Danya Kukafka - Girl In Snow

Apparently, this weekend was exactly what I needed to catch up on some of my TBR for the month of July! I had really abandoned my duties as a blogger the past week. I finished GIRL IN SNOW by Danya Kukafka in one afternoon. Not because it was a light read and not because it was short by any means. Because it was beautiful and complex and heartbreaking. 

Plot:

When a beloved high schooler named Lucinda Hayes is found murdered, no one in her sleepy Colorado suburb is untouched—not the boy who loved her too much; not the girl who wanted her perfect life; not the officer assigned to investigate her murder. In the aftermath of the tragedy, these three indelible characters—Cameron, Jade, and Russ—must each confront their darkest secrets in an effort to find solace, the truth, or both. In crystalline prose, Danya Kukafka offers a brilliant exploration of identity and of the razor-sharp line between love and obsession, between watching and seeing, between truth and memory.

Review:

I knew I was in trouble the minute I began this read. Kukafka has written an isolating and beautifully crafted, complex novel about a dead high school student. This novel is told from three different people. The boy who loved her the most, the girl who hated her the most, and the police officer just trying to piece it all together.

What I enjoyed about this read was how even though the plot really is centralized by the death of Lucinda Hayes, the three main characters are really the ones we get to know and at some points, I found myself wandering from her death all together and instead bonding with these three people who's lives change in such dramatic and tragic ways after she dies. I wasn't rushing through the pages to find out how she died or what really happened that night. I was embracing these three beautifully written and authentic characters and their own storylines. What I really enjoyed was how they were connected through the past and present. How things come to light is really a blessing for a reader with this read and the characters take you on such a realistic journey that I was happily surprised to find out that this was the authors debut novel. Bouncing back and forth between liking and not liking some characters was really interesting as you got a feel of them through other characters perspectives and then how they viewed themselves. Kukafka effortlessly made each perspective unique in their own ways and stomped through this novel creating perfectly woven voices for not only a male and female teenager, but also a middle-aged man.

This is by no means a light read. While, I could see this being appropriate for a high school student, the subject matter is not only dark and twisted, but it also deals with some really heavy social issues such as depression and abuse. With both small and large revelations sprinkled throughout, Kukafka wrote a story that is not only a domestic thriller, but a sad and beautifully crafted tale about loss, love, and the poison that secrets hold. She then ended it with not only a twist I didn't see coming, but left the characters onto three separate journeys that were not only tragic, but brilliantly bittersweet. Watch out for this one, she's onto great things.

Rating: 4/5