Five stars for the story, and three stars for the writing.The good: The story was ridiculously engaging, and I couldn't put this book down. An incredibly original concept, and Beukes, to my knowledge, didn't leave any holes. The characters are well described, and I found myself casting people for the movie in my head. And Harper - ooh, shiver. A thoroughly creepy killer. At first I wanted to know what made a girl "shine," what the back story was, but then I ended up not minding at all that it's left a mystery. Despite the extensive time travel, the book in a way captures a true "moment" - Harper and Kirby's destinies tied together is the only thing that matters, and in the end, does it really matter at all why a killer does what they do? There's no reason or explanation that would justify it, and the mystique adds to the horror. In terms of gore, Beukes is great at writing it. There's never more than is necessary, and juuuusssst enough detail before you want to barf. But then again, I guess that's subjective. Some may find it too gross, but the brilliance is that it's Harper's POV, and as someone who dissociates or finds his, erm, work to be practical, there's a distance to it that makes it both tolerable and nauseating - but I think the details are less nauseating than his attitude toward what he's doing. The pacing is also spot-on, and the book never became confusing despite the jumping around.The bad: At times the writing seemed a bit forced. Beukes has literally every single kind of representation of time and type of woman, which is great in one sense, but sort of took me out of the story in another. Different aspects of the characters seemed inserted, in a way, rather than organic. There were a few spots where I think she just wanted to add information to show, "Hey! I researched this time period extensively! See?!" Another odd thing was that, and perhaps I just didn't get it, but I swear there were a few paragraphs, randomly throughout, that were supposed to be edited out and instead were left. Like, an entire paragraph or at least group of sentences that seemed completely out of place. Again, that may be my bad, but everything would flow so perfectly and then it was as if a thought or detail or observation would just occur, and the next paragraph would go back to whatever the previous writing was discussing. There's a chance though that I may have been so engrossed in the story that it just seemed out of place, and if I went back and read it, I would get it better, but it happened only a couple of times - not enough for me to feel it was a part of the style.This is definitely a must-read overall, just fantastic story telling. A nice escape, if you're into a bit of bloodiness in terms of escapes. ;-) Loved this to bits and read most of it in one day. I love the way that Beukes uses the lives of the women in this novel to illustrate little vignettes of women's history and women's lives, particularly in the Chicago area. Kirby is a deftly drawn heroine, and I particularly appreciated the glimpses of the ways that violence changes the lives of everyone it touches. Utterly fantastic and not for the faint of heart.
Do You like book As Raparigas Cintilantes (2012)?
I really liked this book. The premise was unique, and the characters were very well done.
—aubsim
A time-travel thriller? Yes, please. An engrossing read. Totally loved it.
—TayHinton
Kind of awful with pointless moments of grotesqueness
—AntIone
