Pretty Girl-13 by Liz Coley
Published: March 19, 2013
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Age Demographic: YA Contemporary Mystery
Pages: 352
Reminiscent of the Elizabeth Smart case, Pretty Girl-13 is a disturbing and powerful psychological mystery about a girl who must piece together the story of her kidnapping and captivity.
Angie Chapman was thirteen years old when she ventured into the woods alone on a Girl Scouts camping trip. Now she's returned home…only to find that it's three years later and she's sixteen-or at least that's what everyone tells her.
What happened to the past three years of her life?
Angie doesn't know.
But there are people who do-people who could tell Angie every detail of her forgotten time, if only they weren't locked inside her mind. With a tremendous amount of courage, Angie embarks on a journey to discover the fragments of her personality, otherwise known as her "alters." As she unearths more and more about her past, she discovers a terrifying secret and must decide: When you remember things you wish you could forget, do you destroy the parts of yourself that are responsible?
Liz Coley's alarming and fascinating psychological mystery is a disturbing-and ultimately empowering-page-turner about accepting our whole selves, and the healing power of courage, hope, and love.
Angie Chapman was thirteen years old when she ventured into the woods alone on a Girl Scouts camping trip. Now she's returned home…only to find that it's three years later and she's sixteen-or at least that's what everyone tells her.
What happened to the past three years of her life?
Angie doesn't know.
But there are people who do-people who could tell Angie every detail of her forgotten time, if only they weren't locked inside her mind. With a tremendous amount of courage, Angie embarks on a journey to discover the fragments of her personality, otherwise known as her "alters." As she unearths more and more about her past, she discovers a terrifying secret and must decide: When you remember things you wish you could forget, do you destroy the parts of yourself that are responsible?
Liz Coley's alarming and fascinating psychological mystery is a disturbing-and ultimately empowering-page-turner about accepting our whole selves, and the healing power of courage, hope, and love.
To Purchase Pretty Girl-13 by Liz Coley: Amazon
Pretty Girl-13 is a disturbing emotionally gripping young adult novel, that will break reader's hearts. Full of painful mystery and intrigue, it is one of the year's most touching and heart breaking stories told. Liz Coley introduces readers to a world, so tragic and filled with frightening despair, that it almost has nowhere else to go but up with the power of hope, love, and strength of oneself. She doesn't let her audience down, by introducing a wonderfully beautiful and painfully scared broken young girl, who has to find a way to piece back together the fabric of her mangled psyche. It is both harrowing and tremendously fascinating.
The strength, that Angie possesses and the depth of her character is extremely complex, creating the portrait of such a gorgeous complicated girl trying to exist in an equally disturbing world of suffering and confusion. This is a novel that touches on many dark elements that plague reality and brings them to life in such a gorgeous horrific way that readers can relate to. For Angie, life isn't easy as she tries to stitch together the pieces of her mind that are frayed, worn, and damaged too make them whole again. The problem with this is, the horribly terrifying dark secret that she unearths. The devil lies in the details, it seems as she has to decide that in remembering the terrible things that she would like to forget, will she ultimately have to destroy the parts of herself that are responsible for them? It's a deep soul-searching dilemma that she will have to dig down deep within herself to summon up the emotional strength to deal with.
Liz Coley has penned such an incredibly powerfully emotionally captivating and ultimately disturbing psychological mystery that is sure to wow many readers. Emotionally empowering, full of love, hope, pain, misery, and self-discovery, Coley socks it to readers like a punch in the gut. It will leave them reeling with so many questions and a desire to seek out the answers, as this is such an incredibly poingant and extremely unputdownable novel of the year! Filled with the healing power of courage and self-acceptance, this is a book that will absolutely take readers breath away.
Liz Coley writes fiction for teens and for the teen in you.
Her first published work was science fiction short stories, published in Cosmos magazine and several anthologies.
Self-published YA novel "Out of Xibalba" features a contemporary teenager thrown back to ancient Mayan times. "The story starts when the world ends."
Upcoming "Pretty Girl-13" from HarperCollins will be released in at least ten languages and audiobook."There are secrets you can't even tell yourself."
Liz lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband, her teenaged daughter, a snoring dog, and a limping old cat. When she's not involved in writing-related activities, she can be found sewing, baking, shooting photos, playing tennis, and singing.
Liz loves reading aloud.
This sounds like the perfect book for me. I love heart-renching, emotional contemporary reads. They usually end up being some of my favorites.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful review- and thanks for the author information. I didn't realize she was from Cincy, Ohio. That's right by me!!
-lauren
Whoaaaa. AWESOME review, S. I'm totally looking forward to this one - it sounds so emotionally gripping. I have an e-galley and want to read it soon. Your review has only made me wish "soon" was really "now." I LOVE kidnap stories, and cannot wait to read this one, especially since you speak so highly of it!
ReplyDeleteTotally agree, very emotional and powerful.
ReplyDeleteHappy reading,
Brandi from Blkosiner’s Book Blog