Girl in Snow-ARC Review

Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Let me tell you something about my reading taste, I thirst after thrillers, but when one is a flop I spare no mercy on my many criticisms. With this book, I don't even know where to start telling you much of a flop it was in my eyes. The story starts out with Lucinda Hayes, a beloved and popular high schooler being murdered at the local school playground.

From the premise that the summary described, it sounds like it has the potential to be a whodunit, especially since there is a POV from the local police officer thrown in there. In reality, this story is about three individuals, the boy who stalked her, the police officer that had personal ties, and the girl who wanted a perfect life. It was the most boring life stories, as dull as the dishwater in your sink. Seriously, if you want to write character driven stories (which are my favorite usually) you should take some time into putting some personality and distinction between every person so that there's actually some substance.

There was an overuse of sex in this book, and so throughout it I couldn't stop cringing and skimming throughout those passages. During the actual reading time of this book, I had 0 inclination to go and pick it up, usually the experience of not being able to put down a quality thriller, this was definitively a red light.

Another thing that got on my nerves was how juvenile and not well done the writing was. I do understand that this author is a debut novelist, however her writing not at all what I had expected from a thriller, and I think that has to do that it seems she can't pull off writing from a young adult's perspective. For most of the book, there was much oversimplification because I felt like the author didn't understand and couldn't get into the headspace of the main teenagers in this story, which just detracted from the general intent of the story.

If there was more focus on the murder investigation, if we had known the dead girl better, if I was invested in the three main characters lives, this would have been a much better story. As it stands, I would say that this book was one of my least favorites that I have read this year, and I would not recommend it to anyone because of the way that it lacked character development, an exciting plot-line, and the bad writing found within it.

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.**

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