Those Girls: 4 Stars

Author: Chevy Stevens
Length: 385 pgs.

It’s been a while since I read Chevy Steven’s debut novel Still Missing, and I still remember how creepy and disturbing it was. I saw Those Girls on sale for 2.99 and immediately picked it up. It did not disappoint!

The book focuses on three sisters: Jess, Courtney and Dani. Their dad is an abusive, neglectful alcoholic and they mostly have to fend for themselves. One night their dad comes home drunk yet again and things quickly turn from bad to worse. The girls find themselves on the run.

It was hard, at that point, to read about how the girls had been living: no money, little to no groceries, working on a their landlord's farm to try to make up for the rent that their father was paying late again. Their mother died a few years before, and since then things had deteriorated to the point where they had to take care of themselves, feed themselves breakfast/lunch/dinner (assuming there was enough food in the house to do so), tuck themselves in at night...any mom's heart would break at the thought. Their memories and feelings are visceral, told from Jess's (the youngest sister) point of view, so it's easy to bond with them.

Despite how bad they have it at home, it doesn't get any better once they hit the road. There’s not much assistance to be had for three underage females with no money, unable to go to the police and without any additional family. Their truck ends up breaking down and they’re lucky (?) enough to be offered help by a few people who are passing by. Like one of those eerie movies that takes place in a remote area, the tension slowly builds until we’re convinced-as the girls are-that something terrible is about to happen, something worse than what they’re running from.

Their worst fears are realized-and, after putting themselves in even more danger to get to safety, they find themselves on the run yet again. This time they seek immediate shelter and change their names.

The book then takes an unexpected time jump about 16 years or so in the future. We see how each girl moved on-or didn’t-from their horrifying shared experience. There’s a new character introduced, one who will force the women to face the very real and scary demons from their past. And here is where the second roller coaster begins. The reader’s barely recovered from everything that happened in the first half of the book when our sisters are plunged into danger once again.

I liked the different personalities each sister had and how those contributed to the story. They each carry the weight of their secrets differently.

Steven fosters a masterfully creepy environment, creating a small town I sure as hell wouldn’t want to break down in. The people who live there aren’t any better and the whole thing just gives me the shivers. I had the thought "Get out of there!!!" pop into my head on more than one occasion.

I wasn’t sure how things were going to go, having only read one book by Stevens before this, so I didn’t know if I should anticipate a happy ending or if the characters’ lives were going to continue the pattern of tragedy. I cried with the characters and bit my nails at the events that unfolded over the second half of the book. Like the sisters in the beginning, you KNOW something bad is going to happen, you just aren’t sure how or when.

This was a definite page turner for me. I read it when I was home sick for 4 days and it was the silver lining of a crappy week. And this time I won't wait so long before reading the next Chevy Stevens book!