There are some authors that seem to follow a predictable pattern when they write. That's not always a bad thing. Sometimes a plot twist might be thrown in to keep things interesting. I'm not complaining. Depending on what is going on in my world, predictability can be comforting.
And then there is Janelle Brown. Completely unpredictable, with amazing plot twists, uncomfortable storylines, and endings you won't see coming, Brown holds you in a tight grip until the last line. Pretty Things does not disappoint. The only predictable aspect of Pretty Things is you can't book the darned book down!
Pretty Things guides us through the world of social media. How easy it is to be someone else and live in a fantasy world. Social media can give you power or make you a target. Pretty Things drops us smack in the middle of both worlds. Follow along with Vanessa and Nina. Their stories run parallel throughout the book. Reading first one perspective and then reading the same story from a different perspective creates a wild ride! Just when I start to sympathize or become irritated with the characters, Brown throws in a twist. Can anybody really be trusted? Is anyone who they say they are? All I know is I will tread lightly with my social media footprint.
This is one of Brown's best! Don't try to figure out what happens next while reading Pretty Things. You'll just give yourself a headache.
I voluntarily received a copy of this book from NetGalley.

Could have been really wonderful, but it was all just a bit too.... much and yet not enough. Character development was lacking, plot was very convoluted, and left me feeling like I couldn’t really root for any of the characters but also really couldn’t root against any of them either?

Five stars is DEFINITELY not enough for this incredible book. Everything--the writing, the characters, the plot, the ending--was beyond terrific. What more can I say? I am SO grateful for the opportunity to read this book and I HIGHLY recommend it. Do NOT miss this one!

This book had all the ingredients of my favorite thrillers: a dual POV structure with unreliable narrators, a fancy and isolated locale, jerky rich people, jerky poor people, and so much more.

The story was in turns funny, sad, exciting, infuriating, intriguing, and always engaging. I loved how Nina and Vanessa developed throughout the story and thought the author did a great job creating complex characters who I cared about, or who I at least couldn't stop reading about.

I thought the dual POV was cleverly used, seeing the same scenes from the women's different perspectives. It was fun to see how the emotion of each scene played out differently depending who's POV we were with. While there were a couple spots that were repetitive because of this and a slight bit of manipulation at the end that depended on a POV switch, overall I thought it was a well-used tool. I also liked dipping back and forth in time for the backstory and thought it created a great tension.

However I do wish we'd seen a bit more from Benny and felt that his story was a tad incomplete.

While the ending wasn't exactly unpredictable, it was still satisfying. A ton of fun and story well-told!

I couldn’t finish this book. I got about a third of the way through and had to stop. It reads like a high school girl’s attempt at writing a novel. It was predictable and the characters were annoying.

Who’s the real con? Pretty Things makes it difficult to answer this question. Nina hails from a long line of con artists, and she’s forced to grift as her mother becomes ill and legally lucrative prospects fail to materialize. Vanessa is an heiress turned Instagram Influencer who’s returned to her Lake Tahoe vacation home Stonehaven to lick her wounds from a broken engagement. The two have a link from the past and Nina uses this link to pull the ultimate scam and to also avenge the wrongs from her past. However, the path there is twisty and unpredictable, and there are dormant secrets laying like land mines for both Nina and Vanessa.

Pretty Things is riveting just for the con within a con plot that barrels forward with both a well paced momentum as well as a captivating backstory. However, it ends up being much more than just the Con; it observes classism, the long lasting damage wrought by family, and what I found most interesting - the Con that is social media, the lack of authenticity & the elevation of presenting everything but the reality. Vanessa is a con as much as Nina, both damaged from emotionally distant families, both clutching to what isn’t real to feel loved. I wouldn’t consider it a deeply meaningful social commentary, but Pretty Things is still an incisive and unforgiving look at the con we’re all both being duped by and duping in our social media driven world.

I anticipate that this will touted in 2020 as a must read. A solid 4 stars for the depth I didn’t expect to find, and thought provoking despite being a thriller at heart.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for this ARC.

I have to say first - wow. This was such a solid piece. The writing was strong. So wonderfully strong. There was so much thought and detail packed into this book, that it threw me a little. I read a lot, and it has been quite a while since I have read anything with such substance. Things I’ve enjoyed, yes, but not quite like this one. Pretty Things will be great. Every time I thought I found the twist, Brown threw me for another loop. I loved the characters and their complexity, and I LOVED the plot. Everything ended, tied in a tidy bow. This was my first from the author, but it definitely will not be my last. I highly recommend this one.

Thank you Netgalley for the advance reader's copy in exchange for my opinion/review. Pretty things was a fast and fun read. Current with the times, and protagonists was relatable with her choices. It's crazy to how real it is where shared trauma can bring two people together. Even through scamming ways!

Pretty Things was a great read! Really enjoyed the plot and Janelle Brown's writing. Couldn't put this book down until the end!

'Two wildly different women--one a grifter, the other an heiress--are brought together by the scam of a lifetime.'

Just the above sentence was enough to hook me in and excite me into wanting to read the book. I love a good con story. Cons, revelations, intrigue, deceptions, twists and turns, double cross et al... Count me in. I'm a sucker for such books.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's a smart, compelling and makes for a bloody engaging story.
I love the pacing of the story, the writing style and the characters. Both Nina and Vanessa were well fleshed out characters. I liked that the author took time to flesh them out making them real, believable and fun. I was hooked from page one and couldn't stop reading to know more.

Told in alternate timelines and perspectives 'Pretty Things' is an engaging and an entertaining book. It is a tad long and I think it could have been a 100 pages shorter.
Having said that I must reiterate that I really enjoyed this thriller and can't wait to read more from this author.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for sending me a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed the differences in background of the two main characters. Brown did a great job crafting a story that was engaging and mysterious for the readers. The writing was enjoyable and gripping.

Janelle Brown has crafted an engaging, fast-paced story that will keep readers entertained from start to finish.

This story about two women from very different backgrounds grabs the reader right away. Nina, a grifter, seeks revenge on the family that she believes ruined her life. Vanessa, a high society Instagram influencer, is one of the last remaining members of that family, so she becomes Nina's target. These two women's lives become intertwined in ways they do not see coming. There are twists and turns in this plot that keep the reader guessing and take the main characters down unexpected paths.

The plot of this book involves a con and a heist. By writing from both the grifter's and the target's perspectives, Brown is successful at making the reader sympathize with both and struggle to decide whose side to take. Both women have their good and bad traits. Each has a well-developed backstory that offers insight into their character. The secondary characters are all interesting and add layers to the story. The reader is never quite sure who to trust, and that makes for a fun read.

After reading this book, I am very interested in reading other works by Janelle Brown. She is a talented storyteller, and I would highly recommend this book.

Nina is in a desperate situation and agrees to a con with her boyfriend Lachlan. Their target is Vanessa, a rich influencer who has ties with Nina. Nina's story is told in flashbacks when she was a teenager. They all come together in the winter at Lake Tahoe but who is conning who? The story is a page turner and a bit of a mystery.

I received an ARC in exchange for honest review. I really enjoyed this novel - especially the perspectives from two different main characters. The story was easy to follow but the plot had enough twists to keep you engaged. A great, light thriller read.

What happens when personal histories, family fortunes, and con artists collide? Add mystery and social commentary and you've got Pretty Things. It's a doozy.

Good lord! This book! It has been a long time since I stayed up way past my bedtime reading, and I did it more than once with this page-turner. I couldn't put it down. It came everywhere with me. Riveting, juicy, and fun. Every time I thought I knew where it was going, I was wrong. I am a sucker for a heist-y plot and social commentary, and this has it all. Mystery, intrigue, people doing crimes, and that thing were all the characters are so human, you relate to them and love them despite knowing they’re terrible (or are they?). And while a lot about this is maybe not necessarily suuuuper realistic, there was nothing that ever really took me out of the story and the moment. I devoured it whole. Mark my words, Pretty Things is going to be the hot book of the summer. If you have a vacation coming up or some free time, bookmark this one. And if you read it, I'd love to hear about it!

Thank you, NetGalley and Random House for the advance review copy!

My review will be published on my blog on Friday, January 7:
http://www.caitlinhannah.com/blog/book-review-pretty-things

My review on Goodreads is available now:
https://www.goodreads.com/thecopycait

I really really liked this one - until the end when it felt a little overplayed...

There's just something about con artists... I think a part of the fascination is how easy it is to imagine ourselves falling for someone who has so carefully crafted a story to deliver exactly what we need to hear when we need to hear it. It makes us realize how vulnerable we are to the people around us, and how the only way we could truly protect ourselves would be to cut ourselves off from everyone and everything.

Brown does a fantastic job with the set up here. Her characters are well-developed and each neurotic in their own way. It makes them relatable even when their lives are so very different from your own. She does a nice job pacing the revelations and red herrings early on, and a couple of times the flips and turnarounds caught me by surprise. There's a tremendous slow build that goes on for the vast majority of this book, with secrets and lies building layer upon layer. The back and forth narration really helps build that tension and offered multiple first person perspectives in a way that I found engaging and entertaining.

That said, I thought the ending felt a little forced, and it lost me a little. I can't exactly pinpoint how or why the shift happened, but at some point as the revelations began flowing fast and furious, I started to feel a disconnect from the characters. I don't know what that was about exactly - I've tried to figure it out, but can't put my finger on it. It was still a thoroughly enjoyable read, but my attention did start to wander a little at the end and I thought things fell into place a little too tightly. Still, this was a solid read and I will definitely look for more from Janelle Brown.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my review copy.

I can't put my finger on why, but I did not enjoy this book as much as I had hoped to. I found the story somewhat tedious and predictable. I didn't connect with any of the characters. I was disappointed in the resolution of a few storylines. I could see lots of people liking this book though; it just wasn't for me. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for granting access to this book. I will post this review to my Bookstagram and companion Facebook page, @thatreadingrealtor, by February 3rd.

Ooh this was a fantastic read to start off 2019 with!

Told in differing perspective and timelines, Pretty Things tells us the stories of Nina, a grifter, and Vanessa, a woman who comes from a family with old money and who has paved the way as an influencer.

When I began this book I had no idea what to expect and believe me, it takes you on some twists and turns. It tells you why Nina hates Vanessa and wants revenge and why Vanessa isn’t too keen on Nina. Who exactly will up who? The answer may surprise you. Secrets are exposed, lines are crossed, lies are told, and this twisting, turning thrilled is going to have you up late into the night.

Although this book is a bit longer than most thrillers the writing was so good that I got through it quickly, mostly because I needed to know what was going to happen next.

If you want to start off 2020 on the right foot then this is the book for you!

Pretty Things by Janelle Brown is a must read for 2020!

Nina is a professional con artist who steals from the incredibly wealthy; she targets the trust fund kind of young adults that make it easy with their constant social media postings. Nina is hoping to start somewhere fresh and get out of the illegal business, but her life starts to fall apart, and she is forced to come up with another scam. Nina’s newest scam involves Vanessa, a young socialite media influencer. Vanessa is a chance at revenge, but Nina reminds herself not to get emotionally involved. Past mistakes cannot be undone.

I think Pretty Things will be very popular. It will have you how social media affects how we live our lives. I recommend this book to anyone who loves a good thriller.

The first half was much stronger than the second half and started off very strong.

There were two main POVs: Vanessa’s and Nina’s but I didn't enjoy the story telling of reading the same event with slightly different details.

I ended up DNF-ing this because the story really did not appeal to me.