While Karin Slaughter’sWill Trentnovels have become a huge network TV hit for the author, her most popular book would be far harder to adapt to the screen. American crime author Karin Slaughter is a phenomenally popular writer whose novels have sold more than 40 million copies since her 2001 debutBlindsighted. HerWill Trentnovel series has been adapted as an ABC series of the same name, andWill Trent’s season 4 renewalproves her work is as popular onscreen as it is on the page.
However, despite how popular Slaughter’s work is, her writing does run into an issue that earliercrime mystery writers like Agatha Christienever struggled with. Slaughter’s mysteries can get capital G grisly, with the violence and twisted content of her novels typically leaning closer toSe7enorSilence of the Lambsthan one of Hercules Poirot’s cases. This was an issue with theWill TrentTV show, which wisely sanitized the nastiest elements of the source material for network TV.
Karin Slaughter’s Pretty Girls Is Her Biggest Thriller Ever
The 2015 Psychological Thriller Was An Acclaimed Bestseller
However, this same issue makes it almost impossible for network TV to create a faithful adaptation of Slaughter’s most popular novel.2015’s standalone psychologicalPretty Girlsis Karin Slaughter’s best-known book by far, with over 600,000 ratings onGoodreadswhereas the rest of her books have less than 200,000. Despite this, it will be a long time before the novel receives an adaptation that is true to its tone and content.
Pretty Girlsfollows Claire, a protagonist who is disturbed by her older sister Julia’s disappearance decades before the book’s story begins. This unsolved mystery haunts Claire and leaves her family estranged, so when another girl’s disappearance displays eerie similarities to Julia’s fate, Claire naturally feels compelled to investigate. Suffice it to say, the horrors of what happened turn out to be far closer to him than Claire ever expected in an edgy, unpredictable thriller that goes much further than the otherwise comparable likes ofThe Girl on the TrainorGone Girl.
Pretty Girlswas listed as one of the Best Books of 2015 inThe Wall Street Journal,The Huffington Post, andRedbook, as well as gaining a coveted starred review fromKirkus.
Even thrillers thatStephen King recommends like Riley Sager’sFinal Girlsrarely feature the sort of intensely disturbing content thatPretty Girlsincludes. The novel was nominated for the “Readers’ Favorite Mystery and Thriller” Goodreads Choice Award in 2015 and was dubbed a “Book of the Year”byReachercreator Lee Child.Pretty Girlswas also listed as one of the Best Books of 2015 inThe Wall Street Journal,The Huffington Post, andRedbook, as well as gaining a coveted starred review fromKirkus.
Will Trent’s Success Proves Karin Slaughter’s Book Can Be Successfully Adapted
The ABC Series Has Lasted Three Seasons
With all of this praise and acclaim heaped on the 2015 standalone thriller,it seems obvious thatPretty Girlsshould be Karin Slaughter’s next screen adaptation. After all,Will Trent’s exciting season 4 renewalproves that her work resonates with audiences when translated to the screen, and 2022’s Netflix miniseriesPieces of Herwas popular with viewers despite mixed reviews. There is just one problem with this, and that is the content of the novel itself. As well as being lauded by reviewers and readers,Pretty Girlshas another, more unexpected legacy.
Pretty Girls Is Way Too Dark For A Network TV Adaptation
The Novel Features A Lot Of Extremely Intense Content
As surprising as it may sound,Pretty Girlsis often listed as one of the“Most Disturbing Books Ever”in BookTok and BookTube videos on the topic. Impressively enough, Slaughter’s book is one of the only bestsellers on lists that are typically composed of much less famous (and much less mainstream) splatterpunk horror novels and obscure literary efforts. While both lesser-known works of literary fiction and intentionally boundary-pushing horror books from small publishers unsurprisingly make up the bulk of these lists,Pretty Girlsmore than earns its place in the rundowns.
Will Trentis set to return with season 4 in early 2026 on ABC.
Explaining the main reason for the book’s notoriety requires some spoilers, so readers who want to find out what the fuss is about for themselves should steer clear of the following two paragraphs. The plot ofPretty Girls is eventually revealed to center on the topic of snuff films, and the novel goes into a lot of detail about the contents of a twisted serial killer’s collection of tapes. The level of intense description pushes past most other books in the genre, and most books, broadly speaking, with Slaughter leaving little to the reader’s imagination.
Pretty Girlsis fundamentally a story about gender-based violence and its traumatic aftermath.
At times,Pretty Girlsis a more bracing read thaneven Stephen King’s darkest storiesas the violence and torture are grounded, believable, and almost unbearably nasty. This undeniably makes for a thoroughly shocking reading experience, but it also makesPretty Girlsway too intense to faithfully adapt to network TV. Except as a boundary-pushing shocker, it is hard to even imagine the novel even being faithfully brought to life on streaming services or cable, where censorship norms can typically be more lax.
Why Karin Slaughter’s Pretty Girls Still Doesn’t Have An Adaptation
The Novel’s Subject Matter Explains Its Lack of a Screen Adaptation
By keeping the most harrowing and intense story elements off-screen unlike the book,Pretty Girlscould work as a conventional miniseries in the vein ofTrue DetectiveorSharp Objects. However, there is an argument to be made that this might miss the point of the novel, and what made it viscerally impact readers in the first place. UnliketheWill TrentTV series, which can elide the nastier parts of the novels and maintain roughly the same tone and style,Pretty Girlsis fundamentally a story about gender-based violence and its traumatic aftermath.
Slaughter’s book might be sensational and thrilling, but from its unnerving title to its supremely upsetting and violent content,Pretty Girlsis an unapologetically brutal story. The novel has a point to make about the horrors that its female victims are put through, and sanitizing the story to make the plot more palatable could result in a tawdrier, more exploitative miniseries. Ironically, faithfully adapting the violence of the novel is arguably the more respectful and responsible approach.
A version ofPretty Girlsthat stays true to the book would never command as big an audience as Will Trent.
That said, it is tough to imagine viewers flocking to watch a show or movie that faithfully recreates the horrors of Slaughter’s bestselling book. Even in an era when theTerrifiermovies pack out multiplexes, a version ofPretty Girlsthat stays true to the book would never command as big an audience asWill Trent’s season 3 finale. As such, Karin Slaughter’s most famous novel is unlikely to ever share the successful page-to-screen journey thatWill Trenthas enjoyed.
