Pretty Girl by J. C. Burke
Random House, 2013. ISBN 9781741663136.
Recommended for mature readers 14 and up. Sisterhood stories have
long been popular with girl readers, whether the formulaic
Babysitters Club books for younger girls or more complex offerings
such as Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants or Divine
Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood series for young adults.
Pretty Girl slots well into this chick lit genre and while
you may well have thought the two latter series mentioned above had
some darker moments, this new novel by J. C. Burke takes a group of
best friends into far murkier places.
Four friends, Paige, Sarah, Jess and Tallulah, have been 'besties'
all the way through school and have now arrived at university where
they all live together on campus. In this new setting, they find
themselves divided as issues of wealth, partying, drugs, studying or
lack of it and more separate each according to their personalities
and circumstances. One thing links them together, albeit
unknowingly. A charming and good looking young man befriends each in
turn secretly with dire, and indeed, fatal results. Jess is dead,
Paige is recovering from a near-fatal accident in a mental
institution, Tallulah is out of control and Sarah is beset by doubts
and suspicions, as she struggles to keep up with wealthier friends,
her memories of Paige's accident, Jess's death and her own
longstanding relationship with Will. Enter Jonny - gorgeous,
exciting, sexy and psychopathic. As Sarah falls under Jonny's spell,
Paige's memory starts to return, piece by piece. Will Sarah be saved
from the terrifying control of Jonny's twisted mind in time?
As the readers, we are already putting together the clues about
Jonny well before the girls do and we are mesmerised by the
seemingly inevitable nightmare into which Sarah is being drawn.
Burke has drawn her characters with great clarity and we can
recognise each one's flaws and strengths. A terrific plot which
unravels with a steady pace heightens the tension and sense of
impending disaster perfectly.
Recommended for mature readers 14 and up - some pretty heavy duty
language, drug and sex references throughout.
Sue Warren