Unfortunately I couldn't get through this book. I love a good thriller, mystery and anything that will keep me interested and feel a part of the story. The Girl in Snow was way too dark and synister for me.
Thank you for the opportunity to review

Another great mystery book that kept me on the edge until the very end! Basically, a teenage girl (blonde, popular, perfect in every way) named Lucinda is found dead on the playground of a small town and nobody knows who killed her. The story is told from the points of view of three different people: Cameron (main suspect, peeping Tom, weird kid that has serious issues, aka Lucinda's stalker), Jade (complete opposite of Lucinda, tried to use magic to wish Lucinda would disappear), and Russ (police officer, used to be partners with Cameron's dad). I loved getting to know all three of the main characters and their roles in the mystery and the ending was such a great twist! I NEVER would have guessed who the killer was! Cannot wait to read more from this new author!

Thanks Netgalley. I found this book very odd and not sure what to make of any of the characters who I did not warm to at all

Wow! I’m not sure how to start this review. Maybe by the fact that I read this book in one day and a half. It surprised me immensely – not so much for the plot itself but for the sensitive and complex way the author unravels this multi-layered narrative.

At the end of it, I found myself wondering that honestly, the title doesn’t quite match the strongest elements of the story. This is a book about a girl who died and was found in the snow, but it is so much more of a book about life, being a living person, being a misfit, loving and losing someone, losing yourself in a myriad of moments and so on. It’s a book about details, above all – in my opinion. They were the sweetest parts of Girl in Snow, the smart litte details we might miss while living our everyday life.

The way Kukafka writes… for a debut novel? It’s honestly way superior to a lot of writers I’ve ever read. She’s one of those people who gets it: her words trespass your social barriers and resound in your soul. The narrative is built through well-described spurts of thoughts and memories of three characters that will forever remain on my thoughts, for the purity and nakedness of their souls and existence. I believe in them because they’re telling you real feelings we all experienced at least once. Sometimes, though, the lyricism gets in the way of a proper action and it slows the pace down a lot. It wasn’t a problem for me, since I enjoyed the quizzical way in which the narrative flows.

So this is a story about three people who knew the dead girl in snow in question, who had dreams, thoughts and fears in common, and also a lot of different issues between them. It’s a rather interesting and thoughtful story, and I wouldn’t say this is just a mystery book, as it feels too diminutive of its extensive discussion of life – in all its glory.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon Schuster for the ARC of this book in exchange for a honest review.

I've been seeing this book all over Instagram and Book Riot and was intrigued by the plot line. Don't let the summary lead you to believe that this is a YA book. The story is very dark and very complex and not necessarily a book I would allow anyone under the age of 17 or 18 to read. Other than that I found the book to be riveting. The chapters are broken up every few pages so they're really quick reads of you're the type who doesn't like to stop reading mid-chapter like me. The characters are fairly well developed although I did find at times I found their "dysfunction" a bit tiring. I thought the plot moved at a decent pace and there were some real good twists in the book that kept it interesting.

Overall, a solid debut and definitely a book I'd recommend just be warned it's a bit dark if this is something you're letting your teen read.

Thank you Simon & Schuster as well as Net Galley for the opportunity to read this free new release and the opportunity to write a review. I'm just not sure what to say about this book or where even to begin. It took me a month to get thru this story. It's not that it was poorly written...it was well written in fact. It's just that the book jumped all over (in the modern style of writing) and I could not tell what was going on with my short attention span right before sleep. In all fairness, I should have given this book a more fair shake and read it during daylight hours. Although I had trouble keeping the characters straight, I do admit that the story began to develop once I cemented it into my mind that Russ was married to Inez. I'm not sure why this couple became the nucleus of the story to me in hindsight, but they did. Since the main characters of the story are teens, there was an ample smattering of acne & pimples. This sickened me. Sorry, I really appreciated the wrap up at the end and the references to friendship and life. That was very good.

In theory, I should have loved this book. A literary, character-driven story about an unexpected death in a small town with just a flavor of mystery is literally right up my alley (see also: Everything I Never Told You, Swimming Lessons, Dead Letters, You Will Know Me, etc. - all books I loved!)

But for me, Girl in Snow just didn't work. And it wasn't because there wasn't enough of a mystery - I'd been expecting that. Or that the main characters weren't really good people - this is something I really don't mind in fiction.

Honestly, it was because the writing was painfully juvenile. I just couldn't get past how irritating I found the prose. It read like YA, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not a genre that I particularly enjoy. The fact that this is being marketed as an adult literary mystery suggests that Kukafka was aiming for an adult audience and missed the mark entirely.

"From the other side of the door came the swell and sway of her breathing, a delicate rhythm that reminded him with such peaceful clarity that he was alive. I am, I am, I am, she told him with this inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. I am alive, and so are you, and isn't this a paralyzing thing?"

Yeah, this is definitely the sort of thing that I may have found poignant when I was a teenager.

The other thing I hated about the writing was that practically every other paragraph was a character remembering some trivial detail about their past, that urgently had to be recounted. These characters couldn't stay in the present long enough to have a simple conversation, and it started to drive me crazy. Maybe I'm just not sentimental enough, but I couldn't keep from rolling my eyes when your story is filled with lines like: 'He was having fish for dinner. Once, his dad took him fishing.' Okay, that's not a real quote. This is:

""Is this a church?" Cameron asked.

Cameron's family used to go to church. He would sit between Mom and Dad and wonder how long he could hold his breath without dying."

This is just.... literally the entire book is written like this.

Of the three characters, I didn't find any of them particularly compelling. The police officer investigating the case, Russ, was so bland that I audibly groaned on more than one occasion when I saw that the upcoming chapter was his POV. Cameron, Lucinda's stalker who believes himself to be in love with her, was a character who I found rather disturbing, and while I think this was partially the point, he wasn't someone whose head I particularly enjoyed inhabiting. His chapters also read as the most juvenile, which makes sense, as he's the youngest narrator, but I think it's possible to write from the point of view of teenagers (especially when it isn't even first-person narration) without losing your adult voice as an author. Jade, a girl a few years older than Lucinda who hadn't liked her, was definitely the most interesting of the three, but the fact that so much of her narration was taken up with pining after her ex-boyfriend was a bit tiring.

I should have been able to finish this book in two days, but it ended up taking me two weeks, because every time I put it down I had no motivation to pick it back up. This was an overwhelmingly blasé reading experience. I was hoping for at least a few moments of poignancy or insight, but Girl in Snow left me cold. I felt like it never really delivered on anything it promised, and I'm left wondering what exactly the point was.

I don't want to be unkind. This is Danya Kukafka's debut novel, and she's a young writer. While her writing style obviously wasn't to my taste, I will make the distinction that it wasn't objectively bad. I just think this book would have worked so much better targeted at a younger audience. There's a lot that teenagers can take away from this story: Jade's struggle with her body image, Cameron's vulnerability. But as an adult reader who was hoping to read an adult novel? It just didn't do much for me.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Netgalley, Simon & Schuster, and Danya Kukafka. All quotes are taken from an ARC galley - it's possible that they may be edited before publication.

I received an ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

I'm conflicted in how I feel about this book. Part of me was completely sucked in and wanting to read more. But another part of me feels like not much happened in this book.

I liked that each chapter told a different person's perspective, but the stories didn't intertwine in an intriguing way.

It was a cool idea, and all in all, I liked the book!

Lucinda a beautiful girl is found murdered in the snow lying on a merry-go-rouns. No one can figure out who may have hated the young girl enough to have killed her. Was it the stalker, watching her each night, the boyfriend? Perhaps it was the girl that was dumped by Lucinda boyfriend. Maybe the police are involved. Or how about a teacher. As every suspect is questioned and marked off as a suspect, secrets are revealed about the town's people.
Great read, powerful, interesting.
5 Stars

Great story! I liked how the story was told in different points of view and that all the way till the end I had zero idea of who the killer was, I never suspected at all. For the majority of the story I was leaning towards a specific character and then the author completely surprised me. Also there was a twist that I never saw, a few actually with 2 characters and it was a total surprise.
Love all the details and how the author made me feel like I was there, specially with Cameron.
I read somewhere that this book was compared to Everything I never told you and I have to say that I am glad that I didn't find it similar at all. I really didn't like EINT and I definitely loved this one.
This is a great story, I am definitely recommending and buying a hardcopy of this book as soon as it becomes available.

Beautiful prose. As her neighbours lives, public and unseen are unravelled, we get a glimpse at the life before the girl and what happens after her death.

This is the best fiction book of 2017 I've read thus far. I'm not sure if it's intended to be marketed as higher-end YA or literary fiction. As a YA piece, I would rate it five stars because it would easily be the most beautifully written book in the genre I've read. It's incredible that Kukafka wrote this at only twenty-four-- she is going to be a force with which to be reckoned as she continues to grow and develop her skills, and I can't wait to follow her along on her journey.
In my opinion, this is the perfect book for someone who enjoyed 13 Reasons Why and is looking for a more complex, literary version, or for someone looking for a more highbrow version of Jodi Picoult's mysteries that unfold through multiple perspectives. It has a similar dark, raw vibe as Ottessa Mossfegh's writings, though I think this is a more accessible and compelling read than Eileen. Highly recommend.

I did not expect to like this one as much as I did. It sounded interesting, but there was too much YAness too it, most of the principal characters 15 year olds. Thing is, though, in the end the simplicity of style the author employs which is (for me anyway) often associated with YA literature, doesn't restrict the novel in any way, in fact in serves to highlight the motional poignancy of isolation, the every man is an island adage that applies irrespective of age, gender or social circumstances. And so this debut novel explores an aftermath of a murder in a small town over a few wintery Colorado days with such a striking emotional astuteness that I found it utterly engaging. It's a quiet story about the proverbial quiet desperation and it envelops a reader much like snow. Funny how a novel about essential aloneness can make a person feel less alone. Books (great books) can do that. Not sure if this is a genuinely great book, objectivity to that extent is difficult, but it is a very good one and well worth a read. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

If this moment were a song, Cameron thought, it would be a quiet song- the sort of song that drowned you in your own miserable chest.”

Every school seems to have their ‘golden girl’, some have several, and usually they aren’t so golden. I think of the quote by Leo Tolstoy, “What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.” So many people are blinded by it, just as much as being different often leads to shunning. Let’s face it, people that are misunderstood are often feared. Any deviation from the norm is suspect. So what happens when a beautiful, popular darling Lucinda is found brutally murdered?

Cameron Whitley loved Lucinda, he knew her more intimately than anyone, though they didn’t speak. Everyone knows he is weird, that he was obsessed and watched her. Love makes people do strange things, but with her death he begins to unravel. He deals with his grief and horror through his art, but do the drawings tell a story of their own, one he doesn’t want anyone to know? His actions are getting even crazier, and people have him pegged as the killer, after-all, unrequited love is often a motive! He is a watcher, but he isn’t dangerous, is he? How caged he feels, how animal simply because of his inability to navigate the world just like all the ordinary people. Why, why does he have always have to be cast out? Why does he flip between a childlike innocence and creepy stalker? As they say, even serial killers have mothers who love them.

Then there is the hateful, angry, bitter Jade Dixon-Burns who could always see right through Lucinda’s phoniness. She knows firsthand how imperfect the darling was. Jade knows that she wasn’t the angel everyone imagined her to be. Lucinda cost her so much more than her job! Lucinda’s beauty, her very existence was a black-hole that ripped everything Jade had from her. The wounds were bad enough, but the salt was Lucinda’s indifference to the hurt she caused. Jade had genuine love, in her best friend Zap (Édouard) but she took that too. It’s no wonder she can’t dredge up enough empathy for her little sister Amy, mourning the loss of her friend’s older sister, but it’s a bitter brew when someone eclipses you. If such suffering isn’t enough, her mother is an abusive nightmare. While Lucinda lived the charmed existence of a beloved daughter, admired older sister and popular school girl, Jade suffers at her mother’s hands for adding to the disappointment her mother feels about her own miserable life, her looks guarantee she’d never be popular among her peers, and her family’s financial situation made her job vital. She is no one’s ‘beloved.’ Her tongue is vicious, the result of her poisonous surroundings. Hiding her suffering, only one person was allowed access to the bruises on her skin and pain in her heart and that was Zap. If only she could go back in time, if only her changing body didn’t betray her, if only life wasn’t a popularity contest some of us are bound to lose, then maybe she wouldn’t despise Lucinda’s golden life, then maybe she could feel sorry for her and squeeze out a lone tear. What ifs are fantasies, and Jade knows this more than anyone. So the princess suffered, so what? But did she kill her? Could she hate Lucinda so much that she would leave her lying dead in the snow?

Officer Russ Fletcher has ties to Cameron, and a heavy guilt that he carries. Will his past cloud his investigation? Everyone is pointing at the strange boy, and there seems to be a lot of signs that point to Cameron, which sets a personal dilemma for the detective. The town itself “knows the truth”, they have their criminal drawn and quartered in their mind. It’s easy to solve the case, it could be no one else but Cameron, right? Cameron and Jade are pulled together, and every one of Lucinda’s secrets come out, reminding us we never truly know things in the way we think we do.

I wouldn’t compare this to other novels, it stands perfectly fine on it’s own. It made me feel people’s most common thoughts can be their worst. I’ll be watching this author.

Publication Date: August 22, 2017

Simon and Schuster

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The story had plenty of mystic and the characters were colorful and well developed. The suspense kept me reading and trying to figure out who murdered Lucinda. The story took a twist I didn't see coming although the discovery was a bit underwhelming and could have been delivered in a much better way.

I always enjoy a book when the story is told like this in alternating character voice, this one told by Russ, Cameron and Jade, all very troubled individuals connected to the murder victim in one way or another as well as connected to each other.

I found the authors writing style of this book very frustrating. In the beginning of the book when Jade, Russ and Cameron each introduce their circle friends and entanglements, there was a lot to digest quickly. Jade had an abusive mother, her sister Amy, friend Zac and a homeless man she befriended. Cameron had his mom, teacher Mr. O, his father Lee that was a cop with many problems of his own and friends from school that picked on him. Russ was a local cop, who happened to be the ex-partner of Cameron's dad Lee on the police force, Ines Russ's wife and Ivan his wife's brother that is a story in itself. While trying to keep track of all the players and what was going on in each of their circles, the delivery of the story kept moving back and forth from pre to post murder without any clear delineation. I found I was rereading and scratching my head trying to figure out what just happened, only to figure out, oh I'm pre murder not post murder. Then to add to this confusion was the delivery of content. One example was the delivery of "Cameron going to Hum" without us having a clue as to what the heck "hum" was. Only to find a little later it was a quiet place in Cameron's head where he would go to get "untangled". I like to understand what I read as I read it, not hope it all comes together in the next 5 chapters. This author seems to enjoy this type of information delivery because it's done often throughout the book and for me this writing style put a negative spin on this otherwise very good story.

Girl in Snow is a unique and intoxicating novel that I couldn't put down... Not even for a minute. To see that this is a debut novel is utterly fascinating to me. I mean this is the work of a pro. It's engrossing, intriguing, and downright devious. I can't wait to read more by the author. She's going to the top of my "must reads" list.

This is an entertaining, easily flowing read by first-time author Danja Kukafka. She does a great job slowly unfolding the 3 main voices of the book; one schoolmate, Cameron, who loved and obsessed over Lucinda, a girl found murdered in the park; another schoolmate, Jade, who tries to say she hated Lucinda but actually hates other things in her life and blames Lucinda; and Russ, the cop investigating the murder, who is reeling from his feelings of infatuation for and deceit by his former work partner.
The plot doesn’t dwell on the murder victim but instead dwells on the various hang-ups and troubling patterns of behavior by those who knew Lucinda. Kukafka’s vivid descriptions of the characters really bring them to life. Their personal demons are realistic and disturbing, causing compassion but from a safe distance. It’s a sad story, not a huggy-feely read. I would recommend this for a good beach this summer.
(I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for making it available.)

Excellent story! Looking forward to reading more by this author! Highly recommend!