Staying quiet all the time is unsettling.

106. Such a Pretty Smile – Kristi DeMeester

Lila’s mother Caroline is very strict and won’t let Lila do much of anything when all she wants is to be able to go along with her one friend Macie – who, to be fair, is only ever encouraging her to do stupid shit for a boy whose older brother Macie likes – because she has a crush on Macie. I personally thought Macie was not crush worthy as she does not listen to a word Lila says and is only in it for herself, trying to get Lila to sneak out during a sleepover after girls in their area have been found murdered and severely mutilated. Lila also knows her mother somehow knows something about these murders, has a sickness that is later revealed, and has a past that she continues to refuse to talk about, all of which make Lila feel isolated and unhappy in a two person home.

Caroline’s past in New Orleans and what drove her to move up near Atlanta with Lila is explained in flashbacks that were really propelling the story along. See, even Caroline doesn’t entirely remember a big piece of her past and she’s doing her best to respond to the men in her life telling her what she needs to do when she’s having visions and losing time and hearing ravenous dogs at Jazzland. Caroline not telling Lila about the parts of her past she does understand is a major oversight on her part as it all comes together for her, also at Jazzland.

It was really weird to me that this book somehow made Jazzland menacing. I have only seen ruined Jazzland while driving into New Orleans post-Katrina, but I have been to Six Flags in St. Louis, so it wasn’t foreign territory to me to describe this brand of amusement park…but this makes Jazzland while open the most haunting of amusement parks, a place where multiple women have had auditory hallucinations of a pack of wolves or dogs barking and apparently it was built on a site of mass murder for ladies.

I read this all in one sitting, not at Jazzland, and it was creepy and scary and gave me that “no one is listening to her” dread feeling.

 

Snuffy hates most noises, so, both jazz and auditory hallucinations of ravenous dogs are out. She’s also very fierce, as can be seen in her stance and facial expression in which she is not smiling.