A dark read about missing girls set in the rural south. Summer is popular and pretty and when she goes missing her sister Raine does her own investigating. Highly recommend

The book focuses on a series of missing girls set in a southern town called Grace. It was a bit of a dark and twisted read focusing on what goes on in quiet unsuspecting towns.

ALL THE WICKED GIRLS
BY: CHRIS WHITAKER

I had a difficult time staying engaged with reading this one. It takes place in a destitute setting in a small town in the South. Girls go missing. Two sisters' are extremely close and one of them also disappears. Raine and Summer Ryan live in this poor desolate town in the Bible belt of Grace, Alabama. Summer is the golden girl out of the two with achieving high grades in school and is a natural music prodigy. She is the one to also add to the list of missing girls. Her sister Raine is the more flamboyant one and her perseverance in her search for Summer is something that most of us can relate to in this darkly atmospheric, Gothic novel.

The flow of alcohol and drug addiction runs rampant in this bleak setting. Summer is the 6th girl to go missing in this economically despair ridden County. The first five have disappeared without a trace and never have been found. Summer's father Joe, gets others involved with him to try to find his daughter, but he is sort of a worry--so much so that local law enforcement is concerned about Joe's methods being extreme. Raine doesn't think that Summer would just leave so she recruits the two innocent boys Noah and Purv who stole my heart.

My initial review of this was missing and I am experiencing technical issues with my computer. The cursor keeps jumping around making this difficult to complete. I will probably come back and write a more comprehensive one at a time when I resolve my computer problems. If not, sometimes less is more adequate for some novels. It has been so long since I read this that I probably owe it to Chris Whitaker to re-read this before I update this. I didn't really enjoy this as much as some of the other reviewers. I do remember that very clearly.

Thank you to Net Galley, Chris Whitaker and Bonnier Zaffre for providing my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

#AlltheWickedGirls #ChrisWhitaker #BonnierZaffe #NetGalley

All the wicked girls by Chris Whittaker.
Everyone loves Summer Ryan. A model student and musical prodigy, she's a ray of light in the struggling small town of Grace - especially compared to her troubled sister, Raine. Then Summer vanishes. Raine throws herself into the investigation, aided by a most unlikely ally, but the closer she gets to the truth, the more dangerous her search becomes.
A really good read with good characters. Great story. 4*.

Great story, thrilling plot that I could not put down. Well worth a read, and would recommend to others.

All the Wicked Girls definitely was not what I was expecting when I requested it and it really took me by surprise considering how much I enjoyed this. Technically it wasn't the best book ever written but it is well worth the read.

A young girl goes missing and the whole of the community are out looking for her

Summer has a sister called raine and it is raine who is the wild child, the one who should really have got herself involved in something bad. It becomes clear the summer has got herself involved in something very sinister but what....

The book was very well written and very captivating. It had my attention from the first chapter and I really enjoyed this book.

This story is about two sisters, one who disappears and one who goes to the effort of finding her missing sister. This book was hard to put down, and you will be kept guessing til the end

This was a dark and disturbing novel. Takes place in the town of Grace, a deep in the South location. After Summer Ryan goes missing, her twin sister Raine never gives up searching for her. She knows Summer wouldn't just up and leave. The local police are looking for her but Raine believes they aren't doing everything they can. Other local girls have gone missing in the past, called the Briar Girls, and Raine fears Summer will end up as just another Briar Girl. It was a little hard to keep all the characters straight because there seemed to be many. The book didn't grab me the way I thought it would. At times it seemed the plot moved slowly. As we wait for the storm to hit Grace the story picks up just as the clouds broke up. The last 20% of the novel made up for all the slow moments. It was good but not one that I would pick up again.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Summer and Raine Ryan are 15-year-old twins, living in small town Grace, Alabama. Summer is as sunny as her name: a model student who wants to work her way out of her small-town life and become a success – desperate to cast off her reputation as the daughter of small time crook Joe Ryan. Her sister, Raine has gone in entirely the opposite direction and seems to have decided that if she’s going to get the Ryan reputation anyway, she might as well live up to it with all she’s got. Despite their differences, the sisters are extremely close and Raine is devastated when Summer suddenly goes missing – especially given that she’s the sixth young girl to disappear in as many years. Raine is battling her reputation, her family name and the way that the inhabitants of Grace, have decided who deserves their help and who doesn’t in the pursuit of her sister’s disappearance. This is a tightly woven tale of small town prejudices with a fantastic cast and a skilfully constructed plot. You’ll need to pay close attention if you want to second-guess this writer and the ending definitely had me turning the pages backwards looking for all the hints that I’d missed. If you love a mystery that keeps you guessing and a fantastic character-driven novel then look no further. All the Wicked Girls is a wickedly good read and I’m definitely addicted to Chris Whitaker – a British writer who’s beating the American thriller writers at their own game.

Thanks for the opportunity to have read this great book. This is the first book by Chris Whitaker I've read, but it won't be the last. All The Wicked Girls is a gripping crime novel that is dark, intense, and thrilling all in one! The book focuses on the disappearance of a young girl, but she's not the only girl that's gone missing, and maybe also not the last.
Well written, and worth the effort!

The following is my review as posted on Goodreads.

After reading Tall Oaks and loving it, I had high hopes for All The Wicked Girls. Unfortunately, this one fell somewhat short.

The story is of a missing child again, which surprised me as it had been done before. Summer Ryan, a young adolescent, goes missing. Baffling locals and family alike, her sister, Raine, is not convinced that Summer would run away and is convinced that something more sinister has happened. She persists in hassling the local police in her quest for answers as her sister's disappearance is not the first from the surrounding areas.

All The Wicked Girls is very much character driven as indeed Tall Oaks was. But where Tall Oaks was full of quirky characters that continually held your attention, here I felt the same draw wasn't present. There were lots of characters in the book and at times more concentration was required than perhaps I wanted to give in keeping track of them. The novel is slow in parts and occasionally I did think about giving up. However, I persevered and I'm glad I did because the last third of the book was riveting. It's a shame that some of what went on before did but the end saves it. There's no doubt that Whitaker can write and I loved the atmosphere he created and some of the subplots with the smaller characters.

Overall it's a book that is really good in parts and slow in others with a terrific end. I look forward to what else Whitaker will be offering in the future and would like to thank all concerned for my ARC.

A redneck Southern Us story with the usual child abuse and ineffective police department. I struggled to get involved with this story and couldn't relate to the characters at all. Very slow moving and took a long time to progress. Not my kind of book.

Before I get too far into this review let me say that I absolutely loved it!! Parts of it got under my skin and annoyed me, but isn't that the point of a great book?? Put this book on your "to read" list!!

The first thing that annoyed me was the fact that the writing changed from improper English back to proper English numerous times. I understand that this book is set in the midwest, Alabama to be exact. If the author wanted to be authentic the writing would have been a little more consistent. Along the same line, when the point of view changed it was a little abrupt. I understand this may have been the edition I read, but wanted to give readers a heads up.

At 9% into the book, I found it confusing, but after getting further in it made much more sense. There were so many twists and turns that it was hard to pick on to follow through. It was hard to distinguish which were put in to throw the reader off and which were relevant to the case. That ending came out of nowhere. I enjoyed that it was off from what I thought was going to happen and that it was not connected to the over ridding story line.

The depth of each of the characters is something I wish more authors put time into. Each character had their own background and drama that made them individuals. This made that book much more enjoyable.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and author, through NetGalley, in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I was genuinely surprised when,after finishing 'All the wicked girls' I looked up the author and found he was British.
The american voice is so authentic I assumed it was someone who knew the area where Red River (the location of the book) was situated extremely well.
The book delivers on so many levels,trust and betrayal between husband and wife,parent and child. Society and religion,freedom of choice and expectation in a modern,southern society were defly examined against the backdrop of missing girls taken by a supposed serial killer known as 'The Bird'(supposed as no bodiea had been found).
With no commonality between the 'Briar girls',as the missing are known as,Chris Whitaker paints a portrait of a town with no purpose ,no industry and a dying church community.
The narrative whips back and forth between the most recent missing girl(Summer),her twin(Raine) and the boys who are helping search for her sister,her parents and the police/local pastor.
I will admit to having to go back a couple of times to re-read chapters as it was a bit hard to follow to start with but well worth sticking with to the very end.

Chris Whitaker's sophomore novel is a very atmospheric, bleak and haunting story about a teenage girl who vanishes from the small town of Grace in Alabama. Several other 'good' church-going girls have also disappeared from the area during the past year, and there is talk that the girls have been taken by the "Bird", an almost mythical creature. Set in the Nineties in the deep, deep South, this was an intensely character-driven story about a community struggling with poverty, despair, grief, and violence while holding on to a devout belief system and benefiting from a powerful community spirit.
Chris Whitaker's debut, Tall Oaks, was one of my favorite books last year. I have to admit this one was more of an effort to get through. That's not to say it wasn't good. The writing, the plotting, the characterization were superb. Mr. Whitaker has serious talent. As in Tall Oaks, he would lead me to believe one thing and then would completely surprise me. There's nothing predictable here.
However, it was just so depressing and unsettling. I was so glad that at least Noah and Purv's interactions inserted some hope and humor into all the tragedy and despair. I also had problems keeping the large number of characters and their relationships straight. Saying that, since I finished this novel yesterday, these characters have stayed with me and I keep thinking about this book. So it has obviously affected me.

I started off listening to this (audio only available in Europe so far, I think), but unfortunately the narrator did nothing to enhance this story. I didn't feel she made proficient use of the vernacular features that the author employed so skillfully. I would have liked much more variation between the different characters' voices but also consistency for each individual character. This was such an atmospheric, emotional story but the narrator in my opinion did not get this across sufficiently. I gave up on the audio and chose to read the book instead.

So, difficult one to rate and review. Although I'm not sure I can honestly say I 'enjoyed' reading it, the very accomplished writing and the fantastic characterization nevertheless make this a very special book (hope that makes some sense...). I would definitely recommend reading this (don't bother with the audio) but I think you need to be in the right frame of mind in order to enjoy it.

I received an ARC via NetGalley. The audiobook was purchased by myself.

Read it but didn't enjoy it. Too many characters narrating the story and confusing the plot. The book was slow and could have been so much better.

I do like my thrillers but I found this book difficult to get into. The story was interesting to begin with, Summer disappears and her twin sister, Raine keeps searching for her. The town of Grace was dark and compelling. I found it slightly apathetic and filled with violence. There were undertones of abuse and darker shades of human character throughout the story. The book is not for the faint hearted.
There were a lot of characters and this book requires the concentration to keep track of all of them and follow the story.
I am not very fond of this style of writing by Chris Whitaker, but I do understand that the author has kept the dialect and writing authentic, and I appreciate that.
I liked Raine and her determination to find her sister, but the rest of the characters didn't pull me in.
On the whole this is a good read just not for me.

All The Wicked Girls

I haven’t read Chris Whitaker’s first book but I’m adding it to my TBR pile now!

Wow! What an amazingly haunting and atmospheric read. Once I started reading, I truly found it hard to stop. The story haunted my mind and it was all I could think of until I could pick it up again.

All The Wicked Girls is a crime novel with a difference; it absolutely mesmerises the reader with fantastic characters and an addictive storyline.

Fives brilliant stars from purplebookstand.

This atmospheric novel had me completely captivated, it is so intense and utterly enthralling. I throughly recommend this read.