Such a Pretty Smile, Kristi DeMeester
Such a Pretty Smile, Kristi DeMeester
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Such a Pretty Smile
A Novel

Author: Kristi DeMeester

Narrator: Khristine Hvam

Unabridged: 10 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/18/2022


Synopsis

“Wonderfully well-written. The dread, the enigma, build with each scene.”--Josh Malerman

Best Horror Books by Library Journal

A biting novel from an electrifying new voice, Kristi DeMeester's Such a Pretty Smile is a heart-stopping tour-de-force about powerful women, angry men, and all the ways in which girls fight against the forces that try to silence them.

There’s something out there that’s killing. Known only as The Cur, he leaves no traces, save for the torn bodies of girls, on the verge of becoming women, who are known as trouble-makers; those who refuse to conform, to know their place. Girls who don’t know when to shut up.

2019: Thirteen-year-old Lila Sawyer has secrets she can’t share with anyone. Not the school psychologist she’s seeing. Not her father, who has a new wife, and a new baby. And not her mother—the infamous Caroline Sawyer, a unique artist whose eerie sculptures, made from bent twigs and crimped leaves, have made her a local celebrity. But soon Lila feels haunted from within, terrorized by a delicious evil that shows her how to find her voice—until she is punished for using it.

2004: Caroline Sawyer hears dogs everywhere. Snarling, barking, teeth snapping that no one else seems to notice. At first, she blames the phantom sounds on her insomnia and her acute stress in caring for her ailing father. But then the delusions begin to take shape—both in her waking hours, and in the violent, visceral sculptures she creates while in a trance-like state. Her fiancé is convinced she needs help. Her new psychiatrist waives her “problem” away with pills. But Caroline’s past is a dark cellar, filled with repressed memories and a lurking horror that the men around her can’t understand.

As past demons become a present threat, both Caroline and Lila must chase the source of this unrelenting, oppressive power to its malignant core. Brilliantly paced, unsettling to the bone, and unapologetically fierce, Such a Pretty Smile is a powerful allegory for what it can mean to be a woman, and an untamed rallying cry for anyone ever told to sit down, shut up, and smile pretty.

“A righteously angry fever dream.”--Paul Tremblay

“Brutal and shocking.”--emily m. danforth

“Darkly feminist.”--Karma Brown

“Razor-sharp. This one will cut you.”--Christopher Golden

“Darkly visceral...will leave readers doubting reality.”--Publishers Weekly

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press.

About Kristi DeMeester

Kristi DeMeester is the author of THE DARK SISTERS, SUCH A PRETTY SMILE, which was selected as a Georgia Author of the Year finalist, and BENEATH. Her short fiction has appeared in publications such as The Dark, Black Static, multiple volumes of THE YEAR’S BEST HORROR, YEAR’S BEST WEIRD FICTION, and in her short fiction collection EVERYTHING THAT’S UNDERNEATH. She lives, writes, and makes horror-themed candles in Atlanta, Georgia. Find her online at www.kristidemeester.com.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nilufer on June 13, 2022

Wow! (Silence) wow! ( more gulping) wow! ( hyperventilating , drinking up entire cold carafe filled with ice water) Wo..( Brain freezing- couldn’t pronounce the words) ( silence for 45 minutes: my my mouth agape, eyes popped out, looking at the wall as if I’m watching the final scene of Seven and Wic......more

Goodreads review by Jasmine on January 18, 2022

Such a Pretty Smile is an enthusiastic middle finger to the patriarchy. It opens with a grisly description of a young girl found mutilated and murdered days after her disappearance. As more girls turn up brutally murdered, it begins to look like the work of the Cur, a serial killer that slays girls......more

Goodreads review by Debra on January 16, 2022

Not for me. Not one bit. I should have put this down. But I didn't and that's on me. I have a feeling this book is going to be polarizing. Readers are either going to love it or it just won’t work for them. The synopsis was intriguing. Sounded like it would be right up my alley. I enjoy reading dark b......more

Goodreads review by Jen on October 25, 2021

If you’ve ever had visions of stabbing the stranger who told you to smile in the neck, this may be the book for you. For real though, and this goes out to anyone who tells random people to smile: Stop it. Right now. Lila is in 8th grade and struggling with an unrequited crush on her best friend Macie......more

Goodreads review by Misty Marie on February 24, 2022

I am so conflicted on how to rate this. I know there is supposed to be some hidden message about women learning to use their voice and speak up for themselves. However, when you list your book in the horror genre, I expect horror. Yes, there were some descriptions of how the girls were killed, but t......more