Book Review: Pieces of Her

Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter


Andy is the thirty-year-old, somewhat late-blooming daughter of Laura, a beloved speech pathologist and pillar of the community. As they’re having lunch to celebrate Andy’s birthday, Laura becomes involved in a random shooting and reveals skills she shouldn’t possess given the background Andy knows of her mother. After a more targeted attack against her mother, Laura tells Andy she has to leave because it’s not safe. Andy takes off across the country on a road trip to piece together elements of her mother’s past.

The book is interspaced with the story of Jane, a pianist who is the daughter of a wealthy, powerful, and brutal man. Jane’s involved with Nick, who is the ringleader of something that’s too small to be called a cult but bigger than a conspiracy. Nick has grand plans that involve saving the world through targeted murder and kidnapping. You know the type. Parallels between Jane and Patty Hearst come rapidly to mind. As Jane’s story unfolds, we learn how she connects with Andy and Laura. As Andy travels across the country and learns more of her mother’s story, she grows into herself as a person, until she has the self-assurance and courage to actually be of use rather than just being a liability.

The good thing about this is that I found both Jane and Andy to be believable characters. Jane’s relationship with Nick felt plausible, given her background. Andy’s kind of immature for thirty, but she grows up fast once she has a good reason to do so. Andy’s relationship with Mike felt shoehorned in, like “well, we need a love interest so here’s this guy” and I lost respect for Andy for taking up with him, but Andy was painted as kind of a feckless dumbass so it fit. I found Jane’s story compelling, though I don’t understand why she quit music entirely. Jane’s relationship with her brother also felt realistic and an interesting tension point between Jane and Nick.

The bad thing about this novel is that the pieces felt clumsily put together in parts. Laura knows how to execute a weird (and not very effective) knife technique because she saw it done once twenty years earlier? Um, I’m not buying it. Laura remembers a song she played on a piano once twenty years earlier and can play it with a hand that was seriously injured? Um, I’m not buying it. A guy in prison can hire an assassin who shows up faster than DoorDash? Um, I’m not buying it. Someone maintains a getaway car and has enough executive function to get it registered in Canada every year but doesn’t have enough executive function to think that maybe a Honda Civic would be less conspicuous for a getaway car? Yeah, that’s a stretch.

However, these kinds of consistency errors are pretty common in fast-paced thrillers like this, and they shouldn’t ruin the enjoyment for most readers as long as you treat it like an oyster: get it down fast and don’t think too much about it.




View all my reviews