Rating: 
Summary: Escapist fiction, it's not
Review: My librarian recommended this author to me. I was prepared for the subject of self-injury that seems to be prevalent among teens today. What I was not prepared for was the sick and twisted tale of child pornography and incest. Having served on several grand juries and on our local child protective services board, I've heard more than a fair share of horrific sexual abuse stories. I've never heard one quite like this. I cannot recommend this book for light reading...and I think it should come with warnings regarding the explicit sexual content. I agree with other reviewers about Lena and her long battle to recovery. It just didn't mesh with the story line and seemed to be placed in the book as filler. I won't read this author again. Reading is pleasant escapism for me. I see enough of this side of the world on the evening news. I'm not a Pollyanna, but this subject matter is just too raw and cruel for my reading tastes.
Rating: 
Summary: No Sophmore Jinx here
Review: A skating date between Dr. Sara Linton and her ex-husband Chief Jeffrey Tolliver is interupted gruesomely when Sara heads to ladies room and discovers a dead baby. She barely has time to register her shock before she discovers one of her young patients Jenny a 13 year old girl has a gun trained on 16 year old Mark Patterson. Jeffrey shoots Jenny.
So begins the second novel set in Grant county written by Ms. Slaughter. Now admittedly I loved loved Blindsighted and bought this second title with very little information. I skimmed the editorial reviews and customer reviews on Amazon but the main motive was how much I enjoyed her first novel.
Having said that I found this one a little harder to stomach. It wasn't that her grisly details turned my stomach as much as I felt in parts Slaughter was trying so hard to shock and repulse reader in her graphicness that other aspects such as characterization suffered. But I continued to read like a witness to a train wreck unable to avert my gaze from the wreckage as her writing got stronger as the plot went along twisting and turning like any thriller's plot ideally does. The people of Grant County have witnessed their share of horror and mourning yet the central characters in her first two novels have come out stronger I think Ms. Slaughter has as well. Finishing this novel I upped my stars for two reasons first I think this is a story Slaughter had to tell and secondly I think it is a story you have to read:).
Rating: 
Summary: A Disapointment
Review: After enjoying Blindsighted I was looking forward to Karin Slaughter's new book. It turned out to be a huge disappointment to me and the title did not seem really relevant to the plot. If you had not read her previous book you would have difficulty with the characters in this one, especialy Lena, since it takes up where the other one left off. I could not totally recall what had happened to her previously, which caused her such focused distress in this book. Sara and Jeff seemed to be inept in their fields and, again, we were supposed to remember what had gone before.Since this book was assumed to be dealing with child abuse and kiddie porn it barely skimmed the surface of this heinous subject and seemed to be less focused on what the real object of the plot was and more focused on trivialities.The adult characters all seemed child-like and there wasn't really one likable person in this book.It all led to a very fragmented ending which rather summecd up what was wondered all along in a very disjointed manner. The ending led me to believe that there is yet another Sara,Jeff,et al in the offing,which will be a continuation of this. One only hopes that they will get their many problems resolved before then.
Rating: 
Summary: Mesmerizing
Review: After reading the first series "Blindsighted", I knew I had to come back for more. Karin is a great writer who captures your attention from beginning to end. I would avoid lunch with coworkers just to get reading time in. "Kisscut" is one of the best thrillers I've read in some time. When I read the first two chapters, I had no idea that this book would delve into something so sinister yet it held my interest the entire time. I must have read at least six chapters within an hour. My sister in law and I share the same interest in the type of books we read and yes I will be passing this on to her. I look forward to the next series this fall.
Rating: 
Summary: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery -- NOT here!
Review: As much as I want to like Slaughter, I just can't get into her books. The subject, while relevant, has been covered before and much better -- see ANYTHING by Andrew Vachss, especially the BURKE novels. The "medical-examiner" chic prose has been done before, and better -- see the "Scarpetta" novels, by Patricia Cornwell. And the characters are too unbelievable and coarsely drawn to inspire any emotion for them. The character dialogue and interaction seems stiff, as evidenced in the excerpt posted here. And the "graphic detail" often touted in "reviews" seems to be borderline gratuitous. Slaughter has no credentials in forensics or law enforcement and this book highlights those deficiencies. The reviewers that have compared her to Cornwell, Vachss, and Reichs do those three authors a major disservice. Imitation may be "the sincerest form of flattery" but not in this case.
Rating:
Summary: Everything you don't want in a thriller
Review: Boring, predictable, bogged down in painfully irrelevant character development, slow moving, full of trite dialogue, long on unnecessary or simplistic details, short on key details. It was tough finishing this book and the only real surprise is how bad this effort is.
Rating:
Summary: Booooor-rrrringggggg
Review: Honestly, I don't see the great reviews. Patricia Cornwell comparisons? This writer doesn't begin to approach that league. Cornwell's pacing is superb, regardless of how far-fetched she gets these days. There are countless problems with this book and no amount of gore and shock is going to change that. Where to start? Believability and procedural oversights. The action starts when a character is forced to shoot a teenager. I never felt that mortally wounding the child was the only option. Once it was done, it was unlikely that the shooter's ex-wife/current sweetheart of a coroner would do the autopsy. (For that matter, why wasn't an investigation of the shooting launched?) The child abuse that is apparently rampant in this town makes the pediatrician, who happens to be our heroine, look like a complete incompetent. She had NO idea of the abuse and in fact we learn that some of her examinations took place over clothing. A small point here: would parents involved in their children's abuse really make sure the kids got their annual or semiannual checkups? There were moments where the guilt-ridden doctor comforted the guilt-ridden shooter and vice versa. Could either one take comfort from the other without lying? Slaughter seemed scared or put off by her own material. She plunges into some hard descriptions, while others are simply "unspeakable." There just wasn't a consistent, satisfying clinical air to the facts and Sarah is a doctor, and I felt there should have been. I felt the forensic research in Blindsighted, the author's first book, was much stronger. The author also has a tendency to put in too much irrelevant character development, which slows down the action to an excruciating point. Lena, an abused and tormented police officer, and her unappealing alcoholic uncle, take up far too much of the book. They just aren't sympathetic enough for us to care that much. Finally, and this isn't Slaughter's fault, with the headlines filled with stories of abused children, I just wanted a fresher idea. What might have been shocking two years ago is just too familiar today.
Rating:
Summary: A pleasant enough read but not a keeper
Review: I bought this book to read on a journey and it certainly passed the time pleasantly enough but it hardly belongs to the type of well-crafted thriller that you want to read over again to appreciate all the clues you missed first time around. Karin Slaughter relies on bombarding her readers with one shock after another - but if you actually sit down and think about what's happening the whole thing starts to unravel. For one thing it relies on Sara Linton being either incredibly stupid - in failing to identify that her patients are being abused - or being incredibly clever at catching a paedophile ring. Why would police fail to suspect the mother of a seriously abused girl of any kind of involvement? Also the identity of the dead baby's mother just doesn't make sense when you think about - how could she have kept it hidden for six months?
Not a book I am likely to add to my collection but an exciting thriller which works well enough - as long as you don't pause to think about too much!
Rating:
Summary: Graphic but a "can't put down" read
Review: I can not wait for this authors new book in September. Her books cause me to hold my breath while reading!!
Rating:
Summary: Captivating read
Review: I couldn't put this book down. Karin Slaughter is very talented writer and knows her stuff. This installment was much harder to read than the previous installment, Blindsighted. Anything that involves manipulating children really sickens me and this was not an easy read. I hope Ms. Slaughter will shine more sunshine into a series that so far is consistently dark. Jeffrey and Sara are both memorable characters as well as Sara's family. I look forward to the next book in this series.
| 
