Ok, so this was weird and I like weird. I will say I got the overall feeling something was missing though. The ending was underwhelming compared to the build up. Also there was some editing errors that kept irritating me - for instance it would be Caroline’s POV but the character would be referred to as Lila or vice versa. I did however enjoy the writing style. Going with a 3.5 rating rounded to 4 for this one.

I liked this book, finding a horror story that is actually horror and not some Scooby Doo bologna is a rare and good find. I liked that it was also allegorical of the many ways women are repressed. The pacing was good and the writing flowed. The characters were distinct.
I would have liked a little more action I felt there was just a bit too much story and background and dialogue especially between Caroline and Daniels relationship. The biggest issue for me was that the story being set in Atlanta and New Orleans I really thought there should have been more diverse characters. 3.5 stars

How do I even begin to describe this book?
Feminist
Visceral
Haunting
A breath of fresh air.
Such a Pretty Smile is destined to become a classic of feminist horror, along with "Her Body and Other Parties" by Carmen Maria Machado (another favorite). I confess that I have just begun to dip my toe in the waters of horror with a feminist slant, although I have viewed a lot of horror as being inherently feminist, even if not explicitly stated.
Such a Pretty Smile provides a compelling story that kept me flipping the pages. The story of Caroline and her daughter Lila within their own timelines and how they interact with each other in the present (2019) storyline supports the propulsion of the story without dragging the action and providing hints of what is to come. Both Caroline and Lila have struggles to deal with within their own timelines, and the perspective of how the more things change, the more they stay the same is a recurring theme. Despite coming up in different times, Caroline and Lila struggle with the expectations that have been placed on them by family, friends, and society while also trying to uncover the identity of The Cur, the serial killer that stalks young girls who will not conform.
Reading this book, I was breathless much of the time, thinking I knew what was going to happen, but being surprised by the end. It is a fresh and inventive take on the serial killer trope, and I look forward to seeing what else Kristi DeMeester has to offer in the future.

🥡Ramen Reads 🥡
Such a Pretty Smile I received as an ARC (and read a little late) and I enjoyed the intensity and disturbing miasma of it. If you like books that hit your gut, this is the one to choose.

5/5 Chopsticks for Your Ramen Read! 🥢🥢🥢🥢🥢

Caroline Sawyer was having vague but terrifying nightmares, with snarling and snapping teeth, and her therapist was more interested in finding another pill or suggesting a lifestyle change than in discovering why Caroline was seeing these things that were not visible to others. Caroline, an artist, was teaching art to Beth, a troubled girl who wanted to create the kind of disturbing, raw art that Caroline was adept at, but Beth’s mother insisted Beth learned to paint the way a classic artist would. After Caroline agreed to help Beth find materials in nature, the girl discovered a dead dog, and had blood covering her hands. Later that night, Caroline created her most frightening sculpture to date, knowing deep inside that this was a memory, not a dream. Upon learning she was pregnant, Caroline left New Orleans, and moved to Atlanta in the hopes of protecting her child from the growling, biting thing, called The Cur, that took young girls and left them for dead at Jazzland, once a popular amusement park, but now abandoned and crumbling.

Lila Sawyer had always heard the growling, but had no idea what it meant. Raised to be polite and compliant, teenaged Lila had started speaking out, alienating her best friend and causing Caroline concern. Uncertain and confused, Lila tried to find the answers to her mother’s mental instability, her father’s absence, and her own sexuality. Though Caroline tries her best to keep her daughter safe, even leaving New Orleans for Atlanta, The Cur has an invisible thread binding all his victims.

Told in alternating viewpoints, from Caroline in 2004 and Lila in 2019, Such a Pretty Smile was a strange book, and one I’m not really sure I liked. It definitely hit home in that women are told we are supposed to smile, be compliant, don’t disturb the status quo…and that is BS of the highest order. Still, I appreciated Caroline’s determination, continuing to create and teach while raising Lila alone in a strange city. The book, for me, tried too hard to be too many different things. There’s the paranormal aspect, the mental health aspect, the single parent aspect, the confused teenager aspect, the missing and murdered girls aspect, and I felt as though everything was thrown at the wall to see what would stick.

I received this as an eARC to read for free in exchange for my honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for giving me access.

Unfortunately this one wasn't for me. The POV of a 13 year old in an adult book is not for me. It made the vibe feel like a scary middle grade book more than half of time and I just didn't enjoy it.

As for the positives, neither narrator is reliable so you don't know if they are actually crazy or not....or murderous. The symbolism in this is great (won't say of what because, SPOILERS), but you don't really know that it is there until the end.

The fantasy in this is very mild, almost borderline not there, but enough to make this story weird. Again, not for me but adult who likes to read middle grade stories that are a mix into the adult side of things, this is for you.

This was one of the most disturbing books I’ve read in quite a while. When I read the title “Such A Pretty Smile” & read the summary I was more than a bit intrigued as it seemed right up my alley. Young girls being murdered and found torn to shreds, a serial killer by the name of The Cur seemingly having 15 year rest periods before starting up the killings again… & a tale told between two very different generations and time frames; a mother and a daughter, at different points in their lives but going through the same experiences.

In 2019, Lila Sawyer is being raised by her mother Caroline Sawyer, an artist & single mother known for her creepy and disturbing sculptures.. as a mother though, she has one mission and one mission only, to make sure her daughter is a “good girl” even if it means depriving her of having a life outside of their home. In 2004, young Caroline Sawyer is dating Daniel, a petty man whose so intimated by his partner’s artistic achievements that she tears her down at every opportunity. When Caroline begins hearing dogs stemming from a trip to an amusement park by the name of “Jazzland” and begins suffering from hallucinations, she is forced to go to a psychiatrist who prescribes her medications and gives her a fancy diagnosis for her “emotional stress”.

This book made me angry in so many different ways and yet I could not stop reading it in hopes that the men in this book would get what was coming to them. From teenage boys to men in professional positions, they treated the women in this book horribly while the women/girls are told that if they’re good girls, nothing horrible would happen to them. In the end, the men in this book aren’t made to face the consequences of their actions & the women? They keep losing of course, propagating the idea that girls are meant to sit still and look pretty, sitting on a shelf like a good little doll while men get away with everything and then some.

The allegory is a little heavy handed and kind of info dumped right at the end pretty hard, and I'm still not 100% sure what exactly was doing the killing, but it was still a really good book. I liked the characters a lot, and it was very engaging and kept me turning page after page to finally find out what happened to Caroline. I'd say it's somewhere between a 3 and a 4 out of 5. I'm for sure looking forward to what the author does next. Thanks for the ARC!

Just finished up Such A Pretty Smile by Kristi DeMeester

This one was a bit slow for me but picked up once the horror bits came into play. That was a game changer and made me re-engage in the novel and characters.

I enjoyed the mother-daughter connection that included shifting POV’s and the horror whose demons haunt to threaten both past and present. That was a unique piece that tethered the mother and daughter’s connection with each other and to their fight both real, supernatural and metaphorically.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the digital ARC.

There is definately going to differing opinions on this one.While I do typically like dark stories and I loved the premise of this book, this one was unfortunately not for me.

This story flips between timelines and a mother and daughter's persepective. There is a murderer on the loose killing young girls and mutilating there bodies. It is violent. There is also violence with animals. There is mental health concerns discussed and at times I just didn't know how to feel about it.

I couldn't get into the story. From the start, I was a little confusing and while the story does between clearer as you get through the chapters, it just did not grab me. I did appreciate the alternate perspectives to get a little more insight into the story.

While I wouldn't recommend this one personally, I also wouldn't tell people not to read it. If people like dark and twisty, i would tell them to try it out.

This was such an amazing horror book, I was utterly amazed and shocked at how much I actually enjoyed this one, and how damn good it ended up being!

This is a dark and complex story and not for the faint at heart. The opening of the story starts off describing the scene of a horrific murder of a young girl. As more and more girls turn up murdered people begin to suspect that this is the works of the horrific serial killer, Cur, who hunts and kills young, troubled, disobedient girls.

The story is told in two different time lines (2019 and in 2004) and two different POVs. We follow a young 13 year old girl, Lila, and her mother , Caroline, who is a famous artist. Lila has always obeyed, never been in any sort of trouble, until recently. She starts to experience these life like dreams, hears voices in her head, and feels mad and resentful. Lila wont let anyone, or anything control her.

Little does Lila know that her mother, Caroline, also experienced similar circumstances in 2004, when she begins to hear things that no one else can hear, not just anything, but dogs!

This story is incredibly unique and creative!

This is definitely a different book, but I enjoyed most aspects of it. There is a lot of gore, descriptive & disturbing scenes, and lots of violence. I will say that the author does portray sexism throughout the book, one aspect that I disliked and knocked off a star for. The girls in this book are portrayed as "bad" and "troubled" while experiencing extreme consequences, while the men have no consequences. I disliked that in the sense that I enjoy reading about badass female characters who can hold their own, stick up for themselves, and not let men walk all over them. This book definitely lacked that. Also, I have to say that the characters are some what unlikable and hard to connect with.

Overall, it was an incredible read and one that will stick with me long after I put the book down. I believe this will be one that you either love, or hate.

Boy was this one hard to rate. Maybe it deserved a four star rating but there were a few things holding me back and I think that while this is well written a few choices kept me from rating it higher. Part of it was personal. I didn't like Lila, the thirteen year old protagonist, all that much but that's not what held me back. I think it was the social horror aspect wasn't clear as it could be until the end. And Caroline, Lila's mother and our other protagonist, makes some choices that narratively annoyed me.

Every decade or so, a series of killings happens, where young girls are murdered, split from throat to groin in the New Orleans area and the blame is put on a mysterious serial killer, The Cur. When the story opens in Georgia with Lila, the Cur is being blamed for killings in that area and her mother is pretty hysterical over it, more than usual. Lila is relatively angry at both of her parents, her father whose new wife has just had a baby with a heart issue and might not survive so he has no time for her and Carolina, artist and art instructor, who spends a lot of her time medicated into oblivion for her schizophrenia. She's also trying so hard to fit in at school, feeling too plain and struggling with the realization she's a lesbian but doesn't want mom to know quite yet.

Lila's struggles are familiar to a lot of us, especially the idea of doing anything she can to keep her one friend, who she is crushing on (and is very straight). In some ways Lila's story goes on too long at the beginning for me and narratively it's confusing. Lila seems almost enpowered by the monster in this story which made no sense to me (hence the three stars instead of four) because of the social horror aspect of it all is predicated on girls/women behaving and obeying the patriarchy so why give her this rage, this violence?

And really that's the social horror aspect hinted at with the title, you have such a pretty smile, you should do it more. You'd be prettier if you smile. Women are too hysterical to do....name a thing, you should be happy because you can have kids and stay at home (do you know how often I heard all of these getting all my science degrees?) And women who don't fall in line with the meek subservient role are punished/killed. So in the light of that Lila's story makes less sense to me.

Caroline's story was far more compelling to me and I enjoyed her chapters much more. It was interesting to see the parallels between her and her daughter and the link between the amusement park Jazzland. It's her story that gives us the insight into the horror which I won't spoil.

And let me take this moment for a PSA one of the things that made me nuts in this was how easily Caroline rolled over (but that is part of the point I suppose but I hated it). At one point she is sent to a psychiatrist who treated her like this was the 1890s not the 1990s. Patronizing, insulting and even though she knows this is wrong she just gives into it. Please, everyone, do not do this. If you have a doctor who doesn't listen, who treats you badly and you can do so (because I know not everyone can) do not stay with that doctor. Get a second opinion. Switch your doctor. I say this as a doctor. I'm not talking about finding one who tells you what you want to hear. I mean if a doctor is treating you wrong, find another if you can.

This was an effective horror novel. I received this from Netgalley for review which did not influence my review in any way.

4.25 stars for Such a Pretty Smile.

This FEMINIST HORROR novel is perfect for any woman who has ever: (1) felt an underlying rage at being dismissed by men, (2) been sexually harassed but also blamed that you asked for it, (3) told to just smile and be pretty, (4) been mansplained by some condescending idiot who thinks your lack of a penis means you’re also lacking a brain, (5) had your accomplishments sidelined by a man, (6) been told to calm down and to not let your emotions make you irrational, (7) been dragged to (or recommended to see) a psychiatrist because someone thinks you’re just “too much”…this list could go on and on but I think you get the idea.

This entire book screams “f*ck the patriarchy” but in a very strange way. It is a unique story and one in which the “trouble making” girls (aka the girls who can’t or won’t behave in a quiet and meek manner) are hunted down by a serial killer/monster.

I don’t want to ruin the story by giving away anything more than that - but trust me, you’ve probably never read a book like this before. Even in its twisted depravity, this one screams for women to fight back against old patriarchal expectations that are still placed on women even today.

Gone are the tired old predictable horror story lines…and an entirely new twist is here to keep you on the edge of your seat (or curled up under your blanket - however you choose to read).

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a copy of this totally twisted (and yet totally timely) story in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was my first read from Kristi DeMeester, and it certainly won’t be my last! I loved this unique take on the monsters that plague us in childhood, and I especially loved that it blended so many aspects of different folklores to create something entirely new. We flip between the perspective of a mother and daughter, and watch as history begins to repeat itself. Such a Pretty Smile carried the perfect amount of suspense and kept me guessing for the majority of the novel. Looking forward to whatever the author writes next!

Lila Sawyer lives with her divorced mother Caroline who is a renowned sculptor. Caroline is a distant mother and her ex-husband, Daniel, and his new wife have a new baby that takes up all of his time. This means that Lila rarely hears from him leaving her a lonely young girl confused about her own sexuality. However, she is infatuated with a school friend, Macie, and wants to be accepted by her. There have been some murders and mutilations of young girls in their area and Caroline is terrified for Lila wanting her safe at home all the time. This makes Lila feel even more smothered.

When Caroline was younger and engaged, she was struggling to work and spend as much time as she could at the hospice where her father is dying. Caroline is nearly finished with her arts degree as well. Her job consists of teaching a young girl to paint pictures of which her mother approves. The young girl has some mental problems and at the same time Caroline begins taking Ambien because she cannot sleep and is dealing with nightmares (memories?) of horrible events. What she does while taking the medication is really bizarre.

This is is creepy and stomach-turning at the same time. Quite frankly, had I known it would have been as morbid as this, I wouldn’t have requested to read it. I thought it was a thriller and not a horror book. But since I do not like to DNF a book, I decided to stick with it. It took me right up to the end of the book to figure out what was going on. If you like horror, you will like this. The author’s descriptions are very explicit which made me cringe. I am giving this book 3 stars for the author’s talent and imagination.

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Overall this book did not hit for me. While I understand the premise as a rebuke to the patriarchy, I didn't find the women powerful or particularly engaging. But it was just too much horror and gore which felt for shock value not necessary to the story. I wanted to DNF many times but I got through it. However, I should have just put it down because it was obvious that it wasn't a book for me. There are others that may find this interesting and enjoyable. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 because the writing was very good even if I didn't like the book.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

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This book was one of my most anticipated of the year, and it delivered exactly what I was looking for. DeMeester is such a master of atmosphere, I was able to feel everything that the characters were feeling, while being sufficiently creeped out. More than that, I loved the commentary of this book about the roles of women in society and how we are viewed when we decide that we will not sit down and shut up. A killer story with some empowering social commentary, I thought it was excellent. I think the only thing I felt that could have been done differently is the pacing I think was a little inconsistent but overall I loved what DeMeester had to say in this book and I think it was a super solid follow up to her debut novel. I am really looking forward to seeing where her career continues to take her!

4ish stars

This was weeeeeeeird. I get it, I really do, but the approach to telling the story was intense and kind of wild. It was creepy pretty much right from the beginning, and it freaked me out at a few different points; it’s definitely a thriller, that’s for sure. I also just couldn’t stop reading it. It was quite an experience. I’m not totally sure how I feel about the ending yet, as I think I’m still processing some of the details. All in all, I liked the story, many of the (female) characters, and some of the writing style. I’m intrigued to see what the author comes out with next.

Good book though it has a disturbing ending. Caroline was abducted as a young girl and no one believes her when she tells of her experience. No one listens to her words and instead they tell her what to think and believe- how to be a good girl. Except does this save her? Caroline can’t remember what happened and in trying to talk about it is dismissed as having mental psychotic problems. Until she finds others that hear the same things and know it’s not her, it was a true experience. Kristi Demeester writes a good book that is hard to put down. It’s pretty hard in the male population generalizing their tendencies but still a good book.
Thank you St Martins Press and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

Lila lives with her mother in Georgia. And Lila’s mother Caroline is afraid. She doesn’t let Lila out of her sight any more than she has to. And she won’t tell Lila why. In 2019, Caroline knows more about what is going on with some local murders than she will say. Oh my god, lady, just talk. A good portion of the book is spent with her starting sentences she doesn’t finish.

Lila herself is lonely. She has no friends. Macie is not a friend. It’s a stereotype of young women wanting what is bad for them. Which is ironic in a book that is all about the misogyny that all girls must face before they become women. It’s our coming of age story.

And it is told in a graphic and disturbing way. Not just the metaphor that is present in every scene of constant pressure to be the good girl. Good girls live. That’s not just an 80s horror movie trope anymore! It Is not even just disturbing in the way every male in the story is a complete condescending, controlling…you can finish that. There is rampant sexism throughout and the young girls and women we meet must learn to navigate it and behave or else. But the stuff about the dogs. The poor dogs. So disturbing.

This book was intriguing and it was disturbing. The ending was unsatisfying yet fully expected. Strangely realistic in such a story. And sad.