This is the type of book I would recommend just so that I can talk about it with someone. There are so many interesting topics the book explores. The writing is fantastic, it's smooth and has a natural cadence to it that makes you not want to stop reading.

The concept of being connected to someone because of a shared experience is taken to an extreme, which I absolutely loved. Two girls, abducted during a summer when they were 12, forced to live in a remote cabin with a man trying to preserve purity and childhood. There's a great reference to Robert Browning poem - Porphyria's Lover. The concept of loving someone/something so much, you would rather kill it than let it go.

Outside of the psychological explorations, there were some things I wish were fleshed out more. The character of Sean should have either been more involved or less. He's a character who is there to progress the plot and is a pathetic one at that.

Not a read for everyone, but if you want a break from plots and dive a little bit more into taboo subjects, pick it up! ( )

This was a great idea for a novel. Two girls are abducted and kept in a remote cabin for over a month. They are eventually 'rescued' by the authorities and return to their families to resume their lives. It's a really interesting idea but for me it just didn't work. I found the book unrealistic and tiresome. Zed was an interesting character but I didn't feel we found out enough about him. I didn't particular warm to either Carly-May or Lois and I really wasn't sure why Sean was in the book at all. I did persevere and finish it and it did get a little more pace towards the end but I'm afraid it just wasn't for me. ( )

This is not your ordinary abduction tale. The truth mingles with re-invention and obfuscation. ‘Pretty Is’ is a promising debut by Maggie Mitchell, a study in memory, an examination of our ability to move on from difficult experiences, and how today’s celebrity culture makes it impossible to avoid the past.
Two 12-year old girls – Louis and Carly May - go missing in separate incidents, they are assumed dead. This is the story of their abduction, their life with their abductor Zed, and more importantly their life afterwards. But is what we are reading the true story, a lie, an embroidered version of what happened, or total fiction?
The story of the girls is told in tandem with what is happening to the adult women today. Both girls tried to move on but inevitably they felt cut off from everyone else so, as adults, they re-invented their pasts, their names, their identities. And so, page by page, the true story of what happened to Lois and Carly May is told. Or is it? Which of the girls is the most reliable story-teller?
Carly May becomes actress Chloe Savage, Lois is a university lecturer but also writes novels under a pseudonym. Both are hiding from the cult of celebrity enabled by the internet’s ability to archive old news, true news, mis-reported news.
Things hot-up when Lois writes a thinly-veiled fictionalised account of their abduction. The novel is made into a film, inevitably Carly May is cast as a detective. The film brings the two women together for the first time and, as well as facing the after effects of their abduction, they must deal with a stalker, Sean, a student too interested in Lois’s background.
Some questions are left unanswered. The motivations of Zed in particular are sketchy. And although there is no doubting the connection forged between the two 12-year old girls, they do seem to accept their abduction rather apathetically.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/ ( )

The premise is much more exciting than the actual book. Lois and Carly May are abducted when they are 12 and held for several weeks in a cabin in the Adirondack Mountains. The kidnapper kills himself when the police finally find them. However, the girls are fine and nothing bad has happened to them from this experience, as unbelievable as that is. The girls part ways and find themselves drawn together after one of them writes a book based on their kidnapping that is later made into a movie. Carly May, with a changed name, is one of the actresses in the film. There is a lot of analysis of the event and how it affected the girls through the years, but very little action. It is an interesting read, but hardly a thriller. ( )

Pretty Is tells the story of Lois and Carly May, the grown up victims of a child abductor, struggling to find their ways in the confusing aftermath of their abduction, a strangely idyllic time that was, nonetheless, fraught with fear and left an inevitable impression on the two that trails them into adulthood. The book alternates between the two women's perspectives, illuminating their lives and their struggles as they mature, somehow always feeling more connected to their abductor than to their own families. Lois grew from a beautiful studious young girl into a smart college professor who spun her abduction into a famous novel written under a fake name. Carly May, a brash former child beauty queen, changed her name to Chloe and abandoned her father and wicked stepmother to chase fame in Hollywood. Though the two haven't seen each other in years, the time of their abduction lingers fresh in their minds, and when Lois's book finds its own way to Hollywood, the two might finally have the chance to revisit their shared past.

Mitchell is a debut novelist, and with that considered, Pretty Is becomes that much more impressive. Mitchell skillfully weaves together many different stories in one. She brings her two damaged main characters to life, exploring their upbringings and their leftover traumas both from the abduction and the scars they carry with them from their own family lives. At the same time, Mitchell is exploring each character's present, and even including a swathe of Lois's novelization of the abduction that proves particularly compelling. As the novel becomes a movie and Lois starts a sequel and a mysterious student starts unearthing Lois's path, the stories pile up, but not all of them are equally well-handled. The Sean the creepy student storyline, in particular, seems extraneous to the rest of the novel, a side show perhaps intended to reveal how troubled uber-controlled Lois's thoughts still are.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that the "excerpt" from Lois's novel that fills out the middle of the book is so much more compelling that it makes the rest of the novel pale somewhat in comparison. The pages in this section flew by in a way that Carly May and Lois's more introspective narratives do not. That said, Mitchell's story layering style is ambitious and, on the whole, successful. While I didn't love the characters, I was taken in by their stories and eager for the two to meet again and unpack their shared psychological trauma. If you're looking for a page-turning mystery/thriller sort of novel, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a deeper, more literary effort that does a fascinating job of illuminating the confused aftermath of an abduction, definitely give Pretty Is a try. ( )