What happens when you can't distinguish what is real from what is delusion?!?

Such a Pretty Smile was a beautifully written... heart wrenching... dark Tale about woman, about Family and about what lurks in the shadows.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC & to the Author for the great read!

(Trigger warnings ⚠️)

I think this type of book is a category of story I can't fully embrace. Writing is good, story is good but taken together they're just not for me; which is a bummer bc it feels very much like a genre that is picking up steam. And I also like things that call out the unrelenting misogyny that pervades so much of our everyday life. 3 stars mostly bc I know for those who are into this type of writing, it's a fantastic type of book.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Lila is worried about a fellow student who was abducted. Her mother has memories of a serial killer named cur who did similar things when she was younger. This book was both chilling and kept me on the edge of my seat.

I loved absolutely everything about this horror novel: the imagery, the turns of phrase, the fury of adolescent-hood and young adulthood leaping from the pages.

I would classify this as a social horror of the highest magnitude wrapped in a serial killer mystery. The pacing ramps up the further you go in, but you never feel that it’s moving at a breakneck speed that you couldn’t keep up with. I wasn’t frightened by any of the scenes in this book, but it definitely gives you thrills and chills.

The characters felt real and so interesting. You could tell that the author took care to craft each one of them and give them their own distinctive voice.

Kristi DeMeester deserved so much praise for this novel. And I’m hoping it’s a booktube/bookstagram/booktok sensation upon release because I’d love to hear all of my favorite influencers’ take on the story.

I will be reading everything this author writes going forward. That’s for sure. 😊

Oh Man this was such a good book!!! Quick read! Enjoyed the characters a lot Thanks for the opportunity to read and review

Very unique horror story. Creepy and unsettling with many twists and turns to keep the reader guessing and completely absorbed right to the thrilling end!

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review

I loved this one. Very fast paced, had me turning pages as I tore through it – I had to see how it would end. The characters were well rounded and the narrative felt believable. Wild ride.. Solid 5

"Such a Pretty Smile" is a creepy novel. I didn't know much about it going into it, and I'm glad. The story follows two timelines - one is Lila Sawyer in 2019, and the other is her mother Caroline in 2004.

For Lila, growing up isn't easy. She's the daughter of famous sculptor Caroline Sawyer, and her father has a new wife and a new baby born with serious health problems. Lila is the last thing on his mind. The young girl begins seeing the school counselor and undergoes a rather jarring change in personality and temperament.

Caroline doesn't have an easy time as a young adult, either. She works multiple jobs to pay for her father's memory care facility, and her boyfriend is clearly jealous of her artistic talent. When insomnia leads her to start hearing - and then seeing - vicious dogs everywhere, she seeks help on her boyfriend's advice and is given pills to stop the hallucinations. If that's what they really are.

During both timelines, girls are disappearing, only to be found dead later - and mutilated. Is an animal doing this? A serial killer? Lila's mother seems more paranoid than most parents about the bizarre disappearances, and Lila can't help but wonder why her mother never discusses her past. What does Caroline know? How does her past shine light on the new murders?

With a "monster" trying to silence the voices of young women, it becomes clear that bad things will happen to girls who don't follow the rules. But not all of the girls are willing to take a back seat to the men in their lives - to be the supportive girlfriend, or to date the popular boy just because that's what is usually done. This book is a rallying cry for all of the females who want to do more than behave well and smile pretty. I loved it.

I hadn't heard anything about this before I read this book but the summary caught my eye immediately. The book was so fast paced that I was able to read it in one sitting as I couldn't put it down. It was so dark and troubling and also so creepy!The mental health schizophrenia components were very familiar and I loved how it was dealt with in addition to everything going on. I love that you were kept on the edge of your seat the whole time and how everything came together at the end.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me a sample of this book I really loved it and would love to purchase and add to my collection.

I have read many many many books, especially this year as I decided to throw myself fully into my love of horror, and I can day without the shadow of a doubt that this one is the best of 2021. It may go down as one of the best I have ever read. Beautifully written, intriguing, exhilarating, tragic, brutal, eerie, and haunting. I will write a longer review on the blog once I have time to fully digest, but when I finished I literally and audibly said « wow » out loud. Five frikin stars and if I could I would give it six.

This one is a tough one to review and rate for me.
First off, I did enjoy the writing and the characters, and the story itself was very intriguing. The atmosphere of Such a Pretty Smile drew me in from page one and it actually carried on throughout the whole book. I wanted to keep turning the page.
I of course (sadly) also recognized many of the gross situations our main characters find themselves in as my own experiences with men and that's why I'd love to rave about this book a lot more, but especially the ending kinda left me hanging.

I would have wished for some more exploration of the threat (I called them the patriarchy dogs in my head while reading ...). Mystery is good, but too much mystery feels unfulfilling. I couldn't really take the resolution seriously and I should have, because serious things happened and it's a serious topic. But things went down way too fast after a relatively long build up and I still didn't really know much more about the fantastical aspects of the story than I did in the beginning, unfortunately.


Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for inviting me to read and review Such a Pretty Smile.
**review already posted on Goodreads separately; doing it through the website messes with my editions read.

This was absolutely fantastic! I stayed up way later than I should have to finish this book. I highly recommend this to all thriller lovers. Thanks to publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book. I can’t wait to find more by author.

Written in the style of a gothic thriller, definitely a sit up and read all night book. The strength of women is highlighted in this excellent read.

I'm not even sure where to start, so I'll just say that I really loved this book. I don't want to give away too much, but it's about a serial killer called The Cur that's targeting young girls. The killings started in New Orleans in n 2004 and have begun again in 2019 in the Atlanta area.

I thought the plot was very unique. There was a twist I never saw coming. It was really well-written and I hope to read more from this author. Thanks to NetGalley for the advance reader copy.

Thank you to both #NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me an advance copy of Kristi DeMeester’s contemporary horror novel, Such a Pretty Smile, in exchange for an honest review.

#Suchaprettysmile is undoubtedly one of those polarizing reads: you will either love it or hate it, with little room for anything in-between. On the one hand, the plot twist was certainly innovative for a genre that is typically inundated with trite concepts. It also helps that the author knows how to create a tense atmosphere and distinctive characters. On the other hand, I was not particularly drawn to any of the characters, which is a shame since the book is chockfull of dialogue. I could barely tolerate Caroline by the end of the fourth chapter.

Additionally, the pacing of the story was not quite right and there was some unidentifiable issue with the writing. All I can say is that it felt flat, but then I think back to graphic scenes or the clarity of random passages and the word ‘flat’ is also inaccurate. If someone figures it out, please leave a comment below.

I do not want to reveal too many details and spoil the story, but basically if you enjoy reading horror with oblique elements or books with feminist themes, then this could potentially be for you. Again, the reviews appear to be evenly split. Personally, I struggled to finish it. However, that does not mean you will too.

I struggled with this one.. while I loved the premise behind the story and the thought put into it the story itself was a little shaky for me. It was hard to keep up at times and try and figure out what was going on, it jumped a little for me. I enjoyed the writing but there were just to many character flaws for me to love it.

When I first started this book I wasn't really sure what direction it was headed, but the further I read, the writing and plot sucked me in. We are following both Lila age 13 in the present and her mother Caroline mostly in the past, but she has some chapters in the present as well..

As long as your smile and dont cause any problems you'll be allowed to live, but the moment you begin to cause trouble you die..

Children are being murdered.. they are found with strange wounds that look like bite marks on the inside of their thighs.. This brings up memories from Carolines past.. In both the past and present we arent sure if there is truly some supernatural elements coming into play or if Caroline is just an unreliable narrorator. Which you really start to think about more when her daughter starts acting strange.. Seeing and hearing things she can't explain.. The anger inside building until it spills over onto her best friend and family.. What is happening? Is this something supernatural.. or something just happening in both of their heads?

Lila can feel that something is wrong with her, and she thinks that if she can uncover her mothers past that it will explain everything thats happening now..Little does she know what will happen when she finally finds out the truth.
Im happy I decided to read this one in October as it definitely gives spooky and ominious vibes, and keeps you guessing until the very end when the story comes full circle.

This was definitely not the thriller I thought I was getting and I am 100% okay with that. This had some eerie scene setting and descriptions and while the dialogue was minimal I have never read such great villainous lines. I gasped a couple of times and laughed but not in a haha it’s funny way but a wow, that was perfection way. On top of the writing style the author also addresses multiple themes throughout including sexism and women being suppressed by a patriarchy that wants them to sit still and look pretty. It was a really deep unsettling dive into the power struggles women face with a terrifying supernatural element that reads almost like fiction within fiction. This also definitely had a psychological element in that you cannot trust the narrators or yourself to be sure what’s real in the story and what’s not. I was surprised by everything in this book and love that about it and would fully recommend. My only complaint is that the timelines were a little hard to follow at first. Once you get into their rhythm the story reads very quickly.

There were so many elements to the story that I loved.
The exploration of the legacy of pain between mothers and daughters was well done. There were scenes between Caroline and Lila that were poignant, but also painful.

There were dual plot lines. The 2004 plot line with Caroline, the mother, and the 2019 plot line with Lila, her daughter. This was mostly done well, but I found the Lila plot line to be a bit more interesting.

If you’re not a fan of unreliable narrators, you’d better skip this one because neither narrator is reliable.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a free copy of this ebook in exchange for an unbiased review.