Pretty Is - Maggie Mitchell

 

Henry Holt & Co., 2015.

 

Four Stars

 

I knew nothing about Maggie Mitchell’s debut novel, Pretty Is, before I started reading, and I was caught up in the story right from the first sentence, anxious to find out what would happen next. The story is told from the alternating perspectives of two women who were kidnapped when they were twelve, as they now deal with the aftermath of the abduction as adults. The parallel voices are so strong yet so different, and the story unfolds only as they choose to tell it, leaving the reader with the mystery of uncertainty.

 

Lois, one of the women, has written a thinly veiled fictional account of the abduction, as a way of coping with the experience, and her novel takes up most of Part Two. Because the girls were kept in relative safety and comfort, and released without harm, their families did not know how to treat them upon their return – there is a feeling that the girls were complicit in their own kidnapping. Although the girls were not physically harmed, the emotional scars live within them. Lois’ novel-within-the-novel adds layers of metafiction, as we try to piece together what really happened to the girls; the truth is further muddied when Chloe, the other woman, disagrees with Lois’ account.

 

Further confusing fact and fiction is Lois’s relationship with a sinister student who threatens to expose her history as kidnap victim. Both Lois and Chloe have created alter egos for themselves in adulthood, in order to separate themselves from their past trauma. While Chloe at first seems to be the more unstable of the two – she is a washed up actress with a tendency to drink too much and make bad decisions – Lois’ mental stability later comes under question as she interacts with her student in inappropriate ways. He becomes a construct of her mind yet he acts out in very real ways: as she uses him for inspiration for her second novel, he uses her to fulfill his escalating violent fantasy world.

 

Lois describes her novel as genre fiction that must fit certain conventions: it is a thriller, and thus must be chilling and suspenseful with limited emotional content. I think Pretty Is has defied this genre pigeonhole, with its added psychological elements. As the story unfolds, we realize that the girls were willing participants in their abductor’s experiment. They wish to please him, and their fear of abandonment bleeds into their adult lives as well. I loved that we are led to believe Lois is rational and reliable, while Chloe seems unbalanced – but their roles may or may not reverse as they reach the climax of their story.

 

My only complaint was the rushed ending, where everything was tied up in only a few pages. The slowly unravelling psychological drama sped up too quickly in Part Four, and pulled Pretty Is back into the traditional thriller genre. However, the first three parts of the novel were enough to make me want to read more by this author.

 

I received this book from Henry Holt & Co. and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.