The Shining Girls: Booktrack Edition

A Novel

By: Lauren Beukes

Narrated by: Khristine Hvam, Peter Ganim, Jay Snyder, Joshua Boone, Dani Cervone, Jenna Hellmuth

Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

The Shining Girls: A Novel: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience!*

A masterful twist on the serial killer novel from the award-winning author Lauren Beukes: the girl who wouldn't die hunts the killer who shouldn't exist.

Harper Curtis is a killer who stepped out of the past. Kirby Mazrachi is the girl who was never meant to have a future.

Kirby is the last shining girl, one of the bright young women, burning with potential, whose lives Harper is destined to snuff out after he stumbles on a House in Depression-era Chicago that opens on to other times. 

At the urging of the House, Harper inserts himself into the lives of these shining girls, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He's the ultimate hunter, vanishing without a trace into another time after each murder - until one of his victims survives.

Determined to bring her would-be killer to justice, Kirby joins the Chicago Sun-Times to work with the reporter, Dan Velasquez, who covered her case. Soon Kirby finds herself closing in on an impossible truth....

*Booktrack is an immersive format that pairs traditional audiobook narration to complementary music. The tempo and rhythm of the score are in perfect harmony with the action and characters throughout the audiobook. Gently playing in the background, the music never overpowers or distracts from the narration, so listeners can enjoy every minute. When you purchase this Booktrack edition, you receive the exact narration as the traditional audiobook available, with the addition of music throughout.

©2013 Lauren Beukes (P)2020 Hachette Audio

Feels written just for pointless horror scenes

This was so dry and tame compared to what was hoping to get after reading positive reviews. This book is void of any tension and thrills with its slow and predictable movements from one murder to the next.

You'd think a time traveling serial killer would be a cool concept but the book feels like it doesn't really commit too much to the time traveling part that much. It does create a weird new concept to the mystery one side is trying to solve but it's lack in world building and expansion lack of focus makes the time traveling feel like casual forgettable background noise.

I felt like i was taking the most boring tour witnessing one murder to the next. The murders just happen and end and then on to the next one. No attachment to the victims as the character building was super lacking so other then shock factor it's really hard to care about these victims. You follow along a victim during their murder which feels boring because it's never for very long and it's way too short of time with them to get attached. It would have been better if this book stayed smaller scope and focused that time to expand on the serial killer himself so we could at least get some form of character building.

The serial killer himself is just this blank slate of a character and remains a blank slate throughout the book. These types of books I enjoy because it's fun to see the warped percpective, motivations and deep dive into their reasonings. This just doesn't happen and it honestly feels like I parody of a serial killer because he just seems to kill just to kill and its never really explored. The time traveling gimmick felt wasted on such a boring blank character.

The reporter and victim storyline also felt sporadically sprinkled in and weirdly paced intervals that it was also hard to get attached to them. They really didn't come off as characters and more played just within their generic roles for the story. You never really get to know them and instead only get to know their interests surrounding the serial killer. Again the lack of character building was noticeable and made it really difficult to care.

The main focus being so detailed and graphic on the horror scenes made this book feel creepy in a way that it felt like the authors cheap excuse to put these scenes on paper and then they wrote a book around these scenes. For as lacking in detail as every other aspect of this book is and having THIS much detail focused on describing the horror scenes sorta make this evident.

I did not like this book but it at least was easy enough to get through casually but I will forget about it all in a few hours.

Different...

The story was very hard to follow along, and I was disappointed with the ending.

I can't think of any reason to read this

This is the first book in years, maybe decades, that I couldn't finish. It was almost shockingly bad. The concept was a mediocre gimmick at best, and the actual writing and storyline just made it insufferable. I like horror, fantasy, science fiction, time travel, mysteries... there was nothing here with listening to. Maybe if I'd stuck around longer there would have been something to redeem it, but nothing in the reviews I read or in the synopsis suggests it, so I can't justify wasting more time on it. At least the performers seemed to do a good job of portraying the characters, such as they were.

Excellent, as literature and as television!

Only considered listening because I so enjoyed the TV adaptation on AppleTV+, starring Elisabeth Moss. I enjoyed both versions immensely, though I couldn't tell you which I enjoyed more, or which, ultimately , was "better." You'll just have to experience both, and decide for yourself!

gurl power & women's terror

absolute banger of a book. couldn't stop listening. the narrators were *chef's kiss* perfection & encapsulated the personas of the characters to a t.

the plot is... out there. but lauren beukes did an outstanding job of making it seem plausible. there are always holes in a time-travel story, that's the nature of the story. but none were gaping wounds, needing immediate attention. if anything, the questions i was left with made me want to ask ms. beukes to make a sequel!

the story itself is one of the horrors inflicted upon women, by men, and by society in general throughout the last 100 years. the reader can tell that a significant amount of time was spent on research, to ensure details were correct, and that chicago was done justice as a growing & crumbling (in some instances) city.

i found the characters relatable, sympathetic, intriguing. we were given enough information about the "shining" ones to make them real. i did find myself wanting to read full stories on all of them, which is a great thing!

i highly recommend this book! it's been in my library for some time, and i finally listened as i'm trying to only read women authors for the month of march. this book, like the others i've read, has proved yet again that we have a lot to say, a lot to do, and power immeasurable. we shine, after all.