Review
Pretty Girl-13 follows Angie Chapman, a 13 year old girl who disappears from a Girl Scout camping trip, only to turn up at home three years later with no recollection of any events since leaving her tent. It is soon revealed that Angie has developed dissociative identity disorder (DID), to deal with the rather horrific events of her ordeal. Angie’s ordeal, revealed by her “alters,” is pretty horrific, involving not only kidnapping but imprisonment, torture, and rape.
Although the nature of DID is still rather uncertain, the way it’s handled here does seem fairly plausible, for the most part. At first it seems unbelievable that Angie would experience a split immediately upon her kidnapping, there is fortunately a plausible explanation in Angie’s past. That particular twist works well in the story, but other plot points just don’t seem very realistic.
While Angie’s therapy, although fictional, seems fairly possible, it seems strange that any psychologist would rely so heavily on hypnotherapy given its unreliable nature. The final major twist also seems like it shouldn’t have gone unnoticed.
Angie is revealed to have been impregnated by her captor, and gave birth to a baby boy. Her son was then give up for adoption by her abductor, and is then adopted by her neighbors. It seems a bit of a stretch that Angie would bear no physical evidence of having given birth, and that it would go unnoticed in an examination. Also, the odds of her child being adopted by the neighboring couple is highly unlikely.
A review copy was provided through the goodreads.com first reads program.
Although the nature of DID is still rather uncertain, the way it’s handled here does seem fairly plausible, for the most part. At first it seems unbelievable that Angie would experience a split immediately upon her kidnapping, there is fortunately a plausible explanation in Angie’s past. That particular twist works well in the story, but other plot points just don’t seem very realistic.
While Angie’s therapy, although fictional, seems fairly possible, it seems strange that any psychologist would rely so heavily on hypnotherapy given its unreliable nature. The final major twist also seems like it shouldn’t have gone unnoticed.
Angie is revealed to have been impregnated by her captor, and gave birth to a baby boy. Her son was then give up for adoption by her abductor, and is then adopted by her neighbors. It seems a bit of a stretch that Angie would bear no physical evidence of having given birth, and that it would go unnoticed in an examination. Also, the odds of her child being adopted by the neighboring couple is highly unlikely.
A review copy was provided through the goodreads.com first reads program.
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