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A review by eileen_daly_boas
So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman
5.0
No spoilers.
Blurb: Brilliant and Dark. Very Dark. Possibly not for readers with children and vivid imaginations. Most similar to Sebold's Lovely Bones, but the difference with "So Much Pretty" is that (a) we get into the thoughts of many characters, and (b)you will see yourself and your neighbors at every turn.
Longer version:
About half-way through this novel, the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song, "Teach Your Children" starting repeating in my mind. Not a sweet, lovely version, but a dark, underbelly version. It's great writing. It's "capital-L Literature" but it's also somehow a suspense/horror nightmare to keep you awake at night.
The scene: A small town in Central/Southern New York, economically depressed, with undereducated, but mostly well-meaning folks. An "enlightened" family moves in to get back to the garden, as it were, with their small daughter. Time passes. Life is lived. A horrific thing happens. And how it happens, and how the town copes with it, including the jaded town reporter is like watching the fragments of an explosion in close, beautiful detail, even as it shreds the onlookers.
One quibble: I think the version of the hometown sheriff is flawed. It's the one part that's too easy - a cop that doesn't want to see the problems in his own backyard. In small towns with meth problems, domestic violence, and alcoholism, the police are faced with unsolvable problems and there's no sympathy for them.
Don't read spoilers, don't read the last pages just to see how it ends. Go into this knowing that this is a version of all our towns. And it isn't pretty, but the writing, and the sheer force of Hoffman's spell, makes it absolutely worth it. Gobsmackingly, Heart-Wrenchingly, Terribly Beautiful.
PS: When you find that this story sticks with you through the evening news and the over-the-fence gossip, and church services and potlucks....don't say I didn't warn you.
Blurb: Brilliant and Dark. Very Dark. Possibly not for readers with children and vivid imaginations. Most similar to Sebold's Lovely Bones, but the difference with "So Much Pretty" is that (a) we get into the thoughts of many characters, and (b)you will see yourself and your neighbors at every turn.
Longer version:
About half-way through this novel, the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song, "Teach Your Children" starting repeating in my mind. Not a sweet, lovely version, but a dark, underbelly version. It's great writing. It's "capital-L Literature" but it's also somehow a suspense/horror nightmare to keep you awake at night.
The scene: A small town in Central/Southern New York, economically depressed, with undereducated, but mostly well-meaning folks. An "enlightened" family moves in to get back to the garden, as it were, with their small daughter. Time passes. Life is lived. A horrific thing happens. And how it happens, and how the town copes with it, including the jaded town reporter is like watching the fragments of an explosion in close, beautiful detail, even as it shreds the onlookers.
One quibble: I think the version of the hometown sheriff is flawed. It's the one part that's too easy - a cop that doesn't want to see the problems in his own backyard. In small towns with meth problems, domestic violence, and alcoholism, the police are faced with unsolvable problems and there's no sympathy for them.
Don't read spoilers, don't read the last pages just to see how it ends. Go into this knowing that this is a version of all our towns. And it isn't pretty, but the writing, and the sheer force of Hoffman's spell, makes it absolutely worth it. Gobsmackingly, Heart-Wrenchingly, Terribly Beautiful.
PS: When you find that this story sticks with you through the evening news and the over-the-fence gossip, and church services and potlucks....don't say I didn't warn you.