A suspense-filled, thrilling read…
A break from her regular series, Karin Slaughter explores mother daughter relationship and cult mentality in Pieces of Her. Children like to think mothers as mothers and nothing else. It is hard to imagine a mother as an individual of her own before she embraced motherhood. Andy, a 31-year-old single woman has always known her mother, Laura, as an accomplished, confident, reliable, happy individual who is content to have a child, a caring ex-husband, and a fulfilling job. A shooting incident at a mall brings out another face of Laura that Andy has never seen before. Before she has time to come to terms with what she saw, another horrific accident happens. Laura asks Andy to go on a run. Still in shock, Andy takes her mother’s advice and leaves the town. Determined to find truth about Laura’s past, Andy takes on investigation of her own and finds a side of her mother she never thought could exist. Slaughter has a talent for writing fast-paced thrillers. The Pieces of Her is no different; a regular Slaughter trademark, the book has her usual bit of gore, blood and violence, and the dark. The narrative continually shifts between the present and the past. Slaughter throws in plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader on edge. Slaughter expertly explores the cult mentality; how the average, weak minded or even the intelligent, emotional individuals can be directed into committing horrendous acts; how a person with cunning psychopathic tendencies manipulates emotions of broken individuals for his own personal gains. Andy’s character is of a timid, lost, and confused woman which as the only child of two very accomplished professionals seemed over-the-top considering both the parents are shown as the solid, sorted-out people. It could be this nowadays’ trend of portraying the female protagonists as weak, confused, alcoholic who are always struggling to find their place in world, which prompted Slaughter to create such a protagonist. Nonetheless, the book is a good airplane-journey-read.
