Pretty Girl-13

by Liz Coley

• ISBN10: 1627655077
• ISBN13: 9781627655071
• Publish Date: 18 March 2014 (first published 19 March 2013)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 14 September 2021
• Imprint: Perfection Learning
• Format: Hardcover (Library Binding)
• Pages: 350
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

That was one messed up story. Woah. Pretty Girl-13 does not sugar coat anything or hold back at all. It’s disturbing and completely unsettling. However, I couldn’t put it down. I had to know what happened to Angie during the time she was held captive in that cabin in the woods. I was also fascinated by the recovery process for Dissociative Identity Disorder. Angie remembers absolutely nothing from the three years she was missing thanks to her “alters” who stepped in to handle various aspects of her captivity. Now she’s aware of them but she’s afraid of what they’ll have to say and what they’ll make her do.

Pretty Girl-13 is very much a story about recovery from abuse and taking your life back. Yes, there’s a mystery element as they try to figure out who took her and bring him to justice. But overall, the story is focused on Angie meeting her alters and coming to terms with them and what has been done to her. It’s truly terrible, but there is a slight detachment for Angie since she was never present. It was overwhelming when her alters’ memories came flooding into her, or when they left her notes to explain. What happened to her really made me sick. It’s revealed piece by piece, and waiting for the whole picture was agonizing. Angie does try to go on with life as normally as possible, and I liked how she didn’t let her parents dictate what was “right” for her. She’s behind in school and has no friends. Attempting her rekindle her relationships from before was an interest aspect, but I found myself not caring much at times, since I thought the dialogue was really awkward. It’s a minor thing given the overall intensity of the book.

The only thing that kept Pretty Girl-13 from being a perfect 5 stars was the subplot involving a previous abuse. I can’t really talk about it without spoiling, but how it was handled didn’t sit right with me and made me take away a half-star. I just couldn’t believe her parent’s reaction to Angie’s confession. They essentially brush her off as insane until her therapists convinces them otherwise. I can understand parents not wanting to believe it, but to dismiss her story completely? I don’t think so. I would have expected them to at least take a step back and consider the possibility. However that doesn’t happen, and Angie’s parents tell her that her doctor “was very persuasive.” Meaning they don’t believe her, but her doctor is just that good. What? The outcome is also skipped over. Her parents go from not believing at all to taking half-assed legal action, then brushing it under the rug. I just wish this plot had been ended better.

Pretty Girl-13 is a difficult book to read, but I think it’s well worth it if you can handle extremely dark stories. Of course, it’s full of triggers so it’s definitely not something I can recommend lightly. Angie’s situation at the end is awful, but it’s also hopeful. She came a long way since she first turned up on her parent’s doorstep after three years.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[Ashley]

BookNook — Young Adult book reviews

Pretty Girl-13 completely took me by surprise! This book is really heavy. It's dark, gritty, and deals with some seriously intense issues. I adored this book, but not in the usual girly, giddy, fan-girl-scream way. I adored Pretty Girl-13 in the sense that it really shook me to my core and left me speechless. It's an extremely sad and emotionally draining book, but it will leave you with dark and heavy thoughts that are sure to change you.

My biggest fear going into Pretty Girl-13 was that the "alters" would be confusing. These "alters" are Angie's other personalities. She developed them as a way to cope with extreme physical and emotional abuse. But I was afraid that these multiple personalities would make the book extremely confusing, especially if we were hopping from one personality's point of view to another. But don't worry—none of those fears became a reality; Liz Coley does a wonderful job crafting this book with zero confusion. It's definitely intriguing and a bit freaky to think about, but it's not confusing. For the most part, we don't actually see from the other personalities' points of view (there are a few minor exceptions). Usually when we hear from them it's in the form of a physical letter or recording from one personality to Angie. This more 'physical' way of hearing from the other personalities made it really easy to relate to and almost just view them as separate people.

On a similar note: don't be freaked out by the second person point of view in the prologue. I have to be honest, it scared the shit out of me. Second person isn't something you come across often and I was confused, scared, and worried. It kind of put me off on a bad foot with Pretty Girl-13. But the rest of the book (or at least 99% of it) is formatted in a more traditional third person point of view. Now and then we do get the second person narrative, and that's when we're reading from an alter, who's sort of talking to Angie as "You". (I'm afraid I'm making this sound confusing, but I promise—it's not.)

Liz Coley did a fabulous job of slowly revealing the information about Angie's capture. We only learn bits and pieces at a time, but each new piece of information is a twist in the story. It's bomb drop after bomb drop, and things just get scarier, creepier, and more traumatic. But Angie was a fabulously strong main character and I was amazed at how well she took everything. She was a real trooper, and I loved that about her! I also loved the integration of therapy. I'm usually one of the people that's a little bit skeptical of therapy, but this book did a great job to demonstrate how therapy can really help a person overcome traumatic experiences, and it was brilliant!

Pretty Girl-13 is certainly a dark book and you can't go into it light-hearted, but I highly recommend it if you're looking for an intriguing, fascinating, and devastating read all in one. This book is just as hopeful as it is traumatic, and I love how Angie and Liz are able to point out the light amidst a sea of darkness.

[Kelsenator]

For more reviews make sure to visit my blog Kelsey's Cluttered Bookshelf!

This book was creepy, a bit disturbing at times but it really draws you in. It’s hard to explain what’s so good about this book without revealing too much, but I think it’s really the reality of it. Kidnapping does happen to real people, and those people find ways to survive the horrors of what happens during that.The multiple personality disorder Angie gets because of this is real too, although rare as far as I know. In the end though it actually saves her life.

Angie was kidnapped when she was a kid and because of her brain’s way of coping with this trauma, she forgets 3 years of her life. So much happened to her in those years, and as you read you’ll see just why she had to block it all out to survive. Coming home after all that time isn’t all happy right away either. She has to try and go on with her life, but it seems as if everyone’s left her behind and she can’t pick it up again so easily. Especially when the personalities continue taking over and talking to her. I think the one doing the rocking at night was the creepiest personality.

I know I was shocked at quite a few things as I read this, especially figuring out exactly what did happen during those years to her. It’s a good book and I really enjoyed it, but definitely be prepared for some of the stuff that gets mentioned as a result of her kidnapping (such as rape).

[Suz @ Bookish Revelations]

Pretty Girl-13 is a disturbing emotionally gripping young adult novel, that will break reader's hearts. Full of painful mystery and intrigue, it is one of the year's most touching and heart breaking stories told. Liz Coley introduces readers to a world, so tragic and filled with frightening despair, that it almost has nowhere else to go but up with the power of hope, love, and strength of oneself. She doesn't let her audience down, by introducing a wonderfully beautiful and painfully scared broken young girl, who has to find a way to piece back together the fabric of her mangled psyche. It is both harrowing and tremendously fascinating.

The strength, that Angie possesses and the depth of her character is extremely complex, creating the portrait of such a gorgeous complicated girl trying to exist in an equally disturbing world of suffering and confusion. This is a novel that touches on many dark elements that plague reality and brings them to life in such a gorgeous horrific way that readers can relate to. For Angie, life isn't easy as she tries to stitch together the pieces of her mind that are frayed, worn, and damaged too make them whole again. The problem with this is, the horribly terrifying dark secret that she unearths. The devil lies in the details, it seems as she has to decide that in remembering the terrible things that she would like to forget, will she ultimately have to destroy the parts of herself that are responsible for them? It's a deep soul-searching dilemma that she will have to dig down deep within herself to summon up the emotional strength to deal with.

Liz Coley has penned such an incredibly powerfully emotionally captivating and ultimately disturbing psychological mystery that is sure to wow many readers. Emotionally empowering, full of love, hope, pain, misery, and self-discovery, Coley socks it to readers like a punch in the gut. It will leave them reeling with so many questions and a desire to seek out the answers, as this is such an incredibly poingant and extremely unputdownable novel of the year! Filled with the healing power of courage and self-acceptance, this is a book that will absolutely take readers breath away.