Hello Beautiful People! Welcome back to another review! I am so excited to be reviewing another new book from one of my other favourite series.
Will Trent is one of Karin Slaughter’s most popular book series. The Will Trent books collide worlds with another one of her book series called Grant County. Will is in a relationship with Dr. Sara Linton who is the main character in that series. I have read all of the Grant County and Will Trent books before reading this newest one. Similarly to the Kate Burkholder books by Linda Castillo, my mom put me onto these series a long time ago and I quickly ate up all of them. While I definitely don’t think you need to read any of the Grant County or other Will Trent books to enjoy this one I think it helps. Specifically, After That Night revolves around some things from Will and Sara’s past. Karen definitely gives explanations to things from past books and doesn’t leave new readers in the dark but it definitely helps to just already know these things. With that, let’s get into it!
Band of Characters:
- Will Trent: GBI Special Agent, Sara’s Fiancé
- Dr. Sara Linton: Medical Examiner, Fiancé to Will
- Faith Mitchell: GBI Special Agent, Wills partner
- Dani Copper: Victim of a sexual assault who died
- Mac, Britt, and Tommy McAllister: Tommy is the son of Britt and Mac (who are very wealthy) and he is accused of assaulting Dani
Warnings for future readers:
- Contains intense sexual assault that is descriptive (Karin does this in an extremely respectful way) and talked about pretty much constantly in the book as it’s the main theme
- Includes murder
- Includes abuse by medical professionals
My Review
For this review I won’t be doing a summary/commentary section as it’s such a new book I would really recommend you give it a read for yourself. As I said before I have been a long-time fan of the series. Due to this, my rating may be slightly affected by how much I have connected with these characters over the years. I just have so much love for Sara and Will as characters and their separate growth, but their growth together also. I am always reminded when I read these books too how grateful I am that they have each other because man they just go through so much shit. I gave the book a 9/10 rating because there was just so much going on in the book, the mystery and twists were awesome, and the book was just so hard to put down once I started.
The book starts off with a prologue three years in the past where Sara is attending to a young woman in the ER of the hospital she once worked in. This young woman is Dani Cooper and she’s in a bad way. Dani confides in Sara that she was sexually assaulted, and due to Sara’s past, she instantly connects to what Dani shares. Dani passed due to her injuries and was never able to express who hurt her before her passing. Sara makes a promise that she will get Dani justice and makes it a bit more personal due to her past. The first chapter starts off with Sara in court facing the man who is being accused of assaulting and killing Dani. The man accused is Tommy McAllister. Tommy’s parents Mac and Britt have a past with Sara as they all did their medical residencies together at the same hospital. Sara’s relationship with Mac and Britt is complicated as the two often belittled and talked down to her when they were all young.
What this whole ordeal does is bring up Sara’s past again. When Sara was a young resident she was drugged and sexually assaulted in the hospital she worked in. The situation was extremely traumatizing for Sara on many levels and it took her a long time to pull herself out of the dark space it put her in, but she did eventually overcame. Something I always appreciated about Karin’s writing is that she never sugarcoats these things. She’s raw and real in a way that is respectful, but also relatable. The pain that Sara feels from her past is one I personally feel a lot of women can relate to. The work that’s required to take ownership back of your body once someone treats it like that is maybe one of the hardest things someone should never have to do. When we talk about things like sexual assault we shouldn’t act like things like perpetrators being convicted and put in jail, or even time, fix these sorts of things. Karin shows that while you can’t ever really heal from things like these it’s more about overcoming more than anything, taking your power back.
Tommy is a character that comes from privilege and has no sense of consequence. His whole life he has been given everything, and always had his parents present to pick up the pieces when he broke things. It’s clear during the trial he has no remorse and finds the whole thing to be a waste of his time. When Britt approaches Sara after the trial Sara’s whole world is turned upside down, and it’s clear things are far more complicated with Dani’s case than things seem. I’ll be honest any time Tommy was in the book my skin crawled. He was just such a terrible person inside and out and even if he was innocent like he claimed he didn’t seem to care at all that someone he knew was dead. The saddest part about it though is that men like Tommy are always products of their environments. I mean sure he could have some form of a personality disorder but I never got that vibe from him. I more so got the sense that he just felt he never had anything to worry about. His Dad isn’t the only one to blame though. If boys aren’t taught to respect their mothers they don’t tend to respect women when they get older.
A main theme that was in the book that was heavily disturbing was the ability for multiple disturbed people to find each other, or the ability for a distributed person to convert others to their ways. It’s kind of hard to tell which it is in the book although I believe it’s just multiple disturbed people managing to find each other and then they feed into each other’s fantasies. I think that’s the scary thing about people who feel like the characters in this book do, there are always others out there that think just like them. Along with that, there are always bystanders. That was one thing that frustrated me about the different characters in the book. They may not be aware of the full severity of things that others are doing but they are somewhat aware, and they do nothing about it. People are so content to keep an arm’s length away so long as it means their lives go unchanged. It’s idiotic…and selfish.
In a book like this where the main theme and the topics are tough in nature, it’s nice to see the positive relationships between the other characters of the book. Will and Faith are the perfect description of opposites attracting and it’s what makes their partnership so great. Will is fairly muted and quiet, he tends to intimidate people with just his presence. Faith is loud and says whatever comes to her mind. Faith tends to get Will to look at things from a different perspective and vice versa Will to Faith. Will tends to calm Faith down and bring her back to reality when she’s all hyped up. When Will is in a mood or stuck in a rut Faith helps bring him out. Along with this Faith and Sara also have a really nice relationship. Sara and Faith run to each other when they need to spill, or just need some advice. They trust each other a lot and Sara trusts Faith to look out for Will when they are working. Now we have Sara and Will’s relationship. Their relationship is what provides light-hearted breaks to an overall horrible story. The unconditional support they have for each other is just so sweet to see. Will has to deal with a horrible family member in this book and does so to help Sara. The whole time her concern is not often for herself but how this may be affecting Will, and Will does the same to her. The two have just been through so many terrible things so it’s nice to know that they at least have each other.
The ending of the story is sad but also relatable. It shows that you may not always get the justice you’re looking for but sometimes you have to take what you can get. Justice is unfair and confusing, there are loopholes to it that people often try to beat. It often falls on the victim to take the brunt of the pain when it comes to looking for justice and it’s unfair that the system works this way. If a victim has passed their voice goes completely unheard and they deserve to have people out there fighting for them, even though it really shouldn’t be a fight.
I hope you enjoyed this review and I would love to know what you thought of the book if you’ve read it. Check out my Instagram @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when a new review comes out!
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