Book Review: "Pieces of Her" by Karin Slaughter

It seemed like any other day. Andy was having lunch at the mall with her mother, Laura, celebrating Andy's 31st birthday. They were briefly interrupted when the relative of a former patient of Laura's stopped by with her daughter to thank Laura for all of her help. Then, without warning, gunfire erupted, and the woman and her daughter were shot to death.

As the gunman approached Andy, screaming at her to "do her job," Laura leapt into action. Andy watched her mother move to protect her, disarm the gunman, and then finish him off, coldly, as if she were simply a "killing machine." She knows she is in shock from the trauma of the events, but Andy cannot believe what she saw with her own eyes. Could her mother really have done what she saw her do?

"None of it made sense. Her mother was a fifty-five-year-old speech therapist. She played bridge, for chrissakes. She didn't kill people and smoke cigarettes and rail against the pigs."

In the aftermath of the incident and another encounter which endangers her life, Laura sends Andy away, telling her to flee the small Georgia town Laura has lived in forever. Andy doesn't know what to think, as she cannot get her mind around what she saw her mother do, and the fear that other incidents will follow. But more than that, she can't figure out who her mother really is, and what secrets she's been hiding from her for perhaps her entire life?

What would you do if you found out your mother wasn't the person you thought she was? In Pieces of Her, Karin Slaughter shows you that not only what we don't know might put us in danger, but makes you wonder how you deal with someone who you never really knew.

I have many friends who have been reading Slaughter's books for a long while, but I was wowed by my first experience with her last year, after reading The Good Daughter (see my review). That book really knocked my socks off, but this one? Not so much.

While I found the premise of this book interesting, it never really took off for me. First of all, Andy's character vacillates between near catatonia, where she can't answer anyone's questions or move forward in any way, and there are a number of times where she says one or two words and then can't finish her sentences. Page after page of that gets old, especially when it happens more than once. (One character even asks her if she can speak in full sentences.)

The book picked up speed in the last third, and Slaughter threw in some twists and turns, but the shift in narration between present and past kept either portion of the plot from really picking up momentum. I know others enjoyed this more than I did, so I wouldn't dissuade you from picking this up if you're a diehard Slaughter fan, but for me, this was a thriller that didn't quite thrill. This won't keep me from reading more of her books, but hopefully they'll get my heart racing like The Good Daughter did!