SO MUCH PRETTY: REVIEW AND BONUS ENTRIES!

SO MUCH PRETTY
BY CARA HOFFMAN

REMINDER ABOUT THE BOOK:

Stacy Flynn is a reporter looking for her big break. She moved from Cleveland to Haeden, a rural, upstate New York that counts a dairy farm as its main employer and is home to families whove set down roots and never leftpeople who dont take kindly to outsiders. Five months after a local girl disappears, her body is found in a ditch just off one of Haedens main roads. Suddenly, Flynn has a big story, but no one wants to talk to her. No one seems to think the killer could still be among them. Alice Piper is a precocious, confident 15-year-old with a genius IQ and strong ideals.

When Alice reads Flynns passionate article in the paper about violence against womenabout the staggering number of women who are killed each day by people they knowshe begins to connect the dots of Wendys disappearance and death, leading her to make a choice: join the rest in turning a blind eye, or risk getting involved. As Flynn and Alice separately observe the locals failure to acknowledge a murderer in their midst, Alices fate is forever entwined with the victims when a second crime rocks the town to its core.

If you missed my first post about this amazing book, please go HERE to enter for the first part of the entries and entries on this post will be BONUS entries giving you more chances to win!

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT CARA HOFFMAN:
CARA HOFFMAN has won a New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for her work on violence and adolescents and has worked as an investigative reporter covering New York State's rural and Rust Belt communities, where she reported on environmental politics and crime. This is her first novel.
Here is a little more about Cara's views on books and writing:

Q. Who are your favorite authors?A. Paul Bowles, Louis Ferdinand Celine, David Wojnarowicz, Zora Neale Hurston, George Orwell, Joan Didion, Simone DeBeauvoir, Hannah ArendtQ. What are your 5 favorite books of all time?A. Close to the Knives, Journey to the End of the Night, Slouching Toward Bethleham, Mules and Men, The Second Sex, Orwell's EssaysQ. Is there a book you love to reread?A. Close to the Knives
To read more questions and see Cara's answers, visit "Author Revealed" at Simon & Schuster HERE

MY REVIEW:
Cara Hoffmans debut novel, SO MUCH PRETTY, is a captivating thriller that is sure to win her many fans. This story will grab your attention as it is disturbing and also might make you angry when the towns residents ignore a recent murder rather than admit that anything could be wrong in their perfect and peaceful village. The little town is known as Haeden, New York, where the story starts out with young Wendy White happily out on her own for the first time with a job and a boyfriend. Life is good. Good until one day Wendy comes up missing and although her parents are frantic and police investigate, Wendy is nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile, Stacy Flynn, a reporter from Cleveland, has come to Haeden to write an investigative piece on the environmental impact of the towns number one employer, a dairy. The runoff from its farm is quite possibly detrimental, and poisoning animals as well as people who live near the outskirts of Haeden. With the dairy having such a strong presence in the town, this is the last thing that the residents want someone causing trouble about. While Stacy is there, five months after the disappearance, Wendy Whites body is found in a ditch near Haeden. Realizing this may be a bigger story, Stacy gets right on it but gets no cooperation from anybody in town. She cant understand why they would ignore something like this. Stacy begins to have suspicions about the whole town and everyone in it. They all are just sure it was the deed of a long gone stranger and thats that!

Meanwhile, the second most important character is that of fifteen-year-old Alice Piper who has moved with her parents, who are both doctors, from New York to what they thought would be a better place to raise their family. Alice is literally a genius and some people think she is too big city and has an attitud! e. Alice is also an accomplished swimmer and remembers Wendy White from the swim team at school. She also doesnt think things add up in Wendys murder. After reading some of Stacys press about how violence against women is often treated differently, Alice has to agree and when another terrible crime happens, she and Stacy are somewhat thrown together. The rest of the town, of course, again assumes it was a stranger and not one of their own.

Will Stacy and Alice be proved right or will they get in so deep that they also are in danger? The narrative takes off on a cunningly dangerous and emotional direction with Cara Hoffmans very well-controlled writing which includes her narrative using both first and third person point of view. This allows readers to see into all the well drawn characters. While she keeps readers turning the pages with this fast paced thriller, she also makes a statement on how some political machines can run a town of any size and how environmental issues are always pushing peoples buttons. I think Hoffman did a wonderful job and I eagerly will look forward to her next novel!


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