Wednesday, March 30, 2011

2011 book 80

Cara Hoffman's So Much Pretty
When I started this book, it seemed like it was going to be a fairly traditional mystery--one of the first scenes involves a reporter at a crime scene where the body of a long-missing girl has been found. But there are hints that something has happened with another girl, and much of the story (which flashes back and forth in time and focuses on a few alternating characters in each section) involves their family and its history. And then we start getting snippets of police interviews and statements to the reporter. Hoffman doles out information slowly at first--about halfway through I was really frustrated after reading an interview that sheds no light on what happened to either girl--but then the pace picks up and I couldn't put the book down. The end was, to my mind, a bit bittersweet--I wanted more justice, dammit!--but the story led there in a very well-done way. A-/B+.

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