Pieces of Her: A Novel

The premise of this book kept me going because I wanted to know who Laura Oliver was on principle and how she got to this point. The journey there winds between dull and interesting, especially in the beginning. Let's just say it takes some time for this plane to take off but the conclusion is perfect -- the epilogue was maybe the best chapter and not just because it was over.

My favorite chapters were set in the 1980s where we're seeing a group of young people planning something big and life-altering. I won't give spoilers away but I'll say that Karin Slaughter writes this portion of the story and its characters vividly and I was invested in where their storyline would take them.

My main issue was with the 'present day' chapters, which meandered too much on the protagonist Andrea's mental state, moreso at the start. It started to feel repetitive and it became tedious reading them pretty quickly. When I wasn't bored with those chapters it was because I was instead frustrated with some of her careless decisions. This storyline started to pick up as Andrea gets further into her investigation and her story gets closer to intersecting with the 1980s story.

Altogether, it was a mixed bag experience.
I might still give this writer another chance since I've seen other reviews agree with this sentiment and saying she has other books that are much more thrilling.

2.5/5 ⭐⭐⭐

Have you ever gone to a concert, and at first, you despise the concert and you are asking yourself, why am I here? That's how I felt when I first began reading this novel. This stand alone had a whiney 31 year old daughter who just about wears the living daylights out of me. She can't speak, not because she's mute but because she's apparently feeling so much like a loser, she has us all believing so. She's a witness to a robbery that turned into a killing spree. She can't scream, even when her mother's life is in imminent danger. Her mother (Laura) tells her daughter, Andie to listen to her and run because the shooter, Jonah Helsinger, has only one bullet left. Laura Oliver (Mom) tells Jonah Helsinger to shoot her and spare Andie. Instead of running or even trying to do anything, Andie withers onto the floor completely unable to say even a grunt or sound.

At the hospital, after she has survived the ordeal of getting knifed, Andie still can't say anything that's on her mind. Not just with her mom, but with Gordon, her stepdad, and thankfully, the police because, as the phone video depicted Laura to be in total control as she sliced and stabbed the kid. Laura is beside herself that they got filled by someone's phone and it went viral. Laura literally kicks Andie out of the house and tells Andie, “I want you out of my house by TONIGHT!” Andie is so upset, she falls down the stairs, limps out to the closest to try and clean up her wound and then crawl out to the main lobby where her mom and dad should be waiting for her to get herself into Gordon’s car to drive them home. In the meantime, Gordon is stuck trying to get his car to Laura and Andie and they see this guy, “Alabama” because of his shirt and he tries to make small talk with Andie.

Finally, they all get to Laura’s house and Andie goes upstairs to pack. Her dad informs her she just needs to bring the basics and they will come back for the rest at another time. They both get a little tipsy and when Gordon starts to get up to leave, he tells her it’s time to go and get her gear. Andie tells him she’ll walk to his place and will meet him at his place. After he leaves, she falls asleep and wakes up hearing a noise from the garage. She sees a guy with a hood “Hoodie” lurking about in the dark. Hoodie makes his way to Laura and starts to strangle her. Again, Andie is scared out of her mind and can’t say anything or make a sound. Miraculously, she somehow gathers herself together and makes her numb fingers dial the police to text, “intruder at my house. Come asap. 12334 house on XYZ lane.” She then hears hoodie tell her mom, he’s not there to kill her but instead, make her suffer, horribly. He puts a plastic bag over her head and starts to count slowly, telling her he will make her nearly pass out and near death but not to death. Her mother is powerless because she got shot in the arm, and her leg is still not perfect. Andie manages to stiffly move towards the cast iron skillet and drags it across the stove top allowing Hoodie to turn around and recognize they are not alone as he had thought. He had thought Andie went to Gordon’s house. (Parents are divorced.) Andie somehow, by the grace of higher powers, yanks the skillet and arcs and slams it into Hoodie’s skull, killing him. Both she and Laura are shocked. Of course, Andie starts to go into her mind again and fazes in and out as Laura is speaking to her, urgently. Finally, she comes to and hears Laura say, “go,...van...keys...storage facility...ARE YOU LISTENING?!?! PLEASE ANDIE SHOW ME A SIGN!” They hear the police siren and Laura repeats everything again. SHe tells Andie, “RUN!” Laura will take the blame and thus begins the journey of Andie being alone and onto the wilderness. Yes, it’s painful to read this as it is for me to rethink as I’m typing this review, retelling the story.

Now comes being chased but by whom and what is it that makes Laura so scared? As Andie blindly stumbles from one incident to the next, she decides one thing, “Laura is hiding something and I’m going to find out!” She constantly and easily thinks the worst of her mother. She later goes on the road trying to solve the riddle of who her mother really is, how did she have so much money stored in the storage facility and why did her mother kill the boy, Jonah Helsinger so serenely? How did she even know how to kill?

About 25% into the book, it slowly starts to pick up. How do you ask? The author wisely has two people narrating the story. One from Andie Oliver’s point of view and the other is Laura Oliver and how she became Laura Oliver. You’re asking, “what? Did you type this incorrectly?” No. It seems Laura Oliver is an alias. Her birth name is Jane Queller. She is the daughter of the multi millionaire and sick rapist of a father, Martin Queller. He owns the hospitals and controls the Queller Corporation and is a SOB. Her brothers, Jasper and Andrew supposedly didn’t know Jane was getting raped by their father. Mother was drunk. Guess that’s how she dealt with things because she couldn’t help Jane. Jane slowly fell in with Nicholas “Nick” Harp and together, they were like Bonnie and Clyde...or so she thought. Reality was, she was in a cult and he was the leader. That’s when the story picks up and saves the whole stand alone novel.

It’s a 3 ½ stars but I rounded it up to 4 stars.

This book was not what I expected even as I was reading it. During the first time jump I was completely thrown off and had no idea what was going on. After a while I picked up on who was who in the future but that didn’t take away from the twists and turns of the story. This story was truly amazing and I guess I’ll have to check out the show now!

Damn - this one definitely put me through the ringer. I was thoroughly annoyed with Andy's the lack of fight or flight response when something needed to happen but her determination and detective skills were top notch when she applied herself.

This plot was just so well planned out. The schemes, story lines, background, evolution of it all was magnificent.

Slaughter definitely is one of my favourite authors thus far.

Very captivating.