This book was enjoyable in a very dark way. Caroline thinks/hopes she is hearing voices of people who are not there, growling of dogs not there. Little does she know they are in fact there and they want her, they even want her daughter. If you enjoy some family drama with a dash of horror this is for you!

A riveting novel and I am so glad I read this. The Cur was a terrifying character and kept me on my toes wondering what would happen next.. Don't miss this one...you could be next.

Such a Pretty Smile had me completely engaged. I could not finish it fast enough. Then it ended and I was utterly disappointed. Yes, I loved this book and hated the ending. 😩

I had so much fun reading horror in September and October I’m making more of an effort to read it year round. So I scooped this one up when I saw it as “read now” on Netgalley. This story is told in dual time lines,
and alternates between a mother and her daughter view points.

This story is for women who fight against being silenced. This story is one that you will want to discuss once it’s done. I’m not quite sure I understood everything, but I felt it was really unique. Would love to have a conversation with the author and have her explain everything to me. This is one of those books you want to talk about when you are done.

I’ve seen some complaints on the daughters view point, but I actually preferred her story/view points for the most part to the mothers.

Will have to read more from this author for sure!

Thanks to @stmartinspress for my copy! This one releases today!

Such a Pretty Smile by Kristi DeMeester is, uh, absolutely wild. I have no words for how dark and twisty and insane this book is. Basically what's happening is a bunch of prepubescent girls are going missing, and their bodies are turning up completely mutilated. No one has any idea what's going on and who this serial killer could possibly be. Eerily enough, they exactly match a string of cold case murders from 15 years ago. Everyone said it was The Cur, but no one actually knows what that means. The one thing we do know is that 12 year old Lila Sawyer is having some really dark and oppressing thoughts. Even worse, the reader knows that her mother, Caroline, had those same thoughts 15 years ago too... As we go through this book we are alternating between three perspectives: Lila 2019, Caroline 2004, and Caroline 2019. We slowly start to uncover what is going on in these girls heads, and why there are so many young girls disappearing.

Overall, I gave this book a 4/5 stars. Here's why:
I personally love dark and twisty books, so this was right up my alley! I loved the unique story line, the mysterious aspect, trying to figure out what the heck was going on, and the generational dilemma. My biggest issue with the book was the pacing in terms of alternating timelines. Sometimes we would go several chapters of one timeline before switching, and I wish they switched a little more often, leaving me with cliffhangers as I'm going through the book. The other issue I had is that in really high stakes fast paced scenes, I feel like the author missed some things and was unable to fully flesh out her thoughts. It felt skippy and that certain things would come out of nowhere. It just wasn't explained the best.

Content warning: this book is DARK. If you are bothered by any of the following, this may not be the book for you... body mutilation, sexual assault, paranoid schizophrenia, anxiety attacks, gaslighting, animal abuse, gore, violence, murder, child death, pedophilia

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an advance e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I don’t read horror, ever. I have a whole bookshelf of feminist literature. I have just finished a feminist horror novel and I can’t be more impressed or more terrified by Such a Pretty Smile. I don’t expect to ever read another horror novel ever again and that’s fine. This is the powerful realistic fantasy, correction, the reality of the way women and girls are silenced. And those that fight back kick and scream to be recognized. It’s graphic and gorgeous, disturbing and loving. I need to read it again. Once I stop screaming and sweating.

Such a thrilling and powerful story. The symbolism between women and how society believes they should behave, and our current society is what makes this all the more terrifying. This is a fantastic dark feminist story, that stays riveting from beginning to end. Very well written, this is a stunning debut.

Thank you to the publisher, Kristi DeMeester, and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

It's been a day since I finished Such a Pretty Smile and I'm still digesting it. It's a really unique book and I can see how it may be polarizing for readers- it definitely inspires a visceral reaction. There were times that I thought about stopping it, but the writing style kept me there. Did I like it? I'm not really sure. Did it make me think? Definitely. Am I glad I read it? Yes.

There were times where I felt totally lost and like I was missing a major piece of the puzzle. This was slightly resolved at the end but I wanted more from the backstory, especially around "The Cur." I still not totally sure if I "got" everything!

I don't read a lot of supernatural books so those elements took some adjustment for me, but someone who reads it regularly would feel right at home.

This book pushed me out of my comfort zone which as a reader is something I love and I am ultimately glad I stuck with it. Really curious to hear what other readers think!

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the complimentary e-copy for an honest review.

Wow, wow, wow. Part thriller part horror. This book is very difficult to review without giving any spoilers. If you are looking for a dual timeline ( kind of) with mother/daughter. Buy this book.

And to think I was going to DNF this book. At first it felt a bit too dark and gritty for me to handle and I just couldn't understand the point of some of the scenes. I took a break and came back and I'm so glad I did! I connected with this book in a pretty deep and emotional way that I feel not everyone is going to be able to, but if you "get it", you just "get it". The raw reality and truths told in this book about being a female in our world are powerful and the way it was told was almost grotesque, but in a beautiful "this hits close to home" kind of way. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

#FirstLine ~ There was blood in the water - a dull pink bloom - the morning Lila Sawyer heard about the first missing girl.

I think it is safe to say this will be a book you either love or it was too much for you. I don't think there is an in-between since the topics and themes are hard to reconcile. I enjoyed this book because I appreciated the themes and the way the author used them in the story. It was a tough read and I had lots of feeling when reading. It was original and dark and also hard to put down!!!

Don’t be fooled by the title, #suchaprettysmile is not a young adult rom-com or a funny contemporary frolic, but rather a disturbing, burrow-into-your-brain exploration of societal expectations of girls and women wrapped around a story of mother’s love. I could not stop reading this despite the graphic imagery and this one will continue to play with my head while I move on to other books. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for this book to read and review.

I didn't know too much about Such a Pretty Smile before I started reading it. I like going in blind sometimes. And I like dark and disturbing thrillers. But this one just didn't do it for me. Maybe because it's more of a horror story, and I really don't read much horror at all. It totally grabbed me at first, though! I was hooked, and I had to finish it no matter what. But then the ending wasn't something I expected at all. I think i had it in my mind that it would be something totally different. I'm sure many will love this!

I’m starting to question whether I actually like the horror genre. More often than not, I’ve been disappointed lately. The synopsis of this book sounded right my alley. Unfortunately, it was a miss for me.

I have two main complaints about this book. The first is the ending. The pacing and reveal didn’t match the rest of the book. My other problem with the book is the messaging. Yes, I know it’s supposed to be feminist. I love dark books about women doing bad things to bad men, but this one seemed very heavy handed and over the top. Every single male character was the worst.

Yet another thriller about an unknown perpetrator who preys on young women, I found this book to be somewhat underwhelming. Granted, if two thousand other books about the exact same subject matter weren't published every year, maybe this one would have stood out more. The writing was okay, the plot development was okay, the characters were okay.

Such a Pretty Smile by Kristi DeMeester is a novel about women and the forces (and men) that try to tame them. We have two main characters and POVs: Lila Sawyer, a young teen grappling with her crush on her toxic best friend, and her mother, Caroline Sawyer, a famous artist who creates dark and twisted sculptures and has a blurry past. Lila's POV is set in 2019 and Caroline's POV switches between 2004, when she was in her twenties, and 2019. The premise is that there are young girls on the verge of womanhood who are disappearing and being brutally killed, supposedly by a serial killer called The Cur, who they believe has been murdering these girls on and off since the 1980s. There is also a lot of commentary on "hysterical" women, misogyny, mental health, etc.

I was drawn to this book because of the unique and intriguing synopsis. I love dark, thriller/horror books with social commentary. And I did like the feminist overtones and the look into how women's mental health issues, in particular, are often glazed over and swept away. I think this author has a very vivid writing style and will write something that I can get behind and absolutely love in the future.

However, there was just something missing for me in this book that I can't quite put my finger on. I sometimes felt like the graphic and violent imagery was unnecessarily egregious. I got the point of the novel early on and also guessed the "plot twist" early on, so I felt like it didn't need to be hammered in so much. I found it hard to read the one-dimensional male characters, even though I know that was part of the point of the book. And I am someone who usually likes an unreliable narrator, but with this book, I just felt like I really had no idea what was going on in the thoughts of the two main characters. I don't know how I feel about the mental health rep. I'm still processing that. And I wasn't really a fan of the supernatural element.

One thing I want to note was that I really liked how the book touched on the historical story of hundreds of black Voodoo practicioners having been murdered for practicing witchcraft. I feel like we hear stories so often about white witches in Salem, etc. being burned at the stake or murdered for practicing witchcraft or being "hysterical," but we hardly hear the stories of the hundreds/thousands of black witches who were murdered. So it was nice to get that little touch of New Orleans history, whether it was true or not (I plan on researching this later) but at the same time, it felt like it was just plopped into the overall storyline, was briefly mentioned, and then never spoken about again. I was hoping that would be explored more in the novel, but it never came up again, so that was disappointing to me.

This one was just not for me. Maybe it will be for you though. Just make sure to look up content warnings before diving in, as always with thriller/horror/dark books.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for inviting me to read this via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This reminded me bit of a Stephen King read, which is high praise y'all! High praise. It misses the humor that Stephen King injects into his writing (I wish this book had some humor not going to lie) but it absolutely has a bitting insight into the fears of living as a woman. I was occasionally scared in a what "What in the Hound of Baskervilles?!" kind of way.

This book traveled with me on vacation so the juxtaposition of such a dark, horror read with the lightness of my vacation was interesting, which leads me to the point of saying this that every time I picked this up I was fully absorbed in the story. With everything going on in my life, it says a lot that it was able to completely absorb my interest in this way. The story is horrifying, the pace is steady, and it is a compelling read.

I think if you typically read dark thrillers and/or horror, I think this book will not disappoint you at all. It keeps you on the edge of your seat and guessing the entire way. I was not surprised by the end, but I still did not see it coming either. I was constantly unsure of what to think and flipped the pages in search of answers. The plot is excellently written and it packs a punch. I will be thinking about this one.

WOW!! This here is one of those books you MUST read!! This book is scary!
Powerful! Mysteriously attractive and seductive, it grabs you and puts you in a place
you've never been before! Very well written, I was glued to my seat unable to do anything
but read page after page! I rate this as one of my all time favorite books! Awesome Job!

There’s something out there that’s killing. Known only as The Cur, he leaves no traces, save for the torn bodies of girls, on the verge of becoming women, who are known as trouble-makers; those who refuse to conform, to know their place. Girls who don’t know when to shut up.

2019: Thirteen-year-old Lila Sawyer has secrets she can’t share with anyone. Not the school psychologist she’s seeing. Not her father, who has a new wife, and a new baby. And not her mother—the infamous Caroline Sawyer, a unique artist whose eerie sculptures, made from bent twigs and crimped leaves, have made her a local celebrity. But soon Lila feels haunted from within, terrorized by a delicious evil that shows her how to find her voice—until she is punished for using it.

2004: Caroline Sawyer hears dogs everywhere. Snarling, barking, teeth snapping that no one else seems to notice. At first, she blames the phantom sounds on her insomnia and her acute stress in caring for her ailing father. But then the delusions begin to take shape—both in her waking hours, and in the violent, visceral sculptures she creates while in a trance-like state. Her fiancé is convinced she needs help. Her new psychiatrist waives her “problem” away with pills. But Caroline’s past is a dark cellar, filled with repressed memories and a lurking horror that the men around her can’t understand.

As past demons become a present threat, both Caroline and Lila must chase the source of this unrelenting, oppressive power to its malignant core. Brilliantly paced, unsettling to the bone, and unapologetically fierce, Such a Pretty Smile is a powerful allegory for what it can mean to be a woman, and an untamed rallying cry for anyone ever told to sit down, shut up, and smile pretty.

I wish I would have DNFd this one the first time it crossed my mind to do so.

I’m not even sure how to review this one because it just seems to far out of any realm. It felt like a half attempt at fantasy, with mystery, but not quite?

There aren’t really answers, and it felt like you were never really given information. I’m just left very unsatisfied and blech. I don’t even know.

Not recommended