Sunday, October 25, 2015

Book Review: Grant County Series AND Will Trent Series

Yep, you read that title correctly. I am reviewing two series, each made up of six books. That is twelve books total and the best part? I read the entire twelve books over the course of three weeks. My husband thinks I have a sickness, but regardless, I hope that (combined with the craziness of the first quarter of the school year) explains me being MIA since late-August. Now on to the book review....



The weekend prior to Teacher Work Week, I read Cop Town by Karin Slaughter on suggestion from my bestie. It was fantastic and an incredibly quick read, so I decided to delve into Slaughter's first series, the Grant County series, which follows Dr. Sara Linton, the pediatrician and county coroner of Grant County and Jeffrey Tolliver, Grant County's Chief of Police and Sara'a ex-husband. All of the novels in the series (Blindsighted, Kisscut, A Faint Cold Fear, Indelible, Faithless, and Beyond Reach) read like episodes of Law and Order: SVU. Simply put, they include so much sexually-motivated killings. I love SVU, or, as my husband calls it, Rape Case, so the content of the novels really did not bother me, but I understand how someone with a queasy stomach may not enjoy them so much. The storylines are fascinating and connect well, so it was super easy to breeze through that series. There were characters in the series, though, who I began to thoroughly dislike as the series went on (stupid Lena) and the ending of the series was heartbreaking.

After wrapping my mind around the final scene of the final book, I went to the library and checked out the Will Trent series (Triptych, Fractured, Undone, Broken, Fallen, and Criminal), which takes place in Atlanta and follows Will Trent, a GBI special agent, his partner Faith Mitchell, and his sometimes wife Angie Polaski. While the two series are connected, it is not until the third book that any of the characters from the Grant County series are introduced. I really enjoyed reading the Will Trent series because I felt Will was such an interesting character and actually reminded me of some of my students. I did, however, want to punch Angie in the face on the regular because of her horrible treatment of Will.

In all, I think I liked the Will Trent series better because the storylines were so varied (rape, kidnap, drugs, etc.) and were not all SVU episodes like in the Grant County series. Plus, I liked the ending of the Will Trent series MUCH better than the Grant County series (stupid Lena). Regardless, both series completely sucked me in and I now want to read all of Slaughter's books. Definitely a 9/10 for both series!