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.

This was a decent debut novel which promises to launch Danya Kukafka writing career off in August. The genre is Mystery and Fiction, although it’s stated on Goodreads to include Thriller. After reading the book, I’d have to disagree with “Thriller”.  Yes, there is a death and it was revealed, so, I had closure. However, I felt the tone and prose leaned toward social psychology–if that can be a genre. It’s as if this tiny town in Colorado was a balloon and exploded when Lucinda was found dead in the snow. How each character was motivated, or the impact of this girl’s death effected the attitudes and behaviors of a small town was explored thoroughly.

What didn’t work for me was the changing every chapter to the character’s POVs, I expected this, as it’s a growing trend for writers to tell their story these days. But Kukafa chose to additionally switch back and forth from first person to third person narrative. I felt in doing that, she disturbed the flow of the story. There were also many lists made from teenager Cameron Whitley who was deeply disturbed. And even a screenplay thrown in the mix, this made the novel hard to enjoy. I was curious to understand why the time period 2005. My guess, it was the lack of technology??

Lastly, the teenage characters appeared to be older and more knowledgeable than I think they should have been.

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

Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka was a courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review. Thanks so much to all for this opportunity.

At first sight Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka is a mystery/thriller. Even if we accept these genre terms (which I don't) I'd rather call it a whodunit type mystery: there are a certain number of characters and as the story goes on and on it becomes quite evident that one of them is the murderer. However, the strength of the novel is not its (not too original) story; in fact, it is not even that important in the final critical judgement. If anything I would call it a coming-of-age story.

I started to read this book with not too high expectations, almost just 'kill the time'. Very soon I realized that I was up to a very enjoyable ride with an excellently written and highly addictive novel! To say that the story is character driven is an understatement. Ms. Kukafka is presenting to us 3 characters in the beginning, and we are getting to know the events through their points of view. The fantastic trouvaille the author achieves is, that she is feeding vital information on them, on the murder, on the life in this small Colorado town very, very carefully and slowly. (No, the novel anything but slow, don't worry.) Consequently the readers have to change their opinion, views, and attitudes throughout the whole novel, until almost the last page. It starts out with a quite obnoxious, dark teenager girl, a borderline insane stalking high schooler, and a pretty ignorant, dull albeit innocent looking cop. I do not want to spoil the fun so I am not going to reveal how many times and how I was changing my opinions on these three while reading Girl in Snow. Let me just say that these characters (and quite a few other, less important ones) turned out to be pretty different from the first impression Ms. Kukafka presented to us in the beginning. 

Beside superb character building, the novel touches several other issues as well: domestic abuse, adultery, bullying, cross cultural experiences, art vs. life, self-perception, misogyny - to mention a few. 

As for the writing, it is very tight (as opposed to being sloppy), and economical. No unnecessary flourishes, no long sentences with in-numerous clauses. However, if I have to say one critical remark, there are several places (usually at the end of certain paragraphs) when the author could not resist adding an extra sentence to 'prove' that she is capable of 'deeper' and more metaphoric writing too; the result is, unfortunately, quite bizarre and totally unnecessary.

All and all this is an excellent debut and a highly recommended book; I am looking forward to seeing Ms. Kukafka's next literary adventure.

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!

I wasn't a fan of this, I found it confusing and hard to follow.

This book was more of a YAishh than a contemporary read, but it was a good book to read.This story is told in different views and I loved it because I understood the story more. The mystery was not easy to solve, but easy to vividly picture everything going on.

The death of a high school student named Lucinda Hayes is told through out the book by the point of views of three people. Jade, who hates her, Russ, who is called to the scene of the crime, and Cameron, who was secretly obsessed with her. The story unfolds secrets, perspectives, and lies through all the point of views which had me about to jump off my chair. I enjoyed this book and I usually give a summary, but I feel like this also should be a mystery review for readers to find out who the killer is by themselves.

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.

At first, I wasn't sure how to feel about all of the intricate details in someone's mind. It was probably only a few minutes before I was entrapped in this book, though. Not knowing whether to feel sad for someone, or to blame them for the murder kept my attention easily. Getting to know each character, and understanding how they felt about life in general was intoxicating. The end was truly a surprise, and I loved that it did not simply end with the capture. There were characters I felt sympathy for with the way their life was panning out, but it was still so easy to put myself in their place and understand them completely. The entire book was very well written, and the set up made it much easier to understand the characters. It isn't the kind of book I normally read, but I had wanted to expand my interests in books, and this was a great way to start. There are always the kinds of kids in school that were captured so perfectly in this book, and the kinds of adults that you see from afar, but are intrigued to learn about their lives. This book truly held my attention, and kept me reading, kept me wanting to know the answer, how Cameron's life would pan out, everything. I loved it!