Review: The Pretty Ones, by Ania Ahlborn 4 of 5 stars

My Review:

Ania Ahlborn has become one of my favorite thriller/horror writers!  Within the last year I’ve read four of her books and every single one of them has blown me away! Her style is one of a kind, she’s brilliant!

The Pretty Ones is in my opinion right up there with the best of her work!  Brother is still my favorite, but this one is seriously neck and neck. Just when I thought I had things figured out, Ania threw in a curve and had me wide eyed with my jaw to the floor!  I freaking loved the end of this book. From cover to cover it offers everything a great psychological thriller should. It’s nasty, twisted and shocking, yet it still has that authentically raw and believable feel to it.

The main character Nell is extremely quiet and self conscious. She’s awkward, full of a longing to belong, and she has this deep routed hate that practically consumes her. Nell works day in and day out at a tedious call center, surrounded by girls that she absolutely loathes. These women either ignore her completely, leaving her to feel invisible, or they pick on her. She sticks with the job, and keeps quiet to support her brother Barrett in their crappy apartment on a very dicey part of the city.

Barrett doesn’t speak. He’s an aspiring writer, who makes notes to Nell to communicate. They are both extremely obsessive, possessive, protective and weird with each other. This very strange brother/sister relationship was forced into it’s weirdness by their horrible up-bringing. Their father died when they were young and their mother was an awful woman. What makes their relationship unique is that it’s layered into physiological surprises that unfold in perfect timing through out the story.

There has been a series of killing in the city, and as the book unravels those murders grow closer and closer to home. This book is awesome and I’ll definitely be reading more and more of Ania’s work!

Description:

A terrifying e-novella from the bestselling author of Within These Walls, Brother, and The Bird Eater!

New York, 1977. The sweltering height of the Summer of Sam. The entire city is gripped with fear, but all Nell Sullivan worries about is whether or not she’ll ever make a friend. The self-proclaimed “Plain Jane” does her best to fit in with the girls at work, but Nell’s brother, Barrett, assures her that she’ll never be like them. When Nell manages to finally garner some much-yearned-for attention, the unthinkable happens to her newfound friend. The office pool blames Son of Sam, but Nell knows the awful truth…because doing the devil’s work is easy when there’s already a serial killer on the loose.