A review by april_golden
So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman

3.0

I honestly still am not sure if I liked this book. I'd like to give it 2.5 stars. The gist of the story is about a missing girl from a small town, another girl from the same small town who "something" has happened with that is a secret until three-fourths of the way through the book, and the newspaper reporter who gets caught up in the story. However, those are not the only voices in the story. Chapters are told from other character's viewpoints. In fact, I found the book very difficult to read because it jumps around, from character to character, A LOT. Also, it jumps around in time. Every chapter takes places either years ahead or years before, and I found myself trying to do the math each chapter to keep up with the timeline. I actually enjoyed the book more when I just stopped trying to understand the timing and let the story develop.

I do not think that the time/character switching was really necessary. It came off more as a "device" of the writer than as actually having purpose for the story. I never felt connected to any one character and often times I just felt lost, and I wonder if the story would have been more engaging had it been written more linearly, focusing on only a couple characters. The book just seemed to be trying to do too much at times.