Such A Pretty Girl

Such A Pretty Girl by Laura Wiess is a novel about a teenager named Meredith Shale. Over the course of the book, Meredith faces a personal demon and successfully defeats it. Her faith also changes within this story; she starts out believing in superstition and chance, but by the end of the story, believes in the possibility of miracles.

The story begins with Meredith smoking a cigarette near the dumpsters outside her apartment building. Her mother rents a condo in the complex and is suing the board because they won’t let her rent a second condo for Meredith’s father. The basis for their refusal is that Meredith’s father is on the sex offenders registry. Meredith doesn’t want her father to come around and seeks her mother’s protection. When her parents return home, Meredith is confused because while she loves her father, she’s also grieved by his actions and their fallout.

They try to order pizza, but the local pizza parlor won’t deliver on account of Meredith’s father, so he decides to cook. Meredith accidentally splashes water on her mother’s silk dress, and her mother flees the room in tears, leaving Meredith alone with her father—even though they’re not supposed to be alone together. He’s hurt that Meredith never visited him in jail. Meredith leaves and goes next door to her friend Andy’s house, where she showers and eats. Meredith’s father abused Andy when he was three years old, so Meredith feels close to Andy.



Meredith recalls when Andy came home after a catastrophic accident. She’d seen him arrive because she was outside burning the letters her father sent from prison. Andy uses a wheelchair now, though his religious parents think he will be cured by some miracle. To that end, Andy tells Meredith that he and his mother are leaving in two days to seek a cure. As Meredith returns home, she remembers being a child and her father telling her that she should watch him and her mother have sex.

Her father is able to rent another condo, because, according to Meredith’s neighbor and a police officer named Nigel, her father has yet to actually be added to the sex offenders’ registry. Later that night, Meredith again ends up alone with her father. He hugs her, then tells her to get dressed, but she sneaks out of the condo. He sees her and follows her to Andy’s house. Andy’s mother tries to hide Meredith in Andy’s room. Upon her mother’s return, Meredith reminds her that her father is a child molester, but Meredith’s mother insists that he just made a mistake. Meredith’s mother won’t acknowledge that Meredith’s rape by her father was terrible and traumatic. Meredith decides to stop her father from molesting more children and goes to her grandmother’s house.

Meredith knows she could safely stay at her grandmother’s forever, but then she wouldn’t be able to see Andy or Nigel anymore. She decides to sacrifice herself, knowing that her father is bound to molest another child. She decides she will be that child so that she can save others. Back at home, Nigel gives Meredith "nanny cams," which Meredith sets up in her room and in the kitchen. Her father tries to talk to her about the fact that he and her mother are going to have another baby. He promises the baby won’t come between them, then gropes Meredith’s breast, which she captures on the camera. After he leaves, she climbs out her window.



Meredith goes to Andy’s. They argue, but after they make up, Andy tells her that he has to move because he can’t live near her father. He invites her to go with him, but Meredith declines because she doesn’t want her father to have the chance to molest more children. Nigel tells Meredith that her father touching her chest isn’t going to be enough to put him back in prison. Meredith’s parents demand she go out to dinner with them, and afterward, Meredith’s father presses against her and comments that he loves watching her walk. When they return to the condo complex, Meredith’s father’s condo has been vandalized.

The next day, Meredith’s parents go to the beach, though she refuses to join them. When they return later that night, her father gives her a unasked for and unwanted hug. When her mother leaves them alone again, Meredith’s father tackles her to the floor and tries to take off her clothes, but Meredith escapes. He pursues her, and she attacks him with a Madonna statue that Andy had given her. Meredith’s mother is arrested for leaving them alone, and her father ends up paralyzed. Meredith is convinced that she was saved by the Madonna, and thus, a miracle occurred. In addition to being paralyzed, Meredith’s father is arrested. She hears from Andy, who is back home because the man who was supposed to cure him died suddenly. But when she sees Andy again at the end of the book, he’s able to stand and walk.