Review of Girl, Forgotten

Are you a fan of thriller author Karin Slaughter? Have you read Pieces of Her (or watched the Netflix show) you will want to know what I thought of the sequel! Check out my review of Girl, Forgotten!

Girl, Forgotten by Karin Slaughter

Published on August 23, 2022 by William Morrow

A small town hides a big secret… 

Who killed Emily Vaughn?

Prom Night. Longbill Beach, 1982. Emily Vaughn dresses carefully for what’s supposed to be the highlight of any high school career. But Emily has a secret. And by the end of the night, because of that secret, she will be dead.

Nearly forty years later, Andrea Oliver, newly qualified as a US Marshal, receives her first assignment: to go to Longbill Beach to protect a judge receiving death threats.

But Andrea’s real focus isn’t the judge – it’s Emily Vaughn. Ever since she first heard Emily’s name a year ago, she’s been haunted by her brutal death. Nobody was ever convicted – her friends closed ranks, her family shut themselves off in their grief, the town moved on – so the killer is still out there.

But now Andrea has a chance to find out what really happened… 

Can Girl, Forgotten be read as a standalone, without reading Pieces of Her?

Karin Slaughter is known for her series.

I’ve been reading her books for years. I started out with the Grant County series, and then that turned a bit dark for me.

I didn’t connect with the Will Trent series, but I found that Slaughter’s standalones were a good fit for me.

Pieces of Her was one of those standalones, and was made into a Netflix series starring Toni Collette.

Then, Girl, Forgotten was announced, featuring many crossover characters from Pieces of Her.

Can you read Girl, Forgotten without having read Pieces of Her? Yes, I think so.

But if you have forgotten what happens in Pieces of Her OR just want a plot summary with spoilers, check out my Page to Screen: Pieces of Her post, which has a full plot summary of the book with spoilers and the Netflix series, a character list, and the differences between the book and the show.

Review of Girl, Forgotten

I will confess that I was not the biggest fan of Andy in Pieces of Her.

I’m sure that was intentional on the part of the author.

Andy is an aimless millennial living with her mother when a shocking event sends her life into a whole new direction, leading her to realize she doesn’t know her mother at all.

So in Pieces of Her, Andy’s plot is that of the average person thrust into a situation that she’s pretty unprepared for.

In Girl, Forgotten, Andy (now Andrea) is a very different person. She has finished training to be a US Marshal and been assigned to her first partner and her first case: protecting an elderly judge who is receiving death threats.

But Andrea has also been given an ulterior assignment: look into the death of a teenage girl who died in the early 1980s, a girl that might have a connection to Andrea herself.

What I Loved About Girl, Forgotten

Emily’s story (told in close-third installments that are interspersed with Andrea’s narrative) was incredibly compelling.

As Emily’s narrative takes place in 1982, the book has a lot of 1980s references that I loved, from turquoise prom dresses to mix tapes. Slaughter is a Gen X (like me) and that aspect of the book was great.

Catfish, Emily’s new partner, was also great. Wise and entertaning, I sort of wanted him to ditch Andrea and just work on the case himself.

What I Liked Less

It’s hard to read a dual narrative book in which one storyline is so much more interesting than the other. To me, the gripping, emotional Emily chapters were by far the strongest parts of the book.

The Andrea parts of the book seemed more like a retread of Pieces of Her. There was a new plot element that Slaughter has used recently in The Last Widow, one I’m just not a fan of.

So Girl, Forgotten was a bit of a mix for me. I’m glad I read it but it isn’t one of my favorite Karin Slaughter books.

Thoughts? Opinions? Talk to me in the comments!