SPOILERS: The Girl Before by Rena Olsen

The Girl Before by Rena Olsen
Audiobook Narrated by Brittany Pressley
Full Summary with Spoilers and Ending

Disclaimer

Personally, I have always been a fan of spoilers! I am the type who starts with the last pages of a book first, reads the synopsis of a movie while I am watching it and constantly checks Reality Steve before and during any Bachelor franchise show. I like spoilers and find that 98% of the time they enhance my enjoyment and appreciation of the book/movie/tv show rather than hinder it. Based on my own extensive spoiler googling I believe there are other people out there who enjoy these spoilers as much as I do, so I am posting these full spoilers for them. At this time I have decided to only post spoilers for books that have been released for at least 6 months. I know there are many people who do not appreciate spoilers and do not want to hamper anyone's experience of reading a new release inadvertently. I will also only be focusing on books without any easily accessible spoiler summary available. If you would like to read my non-spoiler review of the book please click the link below and I hope you enjoy the spoilers!

FULL REVIEW

Note

This book is structured with one main story line of Clara in the present frequently inter-cut with flashbacks to Clara's past out of chronological order. For clarity I am writing this synopsis in chronological order of Clara's life, not in chronological book order.

Spoiler Synopsis

7-year-old Diana McKinley is lured into the car of Mama Mae and Papa G at the park near her house. They get her in the car by saying her parents asked them to pick her up and bring her home, they know her parents and sister’s names as well as other details about her and them. Once she is in the car they change the story and tell her that her parents didn’t want her anymore. They say her parent’s wanted money more so Mama and Papa paid a lot of money to take her off their hands so she will work hard and do whatever they say to pay them back. Diana is told that is no longer her name, they say her name is now Clara and she will forget who Diana was or that she ever existed. Young Clara is a malleable and easily trainable girl who impresses Mama right away and prompts her to tell Papa G, "She will do great things for us." The adults take Clara to their ‘compound’ and tell her to share a bed with a girl named Macy. Macy says her real name is Ella and that her parents sold her to Mama and Papa as well. On this first night, Macy and Clara form a tight bond and Clara resolves that she will never be unwanted again. At the age of 12 Clara is called into Papa G's office to meet a man named Mr. Q. When he leaves Papa tells Clara that Me. Q is her client, ‘client’ is the name Mama and Papa give to the person who will be buying and taking the girls with them after Mama and Papa deem them ready. Mr. Q requests Clara be fluent in at least three languages (she is already fluent in one and well versed in another three), Papa G says that will be no problem by the time Mr. Q returns for her after she has turned 16.

Although she is initially beaten for it Mama Mae convinces Papa G to allow the boys and girls, usually kept strictly separated, to come together for a dance class. The boys are kept at a different location where they are trained in a military-style to become guards for the Clients or Papa G himself. At the dance class, Mama and Papa's son Glen takes a liking to the now 15-year-old Clara, selecting her as his dance partner and flirting throughout the dance. After the dance class, he continues to pursue her, encouraged by Macy the two regularly sneak away to meet up in secret. Later Clara overhears the almost 18-year-old Glen arguing loudly with Papa G. Papa has refused to give Clara to Glen due to her already being promised to Mr. Q, a very special and very wealthy client. Glen is furious because Papa had told him he could pick any girl he wanted and he wants Clara. When the two meet next Glen tells Clara that he doesn’t care what Papa says, they will run away and live their lives together.

A few days later Clara and Glen leave in the middle of the night and walk five miles to the nearest town. There they get on a bus that takes them to a different town where they decide to see a movie while waiting for their next bus. When they leave the theater they are surrounded by Papa and his men who take the couple back to the compound and beat them for running away. Glen is defiant, saying the pair will continue to run away unless Papa lets them get married. Faced with his son’s ultimatum Papa agrees to let them marry on the condition that Glen pays him the full price Mr. Q was going to pay for Clara. Such a large price would take years and Glen is horrified that his father would make him buy Clara but seeing this as the only option he agrees. After this deal is struck both Glen and Clara begin to train directly under Papa and Mama to prepare for their eventual take over of the business. Mama shares her disappointment with Clara about this situation she tells Clara that she was meant for so much more than this life and makes mention of three daughters she had before Glen. Clara wonders about these daughters because she has never met any girls who would be Mama and Papa's biological children but does not question Mama further.

One day Clara is tutoring the younger girls when Glen comes in, although they are still being separated and under strict restrictions after "the incident" he breaks the rules sometimes to spend time with Clara. Macy, also in the class with Clara, enjoys breaking rules and encourages this behavior in the young couple. Macy takes credit for Glen and Clara's relationship, stating it was her encouragement to break the rules that led to Clara and Glen first getting together. Macy has continued to sneak out to meet the boys for years until one day she is caught in the act. Macy is publicly whipped in the center of the boys camp before being sent to one of Papa's other businesses called 'The Treehouse.’ The separation from Macy deeply affects Clara and she continues to bring her up with Glen Mama and Papa, all three of whom react negatively to Macy's mention. When Clara brings up Macy to Papa it elicits an outburst where he calls Macy a whore and says she deserved what she got. The next time Clara sees Macy is a year later at her wedding, as she walks down the makeshift aisle Clara sees Macy waiting at the end standing as her maid of honor. Clara is shocked by Macy's emaciated appearance and downtrodden look, after the wedding she questions Macy about where she has been. Macy tells Clara she has been forbidden from discussing it but after more pushing, she admits The Treehouse is not a nice place, it is a place where men come and pay for an hour of her time.

Years pass as Clara and Glen continue to be trained; eventually leading Glen to be given his own smaller business based out of the city instead of the compound. One day Papa returns distraught from a meeting and announces they all must leave because he has lost the entire business and compound in a bad bet. Mama argues with him like neither Clara or Glen has seen before and takes a ferocious beating for it, a few days later the man who won the be unexpectedly arrives early to stop them from trying to get away with documents about the business and items (exactly what they were trying to do). Mama, Papa G, Glen, and Clara leave with Glen's friend and best man Joel hidden in the back of the car. Together they go to the small city apartment that is the base of Glen’s portion of the business since it was not included in the bet. Shortly after the client picks up the first girl trained in this new era Clara meets a newly arrived girl who has fought the whole way and has destroyed the room she was taken to. Clara names the girl Passion for the violet passion the girl expresses in her new ‘home.’ Passion proves to be the most resistant girl they have ever had but she forms a bond with Clara. Over the next years, Clara trains up Passion making her effectively her assistant/right-hand girl despite Passion’s refusal to listen or behave for anyone else.

Eventually, Glen builds the business back up buying land and building a compound of his own. This prosperity allows Mama and Papa to buy and live in their own house, Papa is facing many health issues and supposedly retired but still has his hand in the business much to Glen's dismay. At a thanksgiving dinner Glen announces they are expecting a baby, this announcement annoys Clara since the last time they announced they were having a baby she miscarried within a few days. Papa and Mama show their clear disapproval of this situation but Glen shuts them down as a show of dominance. When they are alone Mama gives Clara a special tea she says helps with nausea, two weeks later Clara miscarries.

After Papa G’s death, Glen invites Clara to accompany him and Joel on a business trip to South Dakota, giving her and ID card with a different name on it and instructing her on their story. Clara is excited to be going on her first real trip out of the compound with Glen but also nervous that Mama Mae has been left to watch after the girls. In South Dakota they meet a college of Glen's Mr. Harrison, Glen introduces Clara telling him he brought her to 'help with the girls.' Harrison seems impressed by Clara and instructs her to go with a woman named Genevieve after whispering something in Genevieve's ear. Clara is taken to meet a group of girls dressed in skimpy outfits and told to pick 5 girls to take back with them, all the girls seem amazed that she is Glen's wife and only with one man. The next night Harrison calls the pair to his office and tries to get Glen to give him Clara in exchange for a total of 7 girls when Glen refuses Mr. Harrison attempts to take her by force. Joel kills Harrison, his bodyguard, and Genevieve before the group flees the scene with the girls.

Clara is alone with the girls while Glen is away, something that always makes her nervous. Glen’s right-hand man Joel comes to the house, something no man other then Glen is permitted to do, making her feel uneasy. She brushes this instinct off reasoning that since Joel is in charge when Glen is gone it must be alright. Joel informs her that Glen will not be back that night as he has been delayed on his trip, Joel then tells Clara that he remembers seeing her at the dance class and that he had his eye on her. Joel says he would have made his move but Glen got to her first. Later that night Clara finds Joel in the room of one of the young girls, he is drunk and about to rape a young girl named Grace. Clara knows she must get him away from the girls and get them safe so she offers herself in place of Grace. Clara leads Joel to the guest bedroom where he beats then violently rapes her. The next morning Clara takes one of Glen’s guns and shoots Joel in the groin before locking him in the guestroom. When Glen arrives Clara tells him what happened the night before, Glen orders Clara to get the girls out of the house. When Clara comes back Joel is gone.

After her third miscarriage, Clara is comforted by Mama who tells her more about Glen’s sisters. Mama tells her that Papa sold all three of her baby girls and that she never found out what happened to them. Clara is astonished by this revelation but it does little to comfort her, instead she becomes more suspicious of Glen and his ever more frequent nights out and more nostalgic for Macy. After meeting and briefly talking to one of the girls in Glens brothel Clara discovers that Macy disappeared from the brothel not long after her wedding. One night while Glen is out she sneaks into his office and retrieves the key to the safe hidden in their bedroom. She looks for information on where Macy could have gone in the safe, what she discovers that Macy died of a sexually transmitted disease shortly after her wedding and was buried in an unmarked grave on the property.

On a highly anticipated 'auction day,' a chance for clients who haven’t made specific arrangements to come and pick girls, Clara is thrown off when the time and place is suddenly changed to their house. Clara proudly presents her older girls for auction and is pleased by how they comport themselves. This feeling changed to astonishment when Glen orders her to bring down the youngest girls after one client speaks to him privately. Clara initially refuses telling Glen that they are too young, he deals her a vicious slap and orders her to do it. Reluctantly, Clara asks Passion to bring the youngest girls down and is horrified when the client takes a few of her youngest, most untrained girls with him.

Clara's world is turned upside down when her and Glen’s compound is raided by two agents named Meredith and Connor and Glen is taken away. Through the insanity around her, Clara only focuses on brushing her 'daughter' Daisy's hair. Clara is taken to a hospital where all those around her call her Diana and question her about Glen. As he was being taken away Glen told her not to talk, so Clara resolves not to until he says otherwise. Clara stays in a catatonic state refusing to eat until the agents give her a note from Glen telling her to. Eventually, they bring her to the prison where Glen is being held to let the two speak, Glen tells her to talk so that she appears to be cooperating. Glen tells Clara that the fate of himself and Mama Mae depends on her answers stresses that she must not mention any of his other businesses or what happened in South Dakota. He says the most important thing is that she not tell them or give any impression that she has ever met Mama Mae or Papa G. With Glen’s blessing Clara agrees to begin talking to the agents.

Connor and Meredith show Clara a video of her ‘daughters’ being reunited with their families, a sight that sends her into a deep depression. Connor tries to placate her by calling them her daughters and apologizing that the video upset her. He says he only showed it to her because he thought it would comfort her to know her daughters were being taken care of. He says their previous families have agreed to take care of them for the time being and it was deemed good since the girls already knew these families. Although this comforts Clara a little when she continues to think about her girls in the hands of the families who gave them up and might not be taken care of the way they need to be (particularly Passion who was not seen reuniting with a family in the video) she returns to her catatonic state again. Eventually, Clara attempts to harm herself and is sedated.

Clara awakens to find herself chained to the bed and facing Meredith who says that she needs to start talking now. Meredith continues to call her Diana, refusing her repeated pleas to call her Clara. Meredith questions her about the names of Glen’s associates and Clara gives her the names she knew (all code names, she was not privilege to their real identities) prompting an explosion of rage from Meredith. Meredith yells at her that kidnapping is no joke, harshly asking if Clara even cares about what happened to those girls. Clara is incensed by Meredith’s implications because the parents gave the girls up. She was the one that took care of them, she groomed them, nurtured them to go on to do great things. She was raising them to live with kind, rich men who would have them serve as nannies and tutors for their children. Clara talks back to Meredith who slaps her, at this Connor storms in and orders Meredith to leave. Clara is shocked at the kindness he shows her and thinks how no one has ever treated her that way before without wanting something from her.

Connor sends her to visit a women’s prison for a day, the prison is horrifying to Clara and becomes even more so when she witnesses a woman being brought into the medical wing. The woman was severely beaten, stabbed and had feces shoved down her throat. Seeing this causes Clara to vomit and pass out before being rushed back to her hospital room. The next day Clara is taken to meet with a psychologist named Dr. Mulligan, she is comforted by Dr. Mulligan who immediately begins gaining her trust by letting her keep a notebook and making sure no one (not ever her) would read it. A few days later Connor barges in on their session, trying to ask questions and look at Clara's notebook. Dr. Mulligan shuts this down and the two have a conversation outside where Clara can still hear them. Connor argues that they need answers and fast for their case against Glen, Dr. Mulligan makes her disgust with the way they have been handling this situation clear. She admonishes him for scaring Clara with questionings, agent beatings, and prison as well as for not taking Clara to her sooner. Connor defends himself by saying they didn’t deem it necessary at the time, Mulligan is outraged that "a clearly damaged and traumatized woman is rescued from a brothel training house and you don’t think she needs counseling?" Clara is furious at this conversation, bursting out into the hallway and yelling "Rescued? I wasn't rescued; I was taken from my home, separated from my husband and my daughters and kept in a tiny room with only idiots to talk to and you wonder why I've stayed quiet?"

The next time Connor interviews Clara he is accompanied by a new agent named Jay, Clara tells them information about how she trained the girls and what role she played. When they ask about what the men did she tells them they were never allowed near the girls and that Glen was very suspicious of them, stopping short of mentioning Joel before abruptly ending the interview. The men try to get her to keep talking but she refuses, stating she will not talk to them anymore unless they allow her to send a letter to Passion. They agree and the next day Connor returns with a reply from Emily, Passion's real name. Clara is shocked when during their interview Connor produces a picture of Joel and asks how he ended up dead in a ravine with his genitals missing. Clara tells them everything she knows about the night Joel raped her, admitting that she was the one who shot him and that she never saw him again after Glen asked her and the girls to leave the house that day. Later Jay brings Clara to the visitor’s room where Mama Mae is waiting. Initially, Mama Mae acts as harshly towards her and pretends they have never met. Later Mama whispers to Clara that Glen loves her and is proud of her, telling her to stay the course. Clara shares her worry they that 'ruined' Glen's life with Dr. Mulligan after seeing Mama Mae, in this discussion Clara lets the first hint of her true relationship to Mama and Papa slip before going silent again.

After Clara becomes ill and faints in front of Jay and Connor again they send her to be looked at medically and discover she is having a baby. Shortly afterward she goes to visit Glen again in prison, although Connor urged her not to when Clara sees how poorly Glen appears to be doing she tells him about the baby. Clara then attends a support group meeting at Mulligan's insistence but it mystified when she discovers it is for victims of sex trafficking and prostitution, something she feels has no connection to her. This event causes her to briefly stop talking again before she is visited again by Mae. Mae does not seem enthusiastic about the baby news and becomes annoyed when Clara asks about Glen's lawyer, stating that it was hard to get a lawyer for “a case like this.” This confuses Clara, there was a very good reason why Glen killed Joel and the kidnapping charges couldn’t possibly stick once they realize that the children were all given up by their parents.

This meeting with Mama sets Clara on the mission that her baby will not be born in prison and leads her to break her ongoing silence with Mulligan, Jay, and Connor. At the next support group meeting, Clara hears the story of a girl named Erin who was not taken and forced into prostitution like most of the other group members. Erin was a runaway who got hooked on drugs and taken in by a bad group of people who eventually began prostituting her. Clara finds this story ridiculous, believing Erin did this to herself and laughs out loud when Erin mentions how this man would hit her. At the leader, Heather’s insistence Clara explains her outburst to the group. She tells them that it is normal to be hit from time to time, how else are we supposed to learn not to do things? Glen hit her from time to time but it didn’t mean he didn’t love her, he was teaching her and helping her to become better. Hitting was a way he showed his love. At Clara’s explanation the faces of the other group members change from furious to pitying, this deeply confuses Clara and when Connor comes to get her she asks if he hits his girlfriend. Connor adamantly denies this and says no one should ever hit a person they love and that it is not a sign of love.

This revelation causes Clara to have her first breakthrough, leading Dr. Mulligan and the agents to tell her about her real family. The group tells her that her real name is Diana McKinley and her parents have never stopped looking for her. They explain her parents were informed as soon as her identity was medically confirmed and have been trying to get in to see her ever since but Connor and Mulligan did not think she was ready. Clara does not believe them and lets the first critical piece of information slip when she bursts out that Mama told her they didn’t want her. This is the first time that she has given any genuine slip of information saying she knew Mama and Papa before her marriage to Glen or about her upbringing. Now seriously questioning her life for the first time Clara becomes nervous that if her parents didn’t give her up and she was taken (something she still isn't convinced of) then how would they accept her after living the life she has lived?

Clara decides to test this and tells part of her story at the next group meeting. Although the majority of the group members are supportive of her, one member named Pam has Clara's worst-case scenario reaction. Pam tells her that he is just as responsible as Glen, saying "don’t you care about them at all, you knew exactly what you here doing, you were training them to become sex slaves." Heather firmly admonishes Pam and removes her from the group but the damage was done. Now convinced her entire life was a lie, that she is a horrible person for everything she has done and that her family will never accept her. Dr. Mulligan and a friend of Clara's from the group named Tori work hard convincing her that Pam was wrong and her parents will accept her. Eventually, Clara agrees to meet her family, although she does so reluctantly. When she meets her family (mother Jane, father Doug, and sister Charlotte) she is overwhelmed by the love and immediate connection she feels to them. She is entranced by the stories about herself as a child and how they have never stopped looking for her.

Later Charlotte joins Clara at a group meeting where she shares her story and talks about what it was like as a family member of a disappeared child. Charlotte says Diana's disappearance has been a black cloud over her life; she blames herself for it because she had gone with Diana to the park but then left her there when she got annoyed with her younger sister. Charlotte had snuck back into the house and didn’t confess what she did until a couple of hours later when she overheard her parents talk about going to the park to pick them up. Together the three rushed into the car and over to the park but Diana was nowhere to be found. Charlotte says the guilt of this has destroyed her, especially because as the years went on and every holiday or event was almost haunted by the ghost of Diana. Charlotte admits that she began to hate Diana making her only feel guiltier for hating her. Clara says it is in no way her fault since Mama and Papa knew her name and details of her life they had probably been planning her abduction and if Charlotte hadn't left them most likely would have taken her as well. This is a bonding moment for the sisters and solidifies to Clara that she was indeed laid to her entire life and that what she had been doing was very, very wrong. Clara resolves to assist in the investigation and atone for her life's mistakes.

Clara agrees to visit Mama while wearing a wire, during the meeting she gets Mama to make references to her raising her and tries to get her to say where Macy's body is buried. Throughout the conversation, Mama tells Clara that the tea she had given her during all her previous pregnancies caused her to miscarry. That this was done on papas orders because he believed they were not ready to have a baby and shouldn’t until Clara was at least 25. This horrifies Clara and is the cause for Clara to snip the last ties of the connection she still felt to Glen and Mama. during the next meeting with Connor he tells her, they found Glen's operation while investigating the death of Frank Mundy (known to Clara as Mr. Harrison) and an undercover agent discovers a girl with 'Mundy's Mark' at one of Glen's brothels. The investigation grew and a raid was planned on the auction day until glen caught wind of it moved it to a new location they didn’t know. Connor asks Clara for more documentation to solidify their case against Mama Mae, Clara says she knows where some probably is but to retrieve it she needs to return with them to her old house.

Once at her house Clara retrieves the key to Glen's safe from its hiding space and shows them the hidden safe in their bedroom they hadn't previously located. She opens the safe with the key and the code (their anniversary) revealing the hard evidence documents needed to make their case. Meeting with Glen one final time Clara tells him that she was the one who gave the evidence that is putting both him and Mama away. Although the prosecutors for the case refused to press charges on her, Clara insists that she be held responsible for her actions. She is sentenced to time served in the hospital, a year in a recovery home for victims of abuse and community service.

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