Darling Girls

Excellent Twisty Thriller With Uniquely Broken Characters Will Be Far Too Difficult For Some. Straight up, I loved this one. It was so *oppressively* dark, yet done in such a way that even though there is truly little light to be had and also with no supernatural element to the darkness at all... you still want to see exactly what happened to make this tale this way.

The reason it will be difficult for some, perhaps many, is because of the *rampant* child abuse, including some sexual abuse and even a rape - though while "on screen" it is more "dark room" based. Still described, but not as... vividly... as it could have been. Showing that Hepworth *does* show restraint when going even more explicit doesn't add anything further to the actual story. There is also a rather horrifying birth scene, though this is far from the "splatterpunk" / "horror" that one reviewer described it as. Though going further would perhaps spoil what happens there *too* much, so I'll show the same restraint in the review that Hepworth did in the text. If such scenes are difficult for you... this may not be the book for you.

The reason I actually enjoyed the book though was because of how the central characters - three chosen sisters bound not by blood, but by shared trauma and survival- were both broken... and how they used that brokenness as adults, showing that even some of the most difficult times, the darkest times of someone's life, *can* be overcome to varying degrees. Not that any of our adults are truly "normal" healthy - again showing a great deal of reality here - but that they're still, to use a term used to describe Autistics that I truly despise but fits here, "functional". Ish.

Ultimately this is one of those books that will likely prove divisive in at least some groups, but I thought was done well, with the author using so many real world horrors (and yes, in my own work through my church as a teen and just generally being an observant adult, I've seen this and so much worse on occassion) to craft the story she is trying to tell... while showing restraint where further graphic details don't add any more needed information to extract the desired emotions from the reader. Showing that Hepworth truly is a master of her craft, even when she is somewhat intentionally pushing some buttons of some people.

Very much recommended.