A Review of Kristi DeMeester’s “Such a Pretty Smile”
The Beast Within?
I always look with some skepticism towards books that are released in January, especially those by relatively unknown writers. Such a book could either mean one of two things. First, it could mean that the publisher has absolutely no confidence in the title. After all, January is the season when people’s credit card bills are still maxed out from Christmas, and they’re otherwise not spending as much money regardless. But it could mean something else: the publisher does have confidence in the book, but they’re releasing it into a field where there’s not as much big-name competition to give it more of a fighting chance. To this end, Kristi DeMeester — whose previous publishing credits appear to have been with smaller or at least independent presses — is getting a bit of a gamble from her big-name publisher for this one. Such a Pretty Smile’s first publication run is 100,000 copies, which is a staggering amount when I’ve seen other thrillers from St. Martin’s Press get announced first print runs of just 50,000 to 75,000 copies. So there appears to be saleability here, but is the book any good? Well, the answer’s a little bit complicated and is both yes and no.
The plot for Such a Pretty Smile is very convoluted, and it’s tough to describe it without revealing secrets that get unveiled later on in the book — so I’m trying my best to be careful here as much as I might be being vague. The novel concerns two story arcs: the first is told from the perspective of a 13-year-old girl named Lila who lives in Atlanta in the year 2019 — one year before COVID-19 really took hold. The other story arc concerns her mother, Caroline, who appears to be in her 20s and is set in New Orleans in 2004 — one year before Hurricane Katrina devastated the city. In both arcs, there appears to be a serial killer on the loose called the Cur who is targeting young girls. The said killer is more of a beast because it mutilates the bodies of the victims beyond recognition and some of the mutilations are sexual in nature. Meanwhile, both Lila and Carolina in each story arc are going through certain changes — with a deep, dark longing feeding in their bodies— and are having terrible visions, either visual or auditory in nature. Could these females actually be the serial killer in disguise, or is there something terrible linking them to a much more horrible, external source?
In a way, Such a Pretty Smile has a passing familiarity with Stephen King’s Carrie, except telekinesis isn’t involved in the former. In both books, a young woman is dealing with psychological distress while being under the thumb of an overbearing mother. Both books, in their own ways, too, are feminist in nature. In the case of Such a Pretty Smile, the book is really about the silencing of women’s voices in both politics and sexuality. This novel argues that women are expected to be nice, complacent, and docile — sort of along the lines of the rule about children being seen and not heard. When women do display anger or another emotion that might not be quite so favourable, especially in the eyes of men, they’re then written off as crazy and delusional. As such, mental illness plays a huge role in the book — if that’s not giving very much away — and psychiatrists, who (let’s face it) are usually male, get something of a bad rap here. Thus, Such a Pretty Smile has some important things to say and is darkly atmospheric to boot for a horror / psychological suspense novel. The message of the book is crucially important, and it may challenge the way you think — especially if you’re male.
However, Such a Pretty Smile has another characteristic of Stephen King’s writing: there’s a fair amount of bloat. While DeMeester does an admirable job of getting inside of her character’s heads, there are moments in the novel when not much happens when the Cur or whatever is behind these grisly murders is out on a coffee break. The story can get dry at times, especially in its middle third. There are also moments of sloppy writing, of incredibility. For instance, at one point, one character wants to phone a retired police detective. The character finds this individual by looking in the white pages of a phone book. Now, maybe things work differently in the States (I’m from Canada), but one thing journalism school teaches you is that you’re not going to find the home phone number of a cop, probably even one of a retired one, as those numbers tend to be unlisted — for good reasons. Thus, there are times when DeMeester falls into using particularly lazy and under-researched shortcuts to get the plot moving, no matter how unrealistic or improbable they might be.
Basically, Such a Pretty Smile is certainly worth reading and is worthy of a book being published in the cold, bleak days of January. It just has some very novice writing lapses from time to time. I can say that the plot is certainly fresh and original, even though it’s hard to explain what’s really going on with this book without giving the entire thing away. It is, as a result, darkly creepy and certainly puts some new twists on genre fiction, in addition to also making you think about how women are treated by society. Therefore, there are things to recommend about the novel. However, it does feel a tad far-fetched at times, and there are instances of stilted dialogue — doctors have a habit of talking to people using textbook dialogue, for example. So, there’s a roughly even mixture of both good and bad with this book. Still, Such a Pretty Smile exceeded my expectations of a read of this type. I can certainly see why the publisher has so much faith in this one. DeMeester has written a truly intriguing and mostly satisfying book, one that should be still selling briskly when February finally rolls around.
Kristi DeMeester’s Such a Pretty Smile will be published by St. Martin’s Press on January 18, 2022.
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