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Kagan Goodliff's Reviews > Girl, Forgotten
Girl, Forgotten (Andrea Oliver, #2)
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** spoiler alert **
I mostly love Karin Slaughter books and I liked pieces of her but I have no idea why she thought Andrea was a strong enough character to hold a sequel or interesting enough to warrant one. I liked the flashbacks to past and present but the past didn’t really flesh out any of the characters, it was too broad strokes to really care or understand them. The inclusion of a cult was a bit of nothing, maybe to tie in with the first one? Didn’t really seem necessary. Was also quite tame in terms of violence / upset as her other books, not a lot of tension either. It was a fine book but I guess reading her books for over 20 years has given me certain expectations. Petty point - Andrea is very annoying. For the diner scene at the end, she hasn’t taken her work phone with her even though it’s the climax with all the arrest warrants etc. She responds with “Uh” in response to being greeted by three different characters because she’s surprised to see them and therefore is too slow to articulate a response. When she was running around being dumb in pieces of her, it seemed like a genuine human response to a normal person finding themselves in an extraordinary situation. I know she’s meant to be new at the job but her floundering around was getting tiresome. Also not sure how I felt about Catfish Bible… bit of a caricature.
Plot for my memory - The incredibly annoying Andrea is somehow a federal marshal. Gets assigned to a judge who is getting death threats. Judge’s daughter was murdered in the 80s after getting pregnant after a rape. May possibly have been murdered / raped by Andreas crazy father (just to tie them in it seems). She’s investigating (badly) both events. There’s also a weird bit where two of the characters from the past are keeping and starving women in a sort of cult but it doesn’t go into it much. Andrea bumbles about until being handed the answers. Turns out boy rapes girl, boy’s girlfriend kills girl. Nothing to do with the dad. Everyone is generally awful. At the end, Andrea’s dad calls, I assume to set up book three.
Plot for my memory - The incredibly annoying Andrea is somehow a federal marshal. Gets assigned to a judge who is getting death threats. Judge’s daughter was murdered in the 80s after getting pregnant after a rape. May possibly have been murdered / raped by Andreas crazy father (just to tie them in it seems). She’s investigating (badly) both events. There’s also a weird bit where two of the characters from the past are keeping and starving women in a sort of cult but it doesn’t go into it much. Andrea bumbles about until being handed the answers. Turns out boy rapes girl, boy’s girlfriend kills girl. Nothing to do with the dad. Everyone is generally awful. At the end, Andrea’s dad calls, I assume to set up book three.
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Reading Progress
August 14, 2022
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Started Reading
August 14, 2022
– Shelved
August 14, 2022
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Finished Reading
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Anna
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rated it 3 stars
Aug 27, 2022 09:39PM
Bingo!
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I also thought Andrea was incredibly annoying and whiny. I’m sick of books with weak, female characters. I did not finish it… and I finish almost all books!
I’m with you, I wish I hadn’t wasted time pushing through! The ending was not worth it. And I agree, I prefer a strong female character with a troubled past, like Lena. She usually writes strong women, Angie, Amanda… even Sara is pretty strong. This character is a misstep for me.
Agree! And for me it took soooo long to get to the conclusion. So many characters and so many different names or nicknames made it confusing. Could have cut out 100 pages.
Love your synopsis - I kept waiting for it to be the Dad. Seems too much of a coincidence with the domestic violence.
Thank you for your review. I also found Andrea incredibly annoying and thick as two bricks most of the time. The plot of this book has holes you could drive a bus through. A high court judge thinks accepting a blackmail is better than going to the police!! She’s supposed to be afraid that her grandchild will end up with her mother’s killer? Even when there’s no proof the blackmailer is either the father or the killer?? Emily couldn’t leave town on the bus and get her own abortion? I’m sure Jack would have gone with and held her hand.
Emily can remember that the pool cover was on the pool but she can’t remember who attacked her and forced themselves on her?? Right that’s believable!
The utter victim hood of Emily and Jack both convinced that life was already over for them and it was all other people’s fault? Kids of the eighties never thought like this I can assure you. We were a resilient lot. Emily and Jack would have found a way to help each other out of their respective troubles.
Just to finish my rant, the chapter where Emily finds Clay and Jack together in the shed and Clay ends up bashing the living ends out of Jack. Emily does precisely nothing to stop Clay bashing Jack repeatedly but then when Clay finally leaves they wind up having a lengthy heart to heart conversation?? Jack is bleeding and injured everywhere with a badly broken finger but he still manages to have a conversation about Emily’s investigation through blood coming out of his mouth and nose?? Emily doesn’t offer to take him somewhere to get treatment or even tell her parents that he’s there and he’s badly injured?? Not the slightest bit believable at this point. Too much stuff that doesn’t need to be there and too many things that readers just have to accept for me in this book.
I'm only halfway through this book but I'm thinking of quitting because Andrea is so annoying. How is this weak idiotic character supposed to be a US Marshall?? She missed the farm was a cult until her partner says it??
