A high schooler is approached at a mall and asked to be a model. She moves to New York and becomes one against her mom's wishes. Coming home to visit, she hooks up with the local bad boy and they become a couple. He moves to New York with her, and she quickly discovers her lifestyle is not all it's cracked up to be. I give this a 3 for being so predictable. There was no surprise ending with this one.

This book had me intrigued but I had a lot of trouble connecting with Danielle. I liked the writing and the overall story but I really struggled to connect with the characters and they didn’t feel authentic in some scenes and which let it down.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one. I went in blind and can say that I enjoyed certain parts of the book, but other parts fell flat for me.

The book is written as a dual-timeline, which I found kept me hooked. Lo Patrick did a great job capturing the teenage rebellion streak. I will say it was a slow burn and certain aspects of the story felt forced - like the relationship between Benji and Dani. While I didn’t like Dani as a character, I found myself invested in the story.

I wanted to love this book but unfortunately I only liked it. I found it hard to connect to the characters and thats important for me . It was also unrealistic to me.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

I bet a lot of readers will love this indulgent writing style, it just didn't work for me.

The blurb of this book intrigued me and thank you to the publishers for providing me with an ARC. I struggled to connect with any of the characters in this book, Danielle was very unsympathetic and the grand relationship just didn’t seem like it should have triggered any of the consequences which it did.

Fast Boys and Pretty Girls by Lo Patrick
Danielle Greer is plucked from a small town in Northern Georgia by a representative of a New York model agency. She has that wholesome southern girl look. She is happy at first until she returns home for a visit and runs into Benji Law. Benji and his brother are those kinds of boys, the ones mamas in the area try to keep their daughters away from.
Danielle isn’t the type to listen to her mama. She’s seventeen and living on her own in New York City. She doesn’t need anyone but Benji.
Danielle was promised that she’d make a lot of money. So far it hasn’t happened. Benji becomes more important to her than her career.
A young girl’s shining star can burn out fast when younger girls come to town to replace you.
Danielle talks Benji into coming to New York to stay with her. He eventually gets a job as a mechanic, but he constantly tells her he wants to go back home.
Before Benji leaves, a new girl arrives in New York. Danielle’s agent encourages Danielle to help the girl adjust. The agent thinks that since the new girl is from Kentucky that the two southern girls would have a lot in common. They don’t. Except for Benji. The younger girl catches Benji’s eye.
The story jumps forward to 2019. Danielle is living in her childhood home. Her parents moved out because of a tragic accident that happened there but that was years ago. Danielle moves in with her husband and they have four daughters.
One day the daughters find human bones in a ravine behind the house. Danielle suspects who the body is but has no clue how it got there.
The story is told through Danielles point of view. It bounces back and forth between 2004 and 2019. Small towns in the south are good for holding secrets. Danielle believes that some secrets must be revealed.
This was a fast read for me. I am familiar with this author. I read The Floating Girls a couple years ago and that review has attracted more visits than any other review I’ve written. I missed her second book so will be reading that one soon.
If you love southern mysteries, this is a good one. I plan to keep Lo Patrick on my radar.
Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmarks for an advance reader copy for my honest review.

This was such a good book. I loved the story and the writing so much. The characters were great and the story flowed smoothly. Will definitely read more books by this author in the future.

Dani and her family return to her childhood home in GA. When a skeleton is found on the property , Dani must face her youth and secrets of young love.
This book was a little hard to follow from past to present with all the characters but a good read.

This one sounded intriguing from the synopsis but I wasn't at all invested. It just didn't work for me.

At 17 years old, Danielle left a small town in Georgia to start a modeling career in NYC. From the outset, I found her to be selfish & insufferable. What I found even odder was how her family just seemed indifferent towards her, especially her mother who didn’t seem at all fazed with leaving her daughter in NYC alone at such a young age. Then on one of her visits home, Danielle falls in love with a “bad boy” and becomes obsessed with him. All hell breaks loose with her family who can’t understand why she’s in a relationship with him, especially her mother who is determined to put an end to it. Then, there was a fatal accident and a missing person at the heart of the story. I didn’t really connect at all with Danielle, even as an adult. She seemed indifferent with her own children and still was so self-absorbed.

Thank you to NetGalley & Sourcebooks Landmark for giving me the opportunity to read an advanced eARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

Fast Boys and Pretty Girls is a southern mystery. The story alternates between the past and present. Seventeen-year-old Danielle leaves her small hometown in Georgia to pursue a modeling career in New York. But her obsession with a younger local boy in her hometown leads to trouble and heartache for her and her family members. Although the plot was slow-moving, I enjoyed this book. Thanks to the author Lo Patrick, Sourcebooks Landmark, and NetGalley. I received a complimentary copy of this ebook. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

This was a book about a teenage girl’s relationship with her family and obsession with a boy that she becomes infatuated with. The book flashes back to the early 2000’s and present day and describes the relationship she had with her mother and how her infatuation with a boy that her family deems unsuitable affects her life as well as her family. This was a sad book and the ending left me me wondering if there would be a sequel. I thought there would be some conclusion between the main character and her mother as well as with her husband and daughters but it seemed to end abruptly. The book did have an interesting story.

This is the first book I have read by this author and I enjoyed it. It was fast-paced and had great character development. I will be reading more of this author.

I had high hopes for this book: the blurb hinted at a slow-burn mystery, a return-home story filled with buried secrets and emotional complexity. And to some extent, it delivered — but it just didn’t work for me.
The writing is often lyrical, and I liked the structure that moves between past and present. It builds tension well. Still, I never quite connected with the main character. Danielle felt distant and passive, and many of her decisions — especially her fixation on Benji — lacked the depth or clarity to make them feel believable.
The central mystery, while intriguing, unfolds at a frustratingly slow pace and never feels like the true heart of the story. I found myself turning pages just to get to the end, but without much emotional investment.
It’s a shame, because the Southern atmosphere and the author’s style show real promise. I might give one of her other books a try someday — but this one wasn’t for me.

I felt like the characters were cardboard concepts more than characters, which meant nothing really connected as it should.

A story of mistakes and growing up to fast. Small towns and big cities, the wrong people with bad mistakes. Good people who make split second decisions that not only ruin their lives but others and the lives of the ones they love the most. I give this book a 3 star rating, an easy fast paced read that really makes you think about the decisions you make in everyday life and the consequences they have on your future.

ARC review; this book was just okay for me, with somethings I enjoyed and others I did not.

To start, I thought the prose was quite beautiful, there were lots of quotes worthy of being underlined. I enjoyed the flip from past to present as we come to understand what brought Danielle to this point in her life. I enjoyed the underlying mystery and the descriptions of the cities Danielle used to live in as well as the country home she comes back to. The settings felt very well done and I could picture her apartment and parent’s house vividly. Her time as a model felt well executed and believable as well, her frustration and failure to thrive in that particular industry.

However some things did fall flat. I found the dialogue particularly hard to follow, especially when multiple people were talking. I thought the mystery could have been written with more depth. The ending with the reveal felt very rushed in my opinion. And I wished we got a bit more from Danielle’s relationship with Benji. Although he was supposed to be her big first love there was no chemistry between them and I couldn’t get a handle on Benji’s character. If I’m being honest, none of the characters in this felt likeable or even that fleshed out.
I think the entire story could’ve benefited from a bit more depth and detail. I felt a bit like I was skimming the surface of something without ever becoming fully immersed.
Overall this was a quick, easy read but I don’t feel compelled to read any more of this authors work.

The writing style was an easy read, told from two time periods of Danielle Greer’s life. Her life as a 17 year old that goes to NY to be a model, and her adult life with four young daughters living in her family home where remains of a girl have been found on the property.

I requested this book on NetGalley by the beautiful cover and the name of the book alone. Slow to unfold - but not in a negative way.- we follow southern girl Danielle on her journey from being discovered by a talent agent at a mall to moving to NY on her own at 17 to model. On a visit home she meets up with 15 year old bad boy Benji and a one sided relationship begins. At times I would forget Benji was so young when he was acting like, well a typical 15 year old boy would. I felt badly for Dani, it was a very one sided relationship and she did not want to let go. Pulled me back in time when I was 17, chasing after my own fast boy, which went as good as it did with poor Dani and Benji. This isn’t a “love story” - more a coming of age tale with some suspense peppered in with who the body found is.

I received a copy from Net Galley for an honest opinion.