Pretty Ugly Lies by Pamela Crane

"...sacrifice could teach us how to live fuller, that being true to oneself wasn't about temporary happiness, but about enduring the hardships and finding strength within."

Oleander Way, North Carolina. Four families. Four wives who are also mothers. Mothers who are drowning under the weight of demanding husbands and children. Something has to give.

This psychological thriller and mystery is told from the viewpoint of four different women. All are doing their best to take care of their children and their husbands -- and largely failing. One of these women decides to take matters in hand. The result is family annihilation. How did it get to this point -- was there a moment when everything broke or was it a slow, eroding process borne of frustration and futility?

A slow burner of suspense, this novel shows motherhood and marriage as a thankless prison. The anguish of the women is palpable, all the more because I struggled to understand it and empathize. The mother with a special needs child, the one whose husband was having an affair, the other with a secret lover who wouldn't let go, and the woman whose child was kidnapped from the park as retaliation for a long ago mistake. What do these women have in common? Real life and all its toll on their hearts, minds and time. NO SPOILERS.

An extremely fast paced book that begs to be read in one sitting. At the outset, the reader knows that a there has been murder, but it takes most of the narrative -- told from different points of view -- to get to the who and why. Although I'm not quite sure I liked how it all turned out, it definitely was a compelling read. I feel that the overall tone was quite depressing and certainly would make me question my desire to have children or a family (if I hadn't already gone that route with much different results). We read about women who "snap" and commit horrific crimes against their families and always wonder -- what was the last straw -- and WHY? There are no answers here, really, but maybe just the underlying theme: endure.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloodhound books for this e-book ARC to read and review. This is a standalone and is not part of any series.