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dilldaise's review against another edition
1.0
I tried and tried to like this book. By page 117 I just scanned the rest. It is so discombobulated to me just didn't flow at all.
kblincoln's review against another edition
4.0
Maybe more like 3.5 stars. This one lost me partway through, although the last third of the book, when everything comes together in a quite horrific way, did pick up the pace enough for me to start getting into it again.
The story of Wendy White's disappearance, and the impact that disappearance has on another girl her same age in their small town is told through shifting POV's and documents (evidence in the cases) at shifting points in the timeline . While this creates a textured, multi-layered feeling to the truth of the matter (and in some cases, as in the perpetrator's mother's POV, a horrifying willful blindness) it also kept me scrambling to remember details of who knew who, and who had done what to whom at certain points in the story.
So I got a bit lost/frustrated about midway and put the book down. Luckily, finishing a book I've gotten at least 1/3 of the way through is like a geas on me, so I picked it back up. There is a pay off in the end, as you slowly realize what happened (and then are graphically shown what happened-- yikes) to Wendy, and what Annie, the other girl plans to do about it.
This book grapples with the loss of innocence, and naivety vs idealism, and misogyny and classism-- all in the context of a small, struggling poor town. It's not pretty. Nor does it leave you with very much hope at the end. However, it does deliver an impact, and a question, that I, as a woman, want to ignore.
Why do we, as a society, blindly allow violence and abuse against women?
It's not a comfortable question or read.
The story of Wendy White's disappearance, and the impact that disappearance has on another girl her same age in their small town is told through shifting POV's and documents (evidence in the cases) at shifting points in the timeline . While this creates a textured, multi-layered feeling to the truth of the matter (and in some cases, as in the perpetrator's mother's POV, a horrifying willful blindness) it also kept me scrambling to remember details of who knew who, and who had done what to whom at certain points in the story.
So I got a bit lost/frustrated about midway and put the book down. Luckily, finishing a book I've gotten at least 1/3 of the way through is like a geas on me, so I picked it back up. There is a pay off in the end, as you slowly realize what happened (and then are graphically shown what happened-- yikes) to Wendy, and what Annie, the other girl plans to do about it.
This book grapples with the loss of innocence, and naivety vs idealism, and misogyny and classism-- all in the context of a small, struggling poor town. It's not pretty. Nor does it leave you with very much hope at the end. However, it does deliver an impact, and a question, that I, as a woman, want to ignore.
Why do we, as a society, blindly allow violence and abuse against women?
It's not a comfortable question or read.
tag1125's review against another edition
3.0
Just okay. I was recced this book by a friend who told me it stayed with her.' Certainly the discussion of morality and the cultural common place of violence against women is fascinating. But something about this novel felt unfinished to me.
uncannyvalerie's review against another edition
3.0
jesssicawho's review against another edition
5.0
Cara Hoffman’s searing debut novel So Much Pretty examines the price of idealism and ignorance when violence shatters a small town in America. Complicated, intense, and morally complex, the novel asks questions with no easy answers. When is it acceptable for violence to beget violence? Does society cultivate the violent crime epidemic sweeping the nation? What is the value of one woman’s life? Using an unsettling murder plot as a catalyst to scrutinize social injustice, Hoffman knits a dark, suspenseful novel with realistic implications.
The complicated story takes many turns throughout the novel, mainly driven by three female characters. Big city reporter Stacy Flynn relocates to small town Haeden, New York to investigate the environmental and societal repercussions of the town’s dairy industry. Expecting an idyllic, if not simple, small town, Flynn instead witnesses the decline of heartland America, a “post-modern ghost place.” Not only were the residents being “buried in garbage” from the dairy plant runoff, but happily oblivious to it:
When girl-next-door Wendy White goes missing and later turns up murdered, the townsfolk take a similar stance. The police are unwilling to question a likely suspect, Wendy’s boyfriend and the son of the influential dairy owners, noting that his distress after Wendy’s disappearance proves his innocence. This willful naiveté infuriates Flynn as she learns how far their ignorance reaches: “I was caught off guard by the shock of learning what it takes for regular people to be at peace in their homes, in their communities. I was thrown, entirely thrown, by the price of their quiet lives, their contentment.”
Drawn into the story is 15-year-old Alice Piper, the brilliant daughter of two idealistic hippie parents who moved to Haeden from New York City in an effort to shun big business and live off the land. Raised on radical philosophies and given abundant freedom as a child, Alice is an exceptional girl with above average IQ. Philosophical Alice takes an acute interest in Wendy’s case, weighing logic against the rest of the town’s insistence on turning a blind eye to the crime. When Alice decides to take a stand, the results are grave.
Stripped of its own ideology, So Much Pretty is a crime novel. Hoffman builds suspense from the first page, working backwards and slowly unraveling details about a vague but gruesome murder. Shifting gears halfway through, Hoffman begins to focus on the fallout of Wendy’s murder. Revealed through at least a dozen different perspectives, Hoffman employs various character voices, personal letters, police reports, and audio file transcripts to frame the events leading up to and after the plot’s climax. Fragmented by deftly controlled by Hoffman, the story twists and turns through two decades. The mystery behind what happened in Haeden—and why—becomes all the more engrossing as subtle clues surface.
So Much Pretty hits shelves at the height of Steig Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy, in which books like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo romanticize vengeance. The withdrawn and exotic protagonist of Larsson’s books distances readers from the reality of the crimes—those committed by Lisbeth Salandar, and those she commits. Hoffman, however, grounds her story in reality, drawing from her experience as a journalist and her research on violence and adolescents. Though fairly expected characters take the stage—idealists who shun conventionality, a weathered cop, a motivated reporter, the modest girl next door—their familiarity lends credence to the novel. These are people clinging to whatever life they can in a dying town. For some, their defiance feeds their perseverance. For others, it’s anger, ambition, or denial. By using relatable and recognizable characters, Hoffman reinforces the disquieting realism at the core of the story.
Haedon could be any town or city, Wendy could be any woman. Stories like Wendy’s go untold or are forgotten as society pushes aside the ugliness and feigns normality. Alice is the anomaly. She represents the part of our cultural psyche we keep buried—the part that refuses to keep silent, for better or worse.
At the heart of the story is a question posed by Flynn: “How disposable is a woman’s life? How expected. How unsurprising. How normal. How many times a week, a month, a year, does this happen?” There are no answers. The book is not easily digested, leaving one feeling disordered and uneasy with the burden of weighing optimistic ignorance against a difficult reality.
http://www.hipsterbookclub.com
The complicated story takes many turns throughout the novel, mainly driven by three female characters. Big city reporter Stacy Flynn relocates to small town Haeden, New York to investigate the environmental and societal repercussions of the town’s dairy industry. Expecting an idyllic, if not simple, small town, Flynn instead witnesses the decline of heartland America, a “post-modern ghost place.” Not only were the residents being “buried in garbage” from the dairy plant runoff, but happily oblivious to it:
I didn’t know until I had been there six months that they were also being buried in shit, and drinking it and eating it. And that the only investigation into the health effects of the industrial dairy was being carried out by Scoop, who had a mysterious method for fact-checking called “he gave me his word.” After explaining, he would fix me with an indignant look. “Places like this, a man’s word is still worth something,” he told me.
When girl-next-door Wendy White goes missing and later turns up murdered, the townsfolk take a similar stance. The police are unwilling to question a likely suspect, Wendy’s boyfriend and the son of the influential dairy owners, noting that his distress after Wendy’s disappearance proves his innocence. This willful naiveté infuriates Flynn as she learns how far their ignorance reaches: “I was caught off guard by the shock of learning what it takes for regular people to be at peace in their homes, in their communities. I was thrown, entirely thrown, by the price of their quiet lives, their contentment.”
Drawn into the story is 15-year-old Alice Piper, the brilliant daughter of two idealistic hippie parents who moved to Haeden from New York City in an effort to shun big business and live off the land. Raised on radical philosophies and given abundant freedom as a child, Alice is an exceptional girl with above average IQ. Philosophical Alice takes an acute interest in Wendy’s case, weighing logic against the rest of the town’s insistence on turning a blind eye to the crime. When Alice decides to take a stand, the results are grave.
Stripped of its own ideology, So Much Pretty is a crime novel. Hoffman builds suspense from the first page, working backwards and slowly unraveling details about a vague but gruesome murder. Shifting gears halfway through, Hoffman begins to focus on the fallout of Wendy’s murder. Revealed through at least a dozen different perspectives, Hoffman employs various character voices, personal letters, police reports, and audio file transcripts to frame the events leading up to and after the plot’s climax. Fragmented by deftly controlled by Hoffman, the story twists and turns through two decades. The mystery behind what happened in Haeden—and why—becomes all the more engrossing as subtle clues surface.
So Much Pretty hits shelves at the height of Steig Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy, in which books like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo romanticize vengeance. The withdrawn and exotic protagonist of Larsson’s books distances readers from the reality of the crimes—those committed by Lisbeth Salandar, and those she commits. Hoffman, however, grounds her story in reality, drawing from her experience as a journalist and her research on violence and adolescents. Though fairly expected characters take the stage—idealists who shun conventionality, a weathered cop, a motivated reporter, the modest girl next door—their familiarity lends credence to the novel. These are people clinging to whatever life they can in a dying town. For some, their defiance feeds their perseverance. For others, it’s anger, ambition, or denial. By using relatable and recognizable characters, Hoffman reinforces the disquieting realism at the core of the story.
Haedon could be any town or city, Wendy could be any woman. Stories like Wendy’s go untold or are forgotten as society pushes aside the ugliness and feigns normality. Alice is the anomaly. She represents the part of our cultural psyche we keep buried—the part that refuses to keep silent, for better or worse.
At the heart of the story is a question posed by Flynn: “How disposable is a woman’s life? How expected. How unsurprising. How normal. How many times a week, a month, a year, does this happen?” There are no answers. The book is not easily digested, leaving one feeling disordered and uneasy with the burden of weighing optimistic ignorance against a difficult reality.
http://www.hipsterbookclub.com
aresendez1's review against another edition
3.0
I don't know if I'm the only person who feels pretty confused by this novel, but I am. I have plenty of questions about what Con was working on, why Wendy, what did Dino know, if this was the family's plan all along. I flew through portions of the book that talked about Wendy, and portions that described what happened to her and the investigation. I loved Flynn, wasn't crazy about Gene or Claire's input but it did provide context. Overall, decent book but I wouldn't read it again.
nickdouglas's review against another edition
5.0
Read this if you grew up unhappy in a small town, or if you want a crime novel where the women aren't props, or if you're concerned about the gap between your liberal outlook and your consumerist lifestyle, or if you want to root for a vigilante, or if you're enraged by the seeming inevitability of misogyny and rape even after millennia of supposed societal advance.
bajammies's review against another edition
4.0
This book has been repeatedly reviewed as some variation of "a rough read", but despite its subject matter, I found it to be accessible, engaging, and humane. Most by far of the book is devoted to creating an environment in which the main, heartbreaking events occur. The characters are three-dimensional, and the physical town interacts with them in a way that makes it a member of the cast, both the victim and the perpetrator you come to pity and despise. It's surprisingly not annoying that the chapters travel back and forth along a timeline at will; the suspense benefits from its disrupted cadence, and it's still easy to get a sense for where you are in the chronology without dragging yourself out of the story.
Hoffman clearly feels antipathy toward "small-town ignorance", barely restraining her anger through most of the book. When the rage finally erupted, I found myself cheering with my own unjustifiable self-righteousness. And then I felt manipulated. The book might have been more persuasive without tugging so persistently on emotional strings, but this might also have removed something essential from its ethos. Hoffman's passion drives the subtext forward powerfully. Just don't expect to love this book if you believe urban progressive intellectualism is ruining the world.
Altogether, this is a beautifully written, wonderfully immersive story with the ability to, as a friend of mine put it, "take over your thoughts during vacation". I want everyone I know to read it, so we can discuss it together.
UPDATE 4/15/11: I just won a copy of this book from the publisher!! I'm so excited! If you're my friend, be prepared for me to foist it on you as a must-read.
Hoffman clearly feels antipathy toward "small-town ignorance", barely restraining her anger through most of the book. When the rage finally erupted, I found myself cheering with my own unjustifiable self-righteousness. And then I felt manipulated. The book might have been more persuasive without tugging so persistently on emotional strings, but this might also have removed something essential from its ethos. Hoffman's passion drives the subtext forward powerfully. Just don't expect to love this book if you believe urban progressive intellectualism is ruining the world.
Altogether, this is a beautifully written, wonderfully immersive story with the ability to, as a friend of mine put it, "take over your thoughts during vacation". I want everyone I know to read it, so we can discuss it together.
UPDATE 4/15/11: I just won a copy of this book from the publisher!! I'm so excited! If you're my friend, be prepared for me to foist it on you as a must-read.