Let me start off by saying that this book is really dark & intense (no surprise if you’ve read other works by Karin Slaughter). I usually place content warnings at the end of my reviews, but I’m going to lead with them here. Please be safe engaging with this book and even with its reviews.

CW: graphic child rape, pedophilia, murder, deaths, gun violence, suicide, school shooting, grief, police brutality, racism, ableism, transphobia, misgendering, deadnaming, execution (death penalty), arson, being buried alive, extreme bullying, miscarriages, chronic illness, cheating

We follow Charlie & Sam, sisters who have become estranged decades after a traumatizing event at their family’s farmhouse. Their father Rusty is a lawyer who defends folks nobody else is willing to touch. Though he was the target, the girls’ mother Gamma is murdered, Sam is shot in the head, and the sisters’ childhood is effectively over. In the present day, Charlie has just witnessed a school shooting. The two sisters are brought back together and forced to unpack their trauma as new memories come to light and they attempt to keep the teenage shooter away from death row. 

Slaughter is a really talented writer. She has delightfully clever turns-of-phrase, her plotting is thoughtful (maybe not REALISTIC but hey, I’m here for a thrilling ride), and her characters are well-developed. The tension and dark atmosphere were horrifyingly present. I stayed up through the night to finish this one!

This book is lingering within the gray areas of ethics and morality. What are “just” consequences? Who deserves forgiveness? 

The characters were so complex and interesting. Not necessarily likable, but believably flawed and quite unique. I honestly cared more about the characters and their journeys than the two mystery setups (1. what really happened at the farmhouse and 2. what really happened at the middle school). There are a lot of flashbacks sprinkled throughout the novel, and I appreciated the chance to do little deep dives into the decades between the farmhouse incident and present day.

There is a trans character whose representation was not always handled well - we’re in rural Georgia, so yeah, I get it I guess. For the most part, this character was referred to with her correct name and pronouns and her gender and identity were normalized by our main characters. But the deadnaming and incorrect pronoun usage and “how did we miss this as kids” and “manly” physical feature descriptions all from our “progressive” main characters were off-putting. And the fact that she is trans is used as a bit of a “twist” which is - ew. I think Slaughter had good intentions around including this character, but I don’t believe she consulted with a single trans person.

Uncomfortable language is also used around a disabled character. But this was paired with some more thoughtful disability representation around one of the main POVs. 

The twists were mostly enjoyable if not a little predictable. There’s a recurring bit where we are taken back to the prologue scene (the farmhouse incident) and new details are added - these are quite graphic and I encourage you to check the content warnings at the top of the review. 

I didn’t care for some of the messaging around living with trauma & also was a tad disappointed at the resolution around Ben & Charlie’s marriage. Ben’s characterization in general was also one of the weaker links for me.