This was not my favorite book. It seems like I'm very firmly in the minority with this opinion, so please keep that in mind when you read my review. You may love the book! Most people do! But I didn't. 
 Plot Summary: 18-year-old Hattie Hoffman is found dead just two months shy of her high school graduation. She was stabbed, her face mutilated, and her body was left in an old barn to be happened upon the next day. Hattie was the golden child: she was statuesque and graceful, smart and witty, and an enormously talented actress. She could read and understand people so completely that she was able to pick out exactly what qualities they most admired and she would embody them. Her death, understandably, shakes the small Minnesotan farming town she grew up in. 
 Pros: 
 - I lately have a bit of a weakness for these small town mysteries in which a perfect young girl mysteriously dies and the rest of the town is left to make sense of what happened. I appreciate how quiet they are and how they're usually more a character study than anything else. 
 - The writing wasn't so bad. 
 Cons: 
 - While I just said I appreciate how focused this story was on the characters, I don't think it was particularly well done. The characters didn't exactly make sense and since that was my biggest problem with the book, I'm going to break down my critiques for each character: 
 - Hattie: She is shown to completely above her classmates and the town she grew up in. She's too smart for them, too mature, too everything. It made her a rather unlikeable mind to be in. But fine, that's believable. My problem is the inconsistencies in her character. I'm not talking about how she's a different person to everybody in her life. That's on purpose and I get it. What I mean is that her actual true self is inconsistently developed. 
 For example: She is shown to be so mature and ~worldly~. She has researched moving to New York City obsessively, but yet, she thinks that the $2000 she has saved up will even remotely last her there. I hope that this weird lack of judgment is the author's attempt to show that Hattie isn't as mature as she wants to believe, but it's never really expanded upon. Peter makes one small comment about it and that's that. Hattie has a rather ugly and arrogant worldview and I think that she would've made a more compelling character if that was developed more thoroughly. 
 - Peter: WAS SO UNLIKEABLE. Good lord. He moves with his wife to her hometown after her father dies, so that she can take care of her dying mom. He's so bitter about it. He hates that his wife would dare to spend more time with her mom WHO IS DYING, he hates that she selfishly drug him to this small town that he hates to take care of her DYING MOTHER, and he does everything in his power to alienate himself and he wonders why she gets frustrated that he's not remotely trying to make the best of the situation. All he does is complains about her taking her mom to doctors' appointments and watching TV with her and tending to the farm. He wants his old life back and he wants Mary to go back to how she was in the city. He has no sympathy at all for the situation and no patience. It's only been going on for a few months too! And it clearly won't last much longer because, let me say it for you again, HER DAD JUST DIED AND HER MOM IS DYING. God what a prick. 
 But more than that, his character is inconsistently developed as well. This might seem nitpicky but it bothered me the whole story (this also might be spoilers, but it happens so early on and is so obvious that I don't think so): Peter and Hattie's virtual meet cute was ridiculous. For those who haven't read it: Peter anonymously posts to the literary message boards that Hattie frequents stating that he saw that Thomas Pynchon was having a book signing in NYC and he wondered if anyone in the area would get a book signed for him. Hattie takes pity on him and explains that it's a trick that is frequently played on newcomers to the board. 
 My problem with that is that Peter is supposed to be this intelligent, well-read character who, like Hattie, thinks himself better than all of the people in his life who dare to call themselves his peers. HE SHOULD KNOW THAT A THOMAS PYNCHON BOOK SIGNING ISN'T A THING. At the very least, it would be so out of the norm for Pynchon, that Peter should have looked into a little more thoroughly. Maybe, IDK, Googled it. The whole thing seemed implausible. 
 Also, I'll put this under spoiler tags I guess, (view spoiler)[ Peter and Hattie's relationship was a mess in general. Don't get me wrong, Peter totally seems like the type to cheat on his wife. He's such an asshole. But, while it might not be unrealistic, it seems like pretty poor judgment on his part to even consider running away to New York with a girl he very seriously describes as a sociopath, who also thinks the way to get Peter to be with her is to, essentially, blackmail him. So Gross. (hide spoiler)] 
 - Mary: Is fine, mostly. I felt bad for her for most of the story. Her dad just died, her mom is dying, her husband is an asshole who resents her. She gets a little Willa Cather on us at the end, talking about throwing her lot in with land, etc. That seemed a little out of place. But she's okay, except for one major thing: (view spoiler)[ the author definitely tries to make us think that she's the murderer. The whole conversation with Peter in the jail is so odd and so obviously manufactured to lead our suspicions to her. But I didn't remotely believe she could possibly kill Hattie because it was so at odds with the rest of her characterization. It was so forced. So it just seemed odd to me that the author would even throw that in. It seemed like a convenience thing just to get Peter to confess to a crime he didn't commit and add some ~drama~ at the end. (hide spoiler)] 
 - Del: Was a stereotypical small town sheriff. No big deal. My dislike from his was at the end: (view spoiler)[ When he goes on about how Tommy's death was totally Hattie's fault.. Hattie was practically family to him and he sympathized with her killer??? Like I get it was very low of Hattie to date Tommy even though she doesn't like him just to cover up that she wants to sleep with her teacher, but I don't think that justified killing her! And to feel any sympathy for him and to blame Hattie that Tommy decided to drunk drive himself into a tractor trailer seems pretty farfetched IMO. Nothing in Del's characterization indicates that he would take that viewpoint. (hide spoiler)] 
 - Tommy: I'll put this all under spoilers: (view spoiler)[ This was the least plausible character. Why are we supposed to believe that he would kill Hattie over finding out that she was using him? He never shows any other indication of violence. He was handsy, yes, and didn't respect boundaries (which is in its way a form of violence, I know). But how angry he got at the end was so out of nowhere. I know that Portia makes that one off-handed comment that Tommy might rape Hattie if she keeps telling him no, but even the comment doesn't seem justified. He never so much as punches a wall or anything like that. If we are to believe that he would KILL HATTIE and MUTILATE HER FACE because she wouldn't sleep with him and she didn't really like him, then the author really need to give more indication of his violence beforehand. (hide spoiler)] 
 - Also the whole Macbeth Curse thing only worked to make the book less serious. It didn't make me think of how superstitious people can be and the hive mind of a small town, it must seemed silly. 
 This review is so long, so I'm just going to stop. Definitely give the book a shot because, like I said, my opinion is in the minority. But I wouldn't read it again. 
 I recently read How Will I Know You? which is very similar and a bit better. But if you want a similar-but-really-good book, I would recommend Everything I Never Told You.