Great idea. The plot is lost in the jumping between storylines. More time needed to be spend development the characters. Quick read. ( )

Riveting? I think not. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. ( )

Trending toward 4 stars. This is a small book, but very powerful. Evocative of The Lovely Bones, so you are not in for light reading, but worthwhile reading. The novel is set in a Texas town, outside of Austin -- with a small town feel, but (that's one flaw) big enough that outsiders aren't remembered or noticed on the day of the tragedy. 3 teenage girls (Zadie, Elizabeth, -- sisters and Meredith) who work in an ice cream shop are brutally murdered at closing time and the shop is torched, which botches evidence. The only witness who might be useful is the town eccentric, Hollis Finger, who is a damaged Iraqui War vet, which also hampers the investigation. The story floats in and out of the immediate past and the present, sometimes from the dead girls' perspective and sometimes from the survivors and even perpetrators' view point. Kate, mother of Zadie & Elizabeth, and owner of the shop is almost mad with grief and anger. Jack Dewey, the first fire fighter on the scene who discovers the bodies is wrecked afterward. Michael, one of the "bad guys" who drove the get-away car is not as far-removed from the scene as you would think. It's all told very airily, as if observing events from a great distance, and yet upon closer scrutiny and vivid detail from the author as he zeroes in on tiny moments in the day of and weeks that follow. The title refers to the small ways people are all connected, even when we don't want to acknowledge it. ( )

I didn’t care for this book at all - it really made no sense whatsoever - I am glad it was short or I wouldn’t have finished it ( )

In See How Small author Scott Blackwood explores the details and impact of a horrendous crime on the people who are involved or affected. In Austin Texas, three teenage girls go about the business of closing the ice cream parlor that they work in. Two men walk in and when they leave the store is on fire and the three girls are on the floor, naked, bound and murdered.

The author based his story on a similar real-life unsolved crime in an Austin yogurt shop and although this is indeed a terrible and ugly situation, Scott Blackwood manages to write a beautifully nuanced novel about how a community deals with this tragic loss. This book isn’t a mystery, it is a sensitive and honest look at how people rebuild their lives after a tragedy. While this isn’t an easy read, the author does avoid needless descriptions of violence but the emotional turmoil that the families endure is heartbreaking.

See How Small is a compassionate and creative study of a grim subject. The author’s intimate prose places the reader inside the minds of those who are left behind which I did find very difficult at times. One’s instinct is to turn away from such raw human emotion and give the sufferer some privacy, but in See How Small there is no escape. This is not a book that I can totally praise. Yes, it was both sensitive and dreamlike but it was also slightly disjointed and non-linear making it hard to connect with any of the characters. I suspect some will love it and some will not. Personally I am glad that I picked this book up. ( )