COMING TO NETFLIX!Mother. Hero. Liar. Killer. How can you tell when all you have is…PIECES OF HERWhat if the person you thought you knew best turns out to be someone you never knew at all . . . ?Andrea knows everything about her mother, Laura. She knows she’s spent her whole life in the small beachside town of Belle Isle; she knows she’s never wanted anything more than to live a quiet life as a … town of Belle Isle; she knows she’s never wanted anything more than to live a quiet life as a pillar of the community; she knows she’s never kept a secret in her life. Because we all know our mothers, don’t we?
But all that changes when a trip to the mall explodes into violence and Andrea suddenly sees a completely different side to Laura. Because it turns out that before Laura was Laura, she was someone completely different. For nearly thirty years she’s been hiding from her previous identity, lying low in the hope that no one would ever find her. But now she’s been exposed, and nothing will ever be the same again.
The police want answers and Laura’s innocence is on the line, but she won’t speak to anyone, including her own daughter. Andrea is on a desperate journey following the breadcrumb trail of her mother’s past. And if she can’t uncover the secrets hidden there, there may be no future for either one of them. . . .
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Unlikable characters, unbelievable storyline and overall a sad disappointment, which came as a surprise with such a talented writer.
I really had to suspend belief for this one: belief in the law, governments, geography and international travel, family dynamics … the length of time people hold a grudge and the length of time someone can get away with murder.
The final moments were preachy/sappy, and I would rather have “learned” what Andie thought / planned to do about what she had learned about her mother’s past.
There is a note on the cover of the Audible icon that says this book is coming to Netflix. I hope the video is handled differently.
I usually love Karin Slaughter’s books…but I found this one very hard to get into. The heroine Andy is very wimpy and immature..however maybe this is how the author meant to portray her. Her heroines are usually damaged in her novels…but Andy is just…quite irritatingly immature.
As usual though the plot is good and the writing style excellent.
This was a book club pick, one that we grabbed off the bargain rack so as to get a random pick. What I didn’t know, was just how good this was going to be. It’s an extremely smooth read, not dwelling too long on a lot, but not skipping over much either. The characters were well crafted and found themselves mixed up in a very interesting story. But what really pulled me into Slaughter’s writing was her ability to carefully place progressive ideals so it felt natural and well plotted. I liked her writing very much, even at times I didn’t relate to her characters, I still found myself interested in what was happening to them. I loved her pace and style. I didn’t have any critique while reading and found myself just genuinely enjoying it. I didn’t want to put it down once I started it. I was enraptured with the flashbacks more than anything and found this to be a very believable and creative plot. It was a fresh perspective towards a lot of things and her social qualities contained in these pages just made the read all the better. All in all, it was fun and compelling.
Thank you to William Morrow for this copy! This is my honest review.
I love books that start with a bang and hook you from the very beginning and Pieces of Her delivers. The author doles out just enough information to the reader while withholding the rest to keep us guessing. I flew through this book because I had to know all of the answers. The cover says it’s coming to Netflix and I will definitely be binge-watching this when it does.
Andy and her mother, Laura, are sitting in a diner on Andy’s 31st birthday. Laura is apologizing because she feels it’s her fault that Andy left her life in the city to come home and help Laura through breast cancer treatment. She wants Andy to get back to her life instead of living in a one-room apartment over her mother’s garage and working as a police dispatcher. Andy admits that her life in New York wasn’t the dream she always thought it would be and leaving wasn’t as difficult as her mother believes it was. However, living with her mother, saddled with $60k in student loan debt, without a relationship or a career about which she is passionate is not exactly the life she wants.
Their meal is interrupted by a shooter who kills the two women next to them in front of their eyes. They are suddenly thrust into a nightmare with seemingly no way out. Andy has heard of mothers behaving differently to protect their children but what Laura does is shocking and unexpected. Laura not only saves Andy and herself but kills the shooter as well. Her mother is a hero.
As news crews descend on the story, they are thrust into the spotlight. A video surfaces and creates doubts over her mother’s actions. Is she really a hero or a cold-blooded murderer? Her mother’s behavior changes and she becomes cold and hard to Andy. Laura wants Andy out of her house immediately to start her new life. Within 24 hours, Andy learns more to shatter the image of her mother and her quiet speech pathologist life than anything she’s seen in her 31 years. Who is her mother?
The story that unfolds alternates between Andy’s quest to find out the truth about her mother’s past in 2018 and a horrific event in 1986 that will leave you trying to put the pieces together. For every question that is answered, two more arise. Is Laura still the mother Andy has known her whole life or does her past change that? And can you every really know a person entirely or do you just see pieces of the person. This is a great read that you won’t be able to put down.
Karin Slaughter is a master storyteller who skillfully sets up a mystery featuring seemingly ordinary people, and delivers clues to the truth at expertly-timed intervals crafted with precision to propel the story forward and hold her reader’s interest. Pieces of Her is another fast-paced, compelling thriller from the international best-selling author.
Andrea Oliver is drifting. She failed to complete her degree in theater arts or establish a thriving career. Before she moved back home to assist her mother, Laura, as she struggled to survive cancer, she was floundering in New York. Now she’s working as a police dispatcher and is mistaken for a police officer when a deranged gunman opens fire in a restaurant. As if the attack isn’t shocking enough, Andrea is stunned when her mother takes charge of the scene with amazing calm and reserve. And then gives Andrea specific instruction about what not to say to the police. And orders Andrea to move out of the garage apartment on Laura’s property. Immediately.
Before Andrea can process those events, she overhears an intruder’s conversation with her mother. Once again, Laura’s composure does not waiver, even as she is again give Andrea specific instructions. To run. And stop at a storage facility where she will find a vehicle with which to do so. Once Andrea navigates her way to that storage facility, she finds much more than a vintage vehicle that appears to have barely been driven. She learns that the vehicle is registered to a woman whose name she has never heard before with a Canadian address and her mother stores a lot more than the car in that facility. Andrea is also certain that she is being followed, but has no idea why.
Thus begins Andrea’s pulse-pounding adventure — a journey across several state lines during which she meets people from her mother’s past and gradually learns the truth about Laura’s life before Andrea’s birth, as well as her own history as she comes to realize that everything her mother told her as she was growing up was fiction.
Slaughter’s alternating chapters detail Andrea’s contemporary experiences and the events that took place in 1986 when Laura had a different name, career, and a mission at odds with the woman she later became. Her family’s history and dysfunction are explored, as are the strengths and weaknesses of character that propelled Laura to became involved and align herself with a group of individuals determined to bring about change. Slaughter reveals that Laura was not an unwilling participant, although she was young, gullible, and lacking in self-esteem. Much like Andrea. And she has spent every day since the events that unfolded more than 30 years ago living with the consequences, among them an inability to be her authentic self. “She had dozens, even hundreds, of friends, but not one single person knew all of the pieces of her.”
Slaugher’s characters are complex, deeply flawed, and, bluntly, sometimes difficult to care about, much less relate to. But the are always fascinating and intriguing, even as they are engaging in behaviors that are ill-conceived and, worse, downright despicable. Are they redeemable? Readers will have to decide for themselves. They are undeniably products of their upbringings and environments. Laura was surrounded by tragedy as a young woman and then shrouded her daughter in deception and lies. Who was she trying to protect? Herself or her daughter? Slaughter keeps readers guessing about the full truth right up to the riveting, clever, and extremely satisfying conclusion.
Slaughter always delivers an engrossing and thought-provoking story — and Pieces of Her is no exception.
Thanks to Harper Collins Publishers for a copy of the book.
I was hooked from the first page. Could not wait to finish it.
I’m not for sure if it is “me” or if it is this particular plot, but I have stopped at 35% and will not read any more. The daughter “Andy” is way over the top useless – 31 years old and incapable of thinking for herself, sort of in keeping with her character but in my book overkill — too many “I screwed this up and that up” and “what if…”! I have found myself skimming and skipping through the narrative that has already become several times bogged down. This will probably make a good movie as advertised on the book cover because visual can compact so much and the plot will have to move faster to keep the viewers attention, and I will be sure to watch it!
I stayed up waaaay past my bed time reading this book. What starts out as a story about a relationship between a mother and daughter soon escaltes into a puzzle of who the mother was, a journey for the daughter, growth of all and then anwers that are surprising. Another fabulous book by K. Slaughter!
My Rating:
4.5
Favorite Quotes:
He was charming, too. That was the problem. He would charm her. He would make her furious. Then he would charm her back again so that she did not know if he was the snake or she was the snake and he was the handler.
It’s only paranoia if you’re wrong.
He pointed to his ear. “Sorry, can’t hear you. One of my testicles is still lodged in my ear canal.”
She worked him like Tyson. The boxer, not the chicken.
My Review:
This is only my second time reading the compelling artistry of Karin Slaughter, and I feel compelled to amass copies of all her previous books. This was one of the most complex tales I’ve read since the last time I delved into her work. The complicated storylines were chilling, taut with tension, distressing, maddeningly paced, ingeniously constructed, and each contrived with a dark underbelly that was heinous and horrifying. I cannot recall many books where I so thoroughly despised most of the characters; the vast majority of these were vile sociopaths who couldn’t seem to talk without lying. There were many complicated layers to this highly textured and cringe-worthy tale yet I didn’t begrudge the effort required to ferret through the quagmire and was quite awed by the end result.
A domestic thriller that has plenty of grit to it. I believe that this story also comes with a bit of “tough love” for Andy to ensure she doesn’t stay complacent in her life. The two separate storylines finally intertwine in the end so you can see the past and present blending into one.
A little confusing in the beginning but keep going as it gets better!
Pieces of Her Karin Slaughter a four-star read that will surprise you. I am surmised by how much I struggled with this one, I nearly gave it three stars but pushed it over as there were a couple of zinger moments. I have enjoyed this author work so much before I was expecting too much maybe from this one, so do give it a go and see for yourself. The characters are fascinating and will keep you captivated, it has a great story and plenty to keep you guessing, I don’t know what it was missing for me.
2.5 stars, rounded down
This is such a hard book to review! While it may have been written decently, the story and characters left me in a meh, it must be raining outside and I have no wine in the house, kind of bleh state.
The first quarter of Pieces of Her was slow and annoying, because Andy’s character dominated this portion and she is tragically naive, clueless and “useless”. I didn’t enjoy getting inside her head, because she was no one I wanted to know. At 31 she should have acquired some adulting skills, but instead she spends all her time shocked and basically catatonic while things happen around her.
“Andy opened her mouth and screamed as loud as she could. It felt good, but she couldn’t scream for the rest of her life.” Well, at least she could scream. That’s something.
The next two quarters of the book alternate between chapters about her mother, “Laura”, as a pregnant anarchist back in the 80s and Andy in the present on the run, seeking answers. Learning about the two at this point was interesting, but still not intriguing. It all seemed so contrived. Yes, it’s fiction, but I spent a lot of time rolling my eyes wondering why this was supposed to be suspenseful or compelling. As well, I gained absolutely no respect for Andy, because she’s still useless, but I *will* give her props for kicking a guy tracking her in the nuts. (Seriously, this is as “ballsy” as this girl gets.)
The last quarter of the book pulls “Laura” and Andy back together, and we get answers. Andy is still a naive weirdo, just ever so slightly so. “Laura” reveals a lot, but even the author at this point states the obvious — that the plan that sent Laura into hiding and sent Andy on the run may have been a big deal 30 years ago, but in today’s world of healthcare scams, fake news, alternative facts and such, the crusade that created the current mess is sadly no big whoop.
And that’s my final word on this book: NO BIG WHOOP. If you are given the chance to read this, I say give it a hard pass.
This was a typical Karin Slaughter book – packed full of excitement. I could not put it down and was not sure where I’m the plot was going until I was well into the book. Her books are always a wild ride and this one did not disappoint.
I listened to the audio version of this book, the narrator did a great job in keeping my interest.
The story line was good, but I was a bit confused during parts of the book, it seemed to skip around some and confused me from time to time. Other than that, I enjoyed the book and the way the story went. The ending of the book was very good too!
Excellent. I am never disappointed in one of her books.
I could not put this book down!
I will say this about this book, it will take you back and forth in time (past to present) and you will wonder at the connection until in your mind it will just “click” and you will wonder how one person can be so different to different people! Loved it! The story just flows so well and keeps you turning those pages as fast as you can read. Karin Slaughter knows how to right a great suspense story!
It is a well written entertaining book. Plenty of little twist to keep you guessing. Minor slow reading spots