The Quarry Girls: A Thriller

What a roller coaster ride! Tender and heartwarming, thrilling, scary, creepy and sad, this book has it all. It’s told as a narrative from the viewpoint of Heather, a teenaged girl in the late seventies who had been through a horrible, disfiguring accident as a child. Even so, she had a great group of friends who all looked out for her and each other, or so it seems. There’s a darkness in the town, the public officials, the group, and the tunnels that connected the basements of all the houses in the neighborhood. When girls begin to go missing and start showing up dead, and the town officials try to sweep it all under the rug, some dark secrets come to light that will turn the whole town on its axis and change Heather’s world forever.at it’s core this is a story of growing pains, about the transition from childhood to adulthood, with so much more that it will make you stop everything you need to be doing until the book is done. I will now have to look up and read all the books written by this author. Just buy it. Or rent it on Kindle Unlimited, whatever your choice. Read it. Thank me later.

Do you ever finish a book, and just stare into space reveling in how good it was? It is so satisfying when you know a book is going to be absolutely fantastic, and it still manages to blow away your expectations.The Quarry Girls has a lot going on to start. Set in a small town in the 1970s, there are a lot of characters, and everyone knows each other’s business. Nationally, the term “serial killer” is just starting to make waves, but this is the 70’s- everyone hitchhikes, no one locks their doors. Not all is well in Pantown, Minnesota (a real place!) when our story opens with a young woman being kidnapped. Most of the story is told by Heather, 15-going on 30- years old, struggling to keep her family from falling apart, and to keep up with her maturing friend circle. As trouble befalls her friends though, Heather takes on another task- to set things right in a town that, Heather learns, is rotten at the roots.Especially as she composes shock, grief, disgust, and horror reactions in her characters, Lourey’s writing style is poetic and earnest. The imagery of the scenes the characters operate in bring the story to life, from the sounds and smells of the county fair, to the oppressive heat and judgment in the church pews. Though The Quarry Girls takes place in the past, the feminine rage at the injustice the friends face in this book as they transition from girls to women is timeless.I loved this book. It made me cry, I could not put it down once I got into it. I took copious notes and highlights to try to find clues, and I put together a character map to keep track of everyone! There is not a single thing that I would change about this book, but to clarify my take on the intended audience-I would call this a coming-of-age book, not necessarily young adult; the characters are mostly teenagers, but the content of the story contains adult themes and very upsetting events, and I would not want any 15 year old child to read this.

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got a copy of this on ebook through Amazon First Reads.Thoughts: This was an interesting read. I am not generally a huge fan of serial killer/thriller types of books. I was intrigued by the Minnesota setting here and I really did end up enjoying that Minnesota setting. There is a lot of background here on the late 1970's in the St. Cloud area, particularly Pantown. I had no idea that so many awful things were happening in that time frame in St. Cloud. I also didn't know the urban myths around the Pantown tunnels.The story follows Heather as she and her two girlfriends get an amazing opportunity for their all girl band to perform at the county fair. This is overshadowed some by the fact that a girl named Beth has recently gone missing. Their first performance at the fair goes awesome and they are pumped for their next until one of their band members, Maureen, goes missing. Heather is smart and she is sure that Beth isn't a runaway and neither is Maureen, so Heather starts digging. What she finds reveals a nasty underside to their idealistic small town.This was a well done story. I enjoyed Heather as a character, although her home life was seriously messed up and got more so as the story continued. It was an interesting look back in time and really drove home how in a lot of ways a "woman's" place in society has improved. However, it also drove home how far we still have to go. It was scary how easily society accepted the disappearance of these girls and how readily trusted figures in society accepted and even participated in what was happening.This was easy to read and hard to put down. It is definitely a page-turner and the story kept me guessing. The conclusion wasn't as surprising as I had hoped, but I did enjoy how the story wrapped up. It ends on a hopeful note and I really admired how Heather and Beth handled everything.My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed learning about the history of the St. Cloud area and enjoyed the mystery behind this story. This was well written, easy to read, and not too scary. Will I pick up more Lourey books in the future? Well, as I said, I am not a huge fan of this genre but if another Lourey book comes up in a Minnesota setting and it sounds intriguing I would definitely consider it. This was an interesting read and very well written.

I could not put this book down! It was a real page-turner that kept me guessing right to the end.

NA

Great book, quite interesting put it down, and thought the ending was good.Looking forward to reading another book by Jess Lourey

The story is set in a town where every character seems flawed in one way or another. Girls start disappearing. The town has a habit of cover-up and looking the other way. The outcome is never certain before it happens but your guesses wont be too far wrong, either.I read it in about two days but would not describe it as a page turner as you might occasionally find in the action genre. It was more that the author is imaginative with her descriptions, thoughts and ideas.For me, a very minor negative was the use of US slang (possibly regional?). It had me reaching for translation quite a few times.

I found this book very hard to get into. In the end i just gave up .