A thrilling and gripping story. Girl in Snow will be a book that all readers are going to flock to. I would definitely recommend this book to my mom specifically because she is always looking for something suspenseful to read.

Thank You to Simon& Schuster Books for this advance copy in exchange for an honest review.


This is the story of a beautiful, popular, golden 15 years old girl, Lucinda, who is found murdered on a school playground in a small remote town.
The book concentrate the story around three misfits characters : Cameron the damage teenager obsessively in love with Lucinda, Jade the dark, weird, envious, ex-girlfriend turned goth, Russ the repressed officer who has ties to Cameron.
Add a few side characters, a neglecting boyfriend, a foreign wife, some bizarre friends, a widower, a convict, an abusive mother and a homeless.
The story bounces around from one character and his/her side-kick characters to the other character and his/her constellation. None of them are compelling.

Furthermore, I found most of the side stories to be unnecessary and anti-climatic. Even the revelation of ‘whodunit’ was blah, no build-up, no anticipation.And still 10% of the book remained to tie up every one’s story after the mystery had been revealed ( not solved ).

The annoying part for me, was the promise of the book. The writing is pretty good, the story line is pretty good, the set up is nice, a little bit of sexual obsession… all the elements for a perfect murder mystery were aligned and still the book fell flat. The crime itself gets push back in the background to privilege the slow analytic exploration of three weird personalities.
I did not particularly enjoy this book. I wasn't’ looking forward to reading it, nor was I curious about the main characters.

It would definitively do better as a YA category but I guess all the sexual deviance would not make it in the YA department.

I am glad I got the opportunity to review the book and I am sorry I have to give it a bad review.

A very strange but good book. The structure forces you to participate in the obsessive and voyeuristic behaviours that are so prevalent in the characters and their small town. If you're looking for a typical murder/thriller story this is not the book for you. The focus is squarely on three main characters that you watch and explore the past and present events that lead up to and take place after the murder of a young, beautiful girl.

There are many beautiful moments and poetic sentences but instead of hiding, they enhance the darkness and abuse smothering the town. Danya Kukafka does a wonderful job of crafting new angles and edges to love so that it's powerful, pure, obsessive, manipulative, conditional, sentimental, and destructive all at once. This isn't a loud, thrilling hunt for a murder, this is a quiet observation at the destruction that love can cause. So when you pick up this book remember that you are (and will only ever be) an observer.

I’m asked by NetGalley to give my honest review. Here’s my short version: I did not like Girl in Snow.

If you want to read a book about disrespectful, troubled, messed up, damaged teenagers, snotty girls, window-peeker boy, unlikeable characters, this is the book for you.

Add to that lame metaphors and similes, choppy writing, and a confusing screenplay that parallels Jade’s life and you’ve got a one-star review. There was too much dramatic description and too much pondering, reflecting, and remembering.

I felt like Ms. Kukafka was doing her best to tick off the reader (me) as though she were a teenager antagonizing her mother. Also thrown in was a liberal dose of shock value.

On the other hand, it was well written – that brings it up to two stars – in a depressing way. I did not, however, like the theme. It was too dark. Too blah. Too sad and empty. But it did make me want to finish the book. And I did. Oops, I almost forgot, and there was a murder.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.

The latest in the ever-growing list of 'Girl'-titled thrillers, this book sported the promise that I would not be able to put it down. I was looking forward to a suspenseful and dramatic read, but it took me a long time to get through this. Like a LONG time. I feel like this story had a good premise, but the plot was meandering and never felt driven by feelings of suspense. It took me so long to finish precisely because I found it so easy to put down...and difficult to pick back up again. The characters were interesting, but felt flat and two dimensional. It was hard to care about any of them.

It took FOREVER for the story to get going. The multiple viewpoints really didn't do much in terms of propelling the plot forward. It all felt blah. Even when I found out who the murderer was, I felt nil. No catharsis. No relief. No 'aha moment'. Even writing this review, I'm struggling to come up with constructive things to say.

Save yourself two months. Don't bother.

From what I have gethered before I requested this book I knew it took place in Colorado, where a beloved high schooler named Lucinda Hayes was found murdered.
No one in this sleepy suburb is untouched. Not the stalkery boy who loved her too much. Not the girl who wanted her perfect life and not the officer assigned to investigate her murder. These three characters: Cameron, Jade and Russ confront their darkest secrets to find the truth.

Well to me that sounded like an intresting crime novel.
And yet so wrong I was. The crime itself is so far in the background as it can get. Eventually you keep reading on through the depressing thoughts of three very psychotic characters, just because you want to know who really murdered Lucinda Hayes.

It started weird, yet promising. Eventually the characters thoughts just kept getting weirder and weirder. As the case itself is not really worked in this book you are just left with those weird thoughts, that made me feel that it overall started to move slow.
In the end all the throwbacks and thoughts get eventually tied together which saved the whole reading experience in the end.

Overall this wasn't really my thing. The idea itself is surely well developed, I just felt so annoyed by the characters themselves.
So 3 out of 5 stars are the most I can give for this book.

I'm pretty sure that this is first mystery/thriller I have ever read and sadly, I was left very confused and bored. I didn't care about any of the characters and I felt myself get uncomfortable and cringe a lot which, I suppose it the whole point for a Mystery Thriller. I did enjoy reading about the misfit character and it was interesting to see that love can make people do odd things. Overall, I just don't think I'm the type to be interested in this genre but I give it a solid 3 stars.

This book was a total surprise to me. Not because I wasn't expecting to like it but because it started off slow and there were slow moments throughout but overall ended well and was well written. It's certainly more YA than women's fiction but I enjoy YA stories that have depth to them. This story had that and more.

This is the story of the murder of Lucinda Hayes. Lucinda is the beloved high school student in sleepy Colorado town. It's told through the point of view of three primary characters, the boy, Cameron who secretly loved her, the jealous girl, Jade who truly hated her, and the Police Officer, Russ who is sent to investigate her murder. Each of the three is forced to confront their own demons while learning to move on from such a horrific event.

If you enjoy murder mysteries along and YA novels, I think you'll find this an enjoyable story.

Girl in the Snow by Danya Kukafka is an average read. It doesn't really stand out. We have seen these characters before and we have read this story before. I did like the characters, but there is nothing that makes them really stand out. I did want to find out what happened, but was disappointed in the conclusion. A book that will entertain you, if you have nothing better to read or do, but will not wow anyone. Just average.

Thriller from out of this world. Edge of my seat the whole way through from page 1 to the end

Wow! Girl in Snow really packs a punch! The story revolves around Cameron, the loner in love; Jade, whose insecurities are twisting her into a stranger; and Russ, an emotionally stunted cop. They are drawn together by Lucinda, the girl in the snow - the girl who has been murdered.
Girl in Snow is so much more than a murder mystery. It is a sometimes painful character study of life in a small town in Colorado. There is so much pain that the story is sometimes hard to read. The pain is relieved by beautiful language and a strong plot.
I read the book in one day because I needed to know what happened next.
Girl in Snow is definitely worth reading.

Thank you to the publisher and net galley for an arc in return for an honest review.

The publisher claims in the accompanying notes that I wouldn't be able to put the book down and I started reading, fully expecting a fast paced thriller.

This book is nothing of the sort; it is a slow exploration of three individuals in a small town that has been rocked by the tragedy of the murder of a young girl. Events are seen through the eyes of these three main characters who are all damaged in their own way, and their role in the case. Russ is the police man investigating the murder, Cameron is the confused teen who was obsessed with drawing the murdered girl, and Jade is the girl who used to be friends with Lucinda, but came to hate her. Each character, in their own way, shows what it is like to live in small town America, and have the community know everything and yet nothing about their lives.

For those that like a near resolution, the murderer is revealed at the end of the book, and loose ends are mostly tied up. Russ, Cameron and Jade have all been on a journey and in this respect, I would say that it is more a character driven coming of age story than the murder mystery it is marketed as.

Interesting characters, suspenseful. Enjoyable read.

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.