A story of an heiress, a con woman and her boyfriend. Were you confused? Want all the plot details? Are you dying to dying spoilers? You are in the right place – this is a Plot Summary and Spoiler Review for Pretty Things!
Here’s a quick plot summary of Pretty Things before we get to the Spoiler Discussion!
- Nina’s mom Lily is a minor con artist. The two move to the Lake Tahoe area. There, Nina meets Benny, the son of a rich family. One day Benny’s father catches Nina and Benny having sex at the family mansion and he runs Nina and her mom out of town.
- Years later, Lily has cancer and Nina and her current boyfriend Lachlan are running cons to pay for her expensive treatments. Most involve Nina drugging rich guys at bars, helping them get home, casing their security and valuables and returning later to burglarize the place.
- Nina has also been keeping tabs on Benny’s family. She’s focused on Vanessa, Benny’s older sister, an Instagram influencer, and decides to make Vanessa her next mark. She and Lachlan pose as Ashley and Michael, a couple who wants to rent a cottage on Vanessa’s family estate. (Benny was diagnosed with schizophrenia in college and is living in a therapeutic setting.)
- Nina and Lachlan befriend Vanessa and plant cameras around her mansion. They locate her safe, where Nina is shocked to find blackmail letters from her mother Lily to Benny and Vanessa’s father. She goes to confront Lily, leaving Lachlan at the cottage, and gets arrested for her prior thefts.
- While Lily is gone, Vanessa and Lachlan elope. Benny sees a photo of “Ashley” on his sister’s Instagram and tells her that Ashley is actually his old girlfriend Nina. This makes Vanessa skeptical of Lachlan and his motives: is he part of Nina’s con or being conned by her? Either way, whoops: Vanessa isn’t rich. And now she’s pregnant.
- Vanessa tracks down Nina in prison and bails her out. They go to Lachlan’s apartment and find stacks of cash and fake IDs.
- Nina goes to check on her mom. Her mom’s doctor tells her that her mother has actually been in remission – no expensive treatment was needed. Lily tells Nina that Lachlan is the one who ratted Nina out to the cops.
- Vanessa and Nina make a plan to get back at Lachlan – Vanessa tells him she has money and valuables stashed on her family’s yacht. There’s an altercation on the yacht and Vanessa kills Lachlan. She and Nina throw his body in Lake Tahoe.
- Fifteen months later, Nina has served her prison term. Vanessa had her baby and goes back to being an influencer, this time with a mommy theme. Michael’s body has not been found.
Spoiler Discussion for Pretty Things
So: what did you think of Pretty Things? The opening, which refers to a body under the lake, was intriguing, but I felt this book was pretty slow to get going.
Once Nina and Lachlan started their con, I was more interested. I felt that the three made a nice, suspenseful triangle. I wish that aspect of the story had been more prevalent.
I think the book had too much backstory, most of it trying to justify Nina’s con artist ways. Resentment of being run out of town by Vanessa and Benny’s family! That she could have gone to a better college! She’s doing it for her mother!
Meanwhile, Lachlan is a complete blank slate. I got NO sense of him at all. Or Vanessa, really.
Did you suspect that Nina’s mother was lying about her cancer recurrence to con her daughter out of money? I actually did see that coming. I wondered if she had cancer at all. Yes, I’m that cynical. In my defense, Lily is the original con artist!
What did you think of the ending? It was a little weird for me to have this happily ever after thing with Benny and Vanessa friends with Nina.
Did you read Big Summer and think that this had some parallels? Grudge-holding, Instagram influencers, an heiress?
Join Our Discussion for Pretty Things!
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