About The Book
Three teens investigate a murder—while each tries to hide their own complicated history with the dead girl—in this thought-provoking novel from award-winning author Pamela N. Harris. Perfect for fans of Karen M. McManus and Tiffany D. Jackson!
Buy The Book: https://amzn.to/42OEy7w
My Rating
*I’m very thankful to HarperCollins for providing me with an ARC of this book. As always, my review is completely honest and unbiased.*
I have very conflicted feelings about this book. On the one hand, I couldn’t put it down, but on the other hand, there were some minor things about the story that kept me from fully enjoying it. In the book, we follow Liv, whose best friend Hope supposedly died by suicide. However, Liv believes there’s more to Hope’s death and is determined to get to the bottom of it.
The story is set in an isolated location with a group of teens trapped together, all of whom are keeping secrets. It takes place on a rainy Halloween night, which makes the atmosphere even more compelling. I will say it took me until about the 30% mark to get fully into the book, but once the story picked up, I was completely invested in the plot.
There were so many times that I didn’t know who to trust or which character was actually being honest. There were so many twists and turns that I kept feeling like once something was revealed, the author would throw another twist in that would completely shock me. And let me say, I love a good, twisty thriller/mystery.
The story also talks about how people of color, especially women of color, are treated and believed. This added a really powerful aspect to the story, and as someone who’s never personally dealt with racial injustice, I appreciated getting a glimpse of what other ethnic groups have to go through just because of their race.
“I needed to feel something about my best friend’s death.”
Another prominent topic throughout the book was mental illness with the main character suffering from panic attacks. The plot focused heavily on mental health struggles and how people tend to perceive those with mental health problems. While I appreciated the representation, I will say that, as someone with a mental illness, it was hard to read a book where this was such a big part of the story, since I usually read to escape
My biggest issue with the book, however, was the characters. There wasn’t a single character that I actually liked. While I do think this worked in the author’s favor, since it made me distrust everyone, it was still hard to read about unlikable people. Some of the characters’ actions and emotions felt very high school, which is understandable since they are teenagers, but the main character just felt a bit immature.
Overall, I found the plot engaging. While I think part of the ending was a bit obvious, at least from my perspective, I still had a good time reading it. I think this is a fun mystery slasher with a lot of powerful messages woven into the story. However, before picking it up, I do suggest checking the trigger warnings.
Once again, a big thank you to HarperCollins for sending me an ARC of the book for review. In the comments below, let me know if this book is on your TBR! Don’t forget to like this post and share it with other readers before you go. Be sure to sign up for my mailing list. It’s completely free and ensures you never miss a new post.
Until The Next Chapter,
Bunny
All book synopses are sourced from Amazon or Goodreads.
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