters in before I realized I wasn't going to make it through every other chapter being in the serial killer's POV.
Another amazing story from Lauren Beukes. She makes the extraordinary seem possible thanks to the realistic characters and setting. The research that's gone into the story adds to the authenticity.
This pacy, twisting thriller is impossible to put down until the last page!
There's a lot to love in this book. The time travel loops are interesting, and the horror elements are effective. There are so many aspects of this book that done very well, but I don't feel that they ultimately come together well.
I was a bit underwhelmed by the revelation of the nature of the house. It makes for a cool loop and explanation for its effect on Harper, but the questions it raises is more frustrating than intriguing.
Lauren Beukes first came to my attention thanks to William Gibson or maybe Cory Doctorow. Some great author who recommended her on Twitter. I picked up her first two books, Moxyland and Zoo City, and read Moxyland a few years ago. I liked it, but it definitely felt like Gibson’s sensibility filtered through a South African setting. On the other hand, The Shining Girls, her third novel and first for Mulholland Books, reads like Beukes striking out on her own and making a name for herself. The result is stunning, harrowing and immensely readable.
The Shining Girls follows the interlocking lives of two characters: Curtis Harper, who discovers a mysterious house that lets him travel in time as long as he murders the “shining girls” mapped out on the bedroom wall, and Kirby Mazrachi, one of Harper’s attempted murder victims who manages to survive and devotes her life to tracking …
Lauren Beukes first came to my attention thanks to William Gibson or maybe Cory Doctorow. Some great author who recommended her on Twitter. I picked up her first two books, Moxyland and Zoo City, and read Moxyland a few years ago. I liked it, but it definitely felt like Gibson’s sensibility filtered through a South African setting. On the other hand, The Shining Girls, her third novel and first for Mulholland Books, reads like Beukes striking out on her own and making a name for herself. The result is stunning, harrowing and immensely readable.
The Shining Girls follows the interlocking lives of two characters: Curtis Harper, who discovers a mysterious house that lets him travel in time as long as he murders the “shining girls” mapped out on the bedroom wall, and Kirby Mazrachi, one of Harper’s attempted murder victims who manages to survive and devotes her life to tracking him down. We are also treated to heartbreaking vignettes of the women Harper kills throughout the 20th century; every woman he murders is full of endless potential that he snuffs out by torturing them to death and mutilating their bodies.
Although time travel is part of the narrative, The Shining Girls feels more like a crime thriller than a scifi story. It helps that the story all takes part in the past – Kirby’s “present day” is the early nineties. The speculative elements exist mostly as plot devices and a way to build tension, and Beukes doesn’t spend much time explaining how Harper is able to do what he does. Beukes has a background in journalism, and it’s clear that a lot of research went into this novel. The women we meet throughout the story span multiple social classes, decades and races, and each one is carefully drawn in the short moments before she dies terribly.
My only criticism of the novel is that it feels like Kirby discovers the truth very late in the story, and after that point everything kicks into high gear until the ending. I would have liked to see a bit more of Kirby exploring the strange world of the house and its dangerous inhabitant. If nothing else, Beukes left me wanting more at the end, which is definitely a positive thing. My hope is that The Shining Girls is just the first of Beukes’ forays into crime/thriller writing. It’s a genre that suits her well.
