Fast Boys and Pretty Girls

I was drawn to this story between the lovely cover and the synopsis. But unfortunately, it feel short of expectations. Giving it a 3. A 2 or maybe 2.5 for the story itself but since I was given the audiobook to specifically review, and that was high quality, I’m averaging to a 3.The story follows the life of Danielle across two times, present day, when her daughters found the a dead body and years before, when Danielle was a teenager. The majority of the story is in the past, following an intentionally unlikable Danielle as she tries becomes a model. The writing is descriptive and detailed, drawing out the plot and instead, focusing on Danielle and her actions.I had a few key issues with the story. I didn’t like Danielle and she didn’t have any real growth over the story, thus making it hard for me to be invested in the story. Additionally, the plot was very slow moving, making it hard for me to care about the mystery element of the story.

Fast Boys and Pretty Girls by Lo Patrick is a compelling, layered story that blends small-town secrets, family dynamics, and unexpected tragedy into a gripping narrative. Centered around a former teen model who returns to her hometown only to have her children stumble upon a body, the novel wastes no time plunging readers into a web of mystery and emotional complexity.Patrick presents a strong concept with rich potential, and she delivers a story filled with intrigue and heart. The character work is particularly well done—flawed, real, and emotionally nuanced—adding depth to a plot that steadily unfolds. While the shifts in time and perspective can occasionally feel disorienting, the overall momentum and intrigue of the story keep the reader engaged.Balancing suspense with emotional resonance, Fast Boys and Pretty Girls is a thoughtful and entertaining read. Lo Patrick delivers a novel that explores the messiness of returning home, the weight of the past, and how quickly innocence can collide with reality. A solid and memorable story with a chilling edge.

Lo Patrick’s Fast Boys and Pretty Girls is a quiet triumph—an emotionally resonant coming-of-age story set in the heat and haze of the American South. At its heart is the unforgettable voice of her young narrator, who offers a tender, sharp, and unflinching perspective on family, longing, and survival.Patrick masterfully captures the raw vulnerability of adolescence, wrapping it in lush prose and vivid imagery. The characters feel achingly real—flawed, resilient, and profoundly human. Their stories unfold with a sense of inevitability and grace, never rushed, yet always compelling.Themes of abandonment, love, and personal agency ripple through the narrative, often beneath the surface, giving the story a subtle power that lingers long after the final page. It’s a book that doesn’t shout—it hums, aches, and eventually sings.For readers who appreciate literary fiction rooted in voice, atmosphere, and emotional depth, Fast Boys and Pretty Girls is a standout. Lo Patrick continues to prove herself a writer of exceptional sensitivity and strength.

This is the 3rd book I’ve read by Lo Patrick and I must admit that it was a bit of a disappointment for me. I had really enjoyed her first 2 books but thought this one was a little slow. I really feel that giving it a 4 star rating is me being generous. I loved the title, Fast Boys and Pretty Girls, but didn’t feel that the storyline lived up to my expectations for what a book with that title should be. I also didn’t really like any of the characters involved. Danielle, the main character, was allowed to move to New York City at the age of 17 to take up modeling instead of finishing high school. What kind of parents would allow their child to do that? And Dani becomes obsessed with a younger bad boy from back home and that just didn’t make any sense to me either. If a young girl who is living on her own in the big city and is pretty enough to be a model, what would she want with a younger boy who is a troublemaker and is not going to amount to anything? There were just so many things to this book that didn’t seem logical to me. I didn’t understand why the mother did what she did and was basically allowed to get away with it. And I also would have liked to have learned how Danielle met up with her husband as none of that was disclosed. She was just a young girl moping over a boy and then she was married and a mother of 4 with no explanation as to how all that took place. I just wish the story would have went a little deeper and maybe I would have felt better about reading it. I’d like to thank Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for the arc. I’ve always enjoyed reading this author but I’m not sure that I’d be too quick at recommending this particular book. I feel that 4 stars is being generous and that it’s really more deserving of 3. However, I do realize that a lot of thought and work went into it and not every book can be great. And just because this particular book didn’t wow me, it will have absolutely no impact from me reading any of Lo Patrick’s books in the future.

Danielle Greer starts the book in North Georgia with a four-pack of daughters, a husband who basically exists offstage like he’s waiting to be called in from the wings, and the kind of haunted past that makes your childhood home feel like it’s whispering “bad decisions” through the floorboards. So when her kids stumble across a whole dead body in the ravine behind the house, it’s not just a murder mystery. It’s a full-throttle faceplant into the swampland of her teenage trauma.Now let’s be honest. This book is called “Fast Boys and Pretty Girls” and that’s EXACTLY the energy we’re working with... teen modeling, questionable romances, emotionally stunted adults pretending to be grown, and the Southern-fried melancholy of never really escaping your hometown. The setting? Perfection. It’s humid. It’s tense. It smells like secrets and hot asphalt. I grew up in North Georgia too and yeah, Lo Patrick absolutely nailed the vibe where everyone knows your business and your bad decisions are just family lore now. It's less a small town, more a time loop in denim.But sweet Lord, I have to ask… why was Danielle so into Benji Law? Like, deeply, devastatingly, “I will ruin my life for this man” into him. He’s got all the red flags of a boy your mom would say “bless his heart” about and then immediately forbid you to be alone with. He is Peak Tragic Southern Dirtbag. And yet, teenage Danielle treats him like he’s the last cigarette in the apocalypse. It’s not even hot. It’s just bad. Not “bad boy” bad. I mean objectively bad choice bad.Danielle herself is… a lot. Both as a teen and an adult, she’s prickly, selfish, and kind of a mess, which I honestly respect in theory. Give me a complicated woman with too much eyeliner and an avoidant attachment style. But the problem is, she doesn't really change. Past Danielle is obnoxious. Present Danielle is just bored and tired and still making it about herself. I was rooting for her to have a moment of clarity, or like, any noticeable growth arc, but alas… nope. Still stuck on Benji like he was the plot of her life, not just a speed bump.The dual timeline thing almost works. The teen sections feel more alive, more dramatic, more messy (which, okay, that’s probably the point), but the adult sections are just kind of... there. We open with the Big Dead Body Discovery and then promptly slam the brakes and vibe in the past for 90 percent of the book. I kept yelling “HELLO?? There’s a skeleton in the yard??” but Danielle is too busy re-living her 17-year-old downward spiral to focus on the present.And listen, I didn’t come here expecting a twisty thriller. This leans way more literary mystery than beach read crime novel. That’s fine. It’s moody. It’s reflective. It’s kinda sad and nostalgic and smells like Aqua Net and unresolved guilt. But at a certain point I needed something to happen. I can only hear about Danielle’s crumbling modeling dreams and morally gray teenage choices so many times before I start rooting for the corpse in the ravine.The saving grace? The atmosphere. I mean it. The setting is so good it’s practically a character. That weird, sticky North Georgia limbo where everything is either decaying, haunted, or both. I felt that. You can taste the humidity. You can hear the cicadas. You can smell the bad decisions baking in the sun and fully understand why our girl is camped in front of a cranked up air conditioner.So yeah, it dragged in places. And Danielle’s obsession with Benji made me want to stage an intervention via time travel. But I kept listening, and I did care, even if I wanted to throttle half the cast. Plus, Eliza Summers absolutely ate the narration. If nothing else, it’s worth the listen just to hear her bring this sleepy, broken woman to life.Final verdict? Three stars. A little too slow, a little too moody, but still got under my skin in a “haunted hometown heatwave” kind of way.Whodunity Award: For Making Me Suspect Hormones Were the Real Killer All AlongBig thanks to Tantor Audio and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced audiobook of “Fast Boys and Pretty Girls.” I listened, I cringed, I yelled “girl no” into the void. Honestly, I haven’t side-eyed a teenage crush this hard since “Twilight” tried to convince us imprinting was romantic.

I agree with other reviews on here, the story was slow moving and didn’t really make you care about the characters. I don’t really even know what the draw or connection was between Danielle and Benji. He was not interested in her at all and she was obsessed with him for some odd reason. Her whole life revolved around this juvenile non-relationship. I’m sorry but I really did not like any character in this book. It was depressing from beginning to end. Now she is married in a loveless relationship and still pining after a relationship she had with a 16 year old boy who didn’t even like her. Save yourself save time and skip this one.

I read and enjoyed the author's previous books, but Fast Boys and Pretty Girls never grabbed my attention. A very slow burner and repetitious, things didn't get interesting until about the 80% point and by then it was too little too late. I didn't care about or connect with any of the characters and was glad to finish. Very disappointing.My thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark for permitting me to access a DRC of the book via NetGalley. Publication is 7/8/25. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own and are freely given.

Fast Boys and Pretty Girls has a dual timeline, is written at a slow pace and although the synopsis grabbed my attention the full story didn't. After modelling and making money during her teenage years Danielle is now married with children and living in her old parent's home. Things start to become complicated after her girls found a bound in the property and the police is called and an investigation is started. She knows who the deceased is but is not straight forward with her knowledge. The story has all the elements of a good plot but it was one of those difficult to read and to finish.I thank the author, her publisher, and NetGalley for this ARC.

A very well written slow burn story. Even though this was a slow burn, I felt totally engaged and couldn't wait to find out what happened next. Dani (Danielle) is a semi successful model from North Georgia. Told as a dual timeline (2004 vs 2019). The story unfolds as Dani is starting out as a new model in New York, her mother is supportive but very "all about me". On one of Dani's return trip home, she falls head over heels, madly in love with Benji, a boy her mother does not approve. In 2019 Dani's girls are out playing in behind their home when they discover skeletal remains. Dani is a flawed, very human strong female lead. This was a very enjoyable read, I really enjoy stories that are set in the south.

“Fast Boys and Pretty Girls” is by Lo Patrick. I so wanted to enjoy this book more than I did. The premise sounded interesting, but there was just something about this book that didn’t work for me. The pacing was slow, the dual timelines okay, but at the heart of it, I just couldn’t really care about Danielle, the main character. This book being a slow-burn one didn’t help with the pacing, at least for me. I will note, however, that Ms. Patrick did a great job with “rebellious, don’t give a darn, everyone’s jealous of me” teenage Dani. Have to admit, the romance between Dani and Benji - didn’t really feel it. I think if you've read other books by Ms. Patrick and have enjoyed them, this book might be another one to add to your collection.

Danielle is 17 years old and lives with her family in the Georgia mountains when she is offered a job as a model in NYC. Her parents agree to it and she moves to New York. She is semi-successful as a model and goes home to take a break. When she's there she starts an affair with a 16 year old boy in her small town -- to say that he is the typical bad boy, is putting it mildly. She invites him to New York and he goes for a short time but hates the big city and soon returns to the Georgia mountains. Their relationship continues despite the warnings of her parents and sister but she is totally consumed with him and doesn't want to deal with negative life. She finally returned home for good and the relationship ended because they both wanted different things out of life. Then there was a fatal accident and life changed for her.Years later Dani is living in her parents old house with her husband and 4 daughters. She seems pretty well disinterested in her children but when they find human bones in a ravine behind their house, she gets worried because she's pretty sure that she knows who it is and she begins to think about her younger days and her life as a model. The book switches back and forth between Dani as a young girl and Dani as a parent which was a very effective way to tell the entire story.Normally Southern fiction is one of my favorite genres but this one didn't click with me. I didn't like the main character as a teenager or as an adult. She just seemed kind of disconnected from her life and never seemed to try to understand all that had happened to her. She made some bad decisions but never really understood how they affected the rest of her life or her family. I think that this book should be considered as a YA book - that is the audience that it seems that it was written for.

Danielle Greer is plucked from a small town in Northern Georgia by a representative of a New York model agency. She has that wholesome southern girl look. She is happy at first until she returns home for a visit and runs into Benji Law. Benji and his brother are those kinds of boys, the ones mamas in the area try to keep their daughters away from.Danielle isn’t the type to listen to her mama. She’s seventeen and living on her own in New York City. She doesn’t need anyone but Benji.Danielle was promised that she’d make a lot of money. So far it hasn’t happened. Benji becomes more important to her than her career.A young girl’s shining star can burn out fast when younger girls come to town to replace you.Danielle talks Benji into coming to New York to stay with her. He eventually gets a job as a mechanic, but he constantly tells her he wants to go back home.Before Benji leaves, a new girl arrives in New York. Danielle’s agent encourages Danielle to help the girl adjust. The agent thinks that since the new girl is from Kentucky that the two southern girls would have a lot in common. They don’t. Except for Benji. The younger girl catches Benji’s eye.The story jumps forward to 2019. Danielle is living in her childhood home. Her parents moved out because of a tragic accident that happened there but that was years ago. Danielle moves in with her husband and they have four daughters.One day the daughters find human bones in a ravine behind the house. Danielle suspects who the body is but has no clue how it got there.The story is told through Danielles point of view. It bounces back and forth between 2004 and 2019. Small towns in the south are good for holding secrets. Danielle believes that some secrets must be revealed.This was a fast read for me. I am familiar with this author. I read The Floating Girls a couple years ago and that review has attracted more visits than any other review I’ve written. I missed her second book so will be reading that one soon.If you love southern mysteries, this is a good one. I plan to keep Lo Patrick on my radar.The scheduled release date is July 8th.Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmarks for an advance reader copy for my honest review.

Fast Boys and Pretty Girls by Lo Patrick is a very highly recommended literary Southern mystery and coming-of-age story told in a dual timeline. I have read and loved every novel Lo Patrick has written.Danielle (Dani) Greer moved back to North Georgia after a brief career as a teen model in NYC. Now she is a married mother of four daughters living in her childhood home. One afternoon her girls coming running back into the house saying they found bones in the ravine behind the house. Danielle knows who it couldn't be, but may know who it was. She calls local police officer Cady Benson.Years ago when insecure teenage Dani, 17, came home from NYC for a visit she fell in love with motorcycle riding bad boy Benji Law, 15, and quickly became obsessed with him. Her modeling career may not be taking off as fast as promised, but her fixation on Benji is overwhelming, although seemingly not reciprocated in kind. He was killed in a motorcycle accident on the road in front of her family's house so she knows the body in the ravine isn't his and still recalls the events leading up to his death.The extremely well-written literary novel held my complete attention throughout. The narrative unfolds through chapters following events in dual timelines set in 2004 and 2019. Danielle is the narrator and the novel follows her point-of-view. Even though it is a slow-burning novel, it is full of psychological insight, complex family dynamics, and tackles the emotional intensity of a first love. We have both a mystery and coming-of-age story, that follows the folly of a youthful and the realities of adulthood.Danielle is portrayed as a fully realized individual, with strengths and flaws, especially since we meet her as a teen and later as an adult (who is likely suffering from depression). Her character development is carefully crafted and Patrick manages to capture the heartbreak, confusion, and resignation she experiences in pitch-perfect prose that is both insightful and poignant.When the realization of what happened becomes clear toward the end with clues provided in the plot, it is both surprising and shocking, yet somehow understandable. I may be an outlier in my love and appreciation of Fast Boys and Pretty Girls, but I was completely immersed in the novel from start to finish.Fast Boys and Pretty Girls is a perfect choice for those who enjoy literary novels, Southern fiction, mysteries, and coming-of-age stories. Thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

“One year lasts a lifetime when it’s the year that changes everything” shares former teen model Danielle “Dani” Greer in Fast Boys and Pretty Girls by Lo Patrick, available July 8. As Dani, she saw New York City, Miami, and Paris, but after a short modeling career, Danielle moves back to Pressville, a small town modeled after Ellijay, Georgia, in a story that burns slowly and leaves deep scars.Now married with four daughters all living in her childhood home, Danielle wakes from a nap to the excitement of the girls’ discovery of a body in the wooded ravine behind their house. While the majority of the book flashes back to Dani’s modeling years when she found herself enamored with a Georgia underage misfit, the current timeline revolves around the mystery surrounding the bones found on Danielle’s property.As Danielle reveals that her boyfriend died in a motorcycle wreck on the curve of the road in front of her house more than a dozen years ago, she suspects that she knows the identity of the body in the woods although she has no idea how it could have ended up there. The past refuses to stay buried.The investigation of the found remains by Cady Benson, a woman whose trajectory has been similar to Danielle’s with a brief career in New York and now settled as a police officer in Pressville, has triggered Danielle’s mental visit back to the confusing time in her life when she was a 17-year-old on her own in the Big Apple trying to carve out a modeling career.Once again Danielle enters a puzzling phase in her life causing her to ask, could it be who I think it is buried in the woods? How much if anything do I know about the quickly identified body?A satisfying exploration of love, loss, and the weight of secrets in small-town America, a surprising twist will devastate Danielle’s family.Georgia native Lo Patrick is proving to be a compelling voice in Southern mystery fiction. A lawyer-turned-writer, she lives in the Atlanta suburbs with her family. Her debut novel, The Floating Girls, earned a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly in 2022, and she followed it with The Night the River Wept, another gripping Southern-crime tale.