Those Girls by Chevy Stevens

This was a tough read.  I picked it up on a whim at WHPL.  My son was upstairs in the Graham Room getting (yes, more) Weird School books, so I meandered around the new fiction.  The cover looked interesting, as did the snippet on the jacket, so I checked it out along with another book.

I found the writing style to be similar to Gillian Flynn's (of Gone Girl fame, but this was more like Sharp Objects or Dark Places).  I also wish we lived in a world where events like this were only fiction, but alas we hear and read about abductions, hostages, and sexual violence almost daily.  

Jess, Courtney, and Dani live as ranch hands in Canada.  Their mother is dead.  Their father is an abusive alcoholic who disappears for weeks at a time.  Other people watch out for the girls, giving food and clothes when they can, but the girls have also learned to steal what they need.  A loaded shotgun keeps them safe.  When their father returns, drunk and abusive as ever, he gets furious with Courtney.  He has heard rumors of her sleeping around (which are entirely accurate).  Being drunk, he gets carried away in beating her as punishment.  Jess picks up the shotgun and kills him.  Dani, as the oldest, knows what will happen if he is found.  They will be split up, in worse foster homes than ever.  The girls make a run for it, heading for Vancouver, where they can get lost in the city.

Along the way, their battered truck breaks down, but they are "rescued" by the nephews of a local auto shop owner, Brian and Gavin.  I say "rescued" because these young men have rather evil intentions.  The girls are beaten, raped, and tortured.  None of this is described in detail; the author leaves the horror up to the reader's imagination, which inherently makes things worse.  The girls manage to escape with help from a local pub owner, who sets them up with a contact in the city who takes in runaways and juvenile delinquents.  He helps them procure new identities and he and his wife arrange a cheap apartment and jobs.  Several weeks pass when Jess, now Jamie, realizes she is pregnant by Brian.

The intention is to give the baby up for adoption, but Jess/Jamie cannot go through with it and keeps the baby girl, naming her Skylar.  Dani becomes Dallas; Courtney becomes Chrystal.  17 years pass while Dani/Dallas becomes a gym instructor and boxer and Jess/Jamie works the front desk at the gym and as a hotel maid.  Chrystal/Courtney gets involved in drugs.

Jess/Jamie never tells Skylar the truth, instead fibbing she was the product of a summer fling with no way to contact her father.  One night, in a drunken-high stupor, Chrystal/Courtney lets slip what really happened.  She tells Skylar one day she will get revenge.  The next day, she disappears.  Skylar deduces she has gone to find Gavin and Brian and takes off after her aunt.

The remainder of the story is a page turning, quick moving series of events.  Gavin and Brian are no better than when we last saw them 17 years ago. Although Brian has married and has two children, Gavin seems to be sicker than before, especially with the comments he makes toward and about his existing and new found nieces.

Again, this was a tough read, but it was also inspiring.  I have two younger sisters and would do anything for them.  Dani, Jess, and Courtney go through horrors I cannot even fathom, but their bond is unbreakable.

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