The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I met Lauren two years ago now, when she was running a class on writing (d’uh). This first sentence of the review is essentially a name drop… move along, nothing to see here.
The Shining Girls is such an interesting take on crime novels, with a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey*, plot and some fascinating story telling. Lauren has an interesting setup for the serial killer and his victim protagonist, a setup that you hope has a good payoff. Well, it doesn’t have a good payoff, in the final pages, it has an excellent payoff.
The version I ‘read’ was the audiobook, which is worth mentioning because there were multiple narrators to take on the various points of view used in the book. This was a great touch that I wish more audiobooks would do. For a complex novel like The Shining Girls, it is almost necessary. I can say I have stopped listening to at least two audiobooks in the past year that probably would have been improved with multiple narrators to clarify changes in points of view. Or you could just read the novel the old fashioned way, just not whilst driving, or using a table saw, as I was able to with the audio version.
* If you don’t get that reference I pity your TV viewing habits.
Tyson Adams 
The Shining Girls has been on my TBR list for awhile now. Glad to see you enjoyed it. And you met the author. Lol. Nothing wrong with a little name dropping. 😉
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Well worth it. I’ve seen a few negative reviews on Goodreads, most of which failed to follow the multiple narrator format. As long as you are aware of that going in, you should enjoy it.
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Good to know. Thanks.
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