ARC Review: #murdertrending by Gretchen McNeil

Title: #murdertrending Series: MurderTrending #1 Written by: Gretchen McNeil Published: August 7, 2018 by Freeform (Disney Books) (Amazon / Goodreads) Synopsis:WELCOME TO THE NEAR FUTURE, where good and honest 8/18 citizens can enjoy watching the executions of society’s most infamous convicted felons, streaming live on The Postman app from the suburbanized prison island Alcatraz 2.0.  When eighteen-year-old Dee Guerrera wakes up in a haze, lying on the ground of a dimly lit warehouse, she realizes she’s about to be the next victim of the app. Knowing hardened criminals are getting a taste of their own medicine in this place is one thing, but Dee refuses to roll over and die for a heinous crime she didn’t commit. Can Dee and her newly formed posse, the Death Row Breakfast Club, prove she’s innocent before she ends up wrongfully murdered for the world to see? Or will The Postman’s cast of executioners kill them off one by one?

I had heard good things about Gretchen McNeil as a mystery writer and I love a good YA mystery so I have been wanting to read her stuff for awhile now. So when I saw there were copies of this book at ALA, I picked up a copy so I could try her out. And while this was a cool concept and there were some unexpected surprises, it didn't quite blow me away.

One thing that I did really like about this book was the concept. It's one of the most creative ideas that I have read in a mystery. In some respects it had that classic mystery thing going for it where you have all these people stuck somewhere (islands are pretty popular) and you know one of them is the culprit, just not who. But then McNeil took that further by adding the reality show angle and the fact that there were serial killers trying to kill convicted criminals. It was a very unique concept and it all worked together to create a very fascinating read and concept for a mystery. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I also feel like this is a mystery with a solid plot to it. There was kind of a lot to this plot. You had the survival aspect of Dee trying to not get killed, then you had the mystery of who killed her sister and why she was wrongfully convicted, and on top of all that you had the backstory of her kidnapping. It should not have worked together but it did. It added a lot of layers to the plot and so much interest I kept wondering what was going to be revealed next and how it was all connected. It also definitely unfolded in a really good way too. Plus there was a ton of action. It had this fantastic horror movie/thriller vibe with brutal deaths and narrow escapes. McNeil did a great job of explaining the kills and they had a real cinematic quality to them. My problem with the plot however is that it almost felt too perfect. Like it just didn't seem believable sometimes. I don't want to give too much away but I'll just say I was waiting for some conspiracy to be revealed because it was all just too perfect.

But I think the perfection had a lot to do with the characters. Not that they were bad characters, they just felt a little cliche. For one thing, the main character of Dee was a complete Mary Sue. At every turn she was doing something else a little too perfectly. I love a kickass final girl but I want her to get a little lucky or surprise us with something, not be miraculously good at everything with very little explanation as to why. This was abundantly clear during the climax. The other part I just didn't really have any buy in for was the romance. The love interest was also just too perfect. He was this sweet and helpful guy who she fell for way too quickly and I wanted her to get burned by him. That would have been way more interesting to me. All in all, I just felt like these characters were just not complex enough for my taste. They weren't bad, I just feel like there was a lot of missed opportunities here. With a book that is all about serial killers and people trying to survive, I wanted more complexity.

All in all, this was an okay mystery but with a few small changes I would have enjoyed it a little bit more. The concept was cool and the plot was really engaging but the characters could have been more complex.

I give #murdertrending by Gretchen McNeil 8 out of 10 stars

Buy/Borrow/Bypass: Borrow. It's an okay read but not as good a mystery as I was hoping. If you are new to YA mysteries and you want one that is heavy on the blood and guts then check this one out but if you are looking for a mystery that will have you surprised and reeling, there are better books.

Have you read #murdertrending? What did you think? Leave me a comment with your thoughts. Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY READING!

Book Review: Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl

Title: Neverworld Wake Written by: Marisha Pessl Published: June 5, 2018 by Delacorte (Amazon / Goodreads) Synopsis: Once upon a time, back at Darrow-Harker School, Beatrice Hartley and her six best friends were the cool kids, the beautiful ones. Then the shocking death of Jim—their creative genius and Beatrice's boyfriend—changed everything.  One year after graduation, Beatrice is returning to Wincroft—the seaside estate where they spent so many nights sharing secrets, crushes, plans to change the world—hoping she'll get to the bottom of the dark questions gnawing at her about Jim’s death. But as the night plays out in a haze of stilted jokes and unfathomable silence, Beatrice senses she’s never going to know what really happened.  Then a mysterious man knocks on the door. Blithely, he announces the impossible: time for them has become stuck, snagged on a splinter that can only be removed if the former friends make the harshest of decisions. Now Beatrice has one last shot at answers... and at life.  And so begins the Neverworld Wake.

This book was really good. I had heard good things about the author so when I saw that she was signing copies of this one at ALA, I decided to pick up a copy I am so glad that I did and that I took the time to read it because I really enjoyed it.

I would say that this is the kind of book that you kind of want to go into without much knowledge so I don’t want to say too much. I went into to it thinking it was a mystery and there were definitely some good aspects of the genre. Much of the book is about finding out the truth of something that happened years ago. I really liked the way it all unfolded. It was a complex mystery with a lot of moving parts and things didn’t even fall into place until the very end. It reminded me of some of my favorite mysteries in that way because you didn’t get the full story until every piece of the puzzle was laid out for you.

But I think my favorite part of the book was the other aspect of the plot which is the more sci-fi/fantasy elements. It mentions the “Neverworld Wake” right there in the synopsis but for some reason I had no idea that this was going to happen. And I am so glad I didn’t know anything because it all felt so fresh and interesting. So in the interest of keeping things vague for you I will just say I found this really fascinating and there were lots of surprises that had me pretty shocked in the best possible way.

As far as the characters, they are the characters that I prefer in a mystery. By that I mean they are the kind of people where they are complex and imperfect. If you are going to have a mystery where you suspect one of the characters of doing something wrong you definitely need characters where that seems possible. What I liked about these characters is that they were all unlikely but possible culprits and I appreciated that.

All in all I think that this was a really engaging and interesting read. It kept me hooked from beginning to end and had plenty of moments that surprised me. I am now very interested to read Night Film and experience more of this author's writing.

I give Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl 9.5 out of 10 stars

Buy/Borrow.Bypass: Buy/Borrow. I loved this book and would definitely recommend this to fans of mysteries should check this out especially if you want a book with a subtle sci-fi/fantasy twist.

Have you read Neverworld Wake? What did you think? Leave me a comment with your thoughts. Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY READING!

Book Review: Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

Title: Imaginary Girls Written by: Nova Ren Suma Published: June 14, 2011 by Dutton Juvenile (Penguin Group) (Amazon / Goodreads) Synopsis: Chloe's older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can't be captured or caged. When a night with Ruby's friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers the dead body of her classmate London Hayes left floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away from town and away from Ruby.  But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns to town two years later, deadly surprises await. As Chloe flirts with the truth that Ruby has hidden deeply away, the fragile line between life and death is redrawn by the complex bonds of sisterhood.  With palpable drama and delicious craft, Nova Ren Suma bursts onto the YA scene with the story that everyone will be talking about.

I read The Walls Around Us a few years back and I really loved it. Since then I have been wanting to read more of her books. I saw this one on Overdrive and decided to snag it and read this month before I read her new book this fall. And while it was an engaging read, I didn't quite love it as much as I was hoping.

One thing that I did love about this book was the atmosphere. Nova Ren Suma definitely knows how to draw you in with her writing. She is the kind of writer who pays a lot of attention to the atmosphere and the way the book makes you feel. And what it makes you feel is uncertain and uneasy. There is a lot of mystery and wonder in this book which adds to that as well. Her writing is beautiful and lyrical in a way that you don't usually see with YA thrillers, but Nova does it so well.

The best way she does this is with the setting. We start with a small town in Upstate New York. As someone who grew up in a lake town in Upstate New York I was really excited to read this book and find my hometown in it. And while it wasn't as far upstate as I was hoping, it was still a great setting. It's a place with a lot of history that adds to the mystery and suspense of the setting. I do however wish that we had learned more about the town of Olive and the people who lived there. This isn't a historical mystery but it very easily could have been. As someone who loves those kinds of stories I couldn't help but feel as if this was missing something because it didn't go there. But that is just a personal preference.

Instead of being a historical mystery this book read more like magical realism. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Nova likes to add these subtle magical elements to her books. This one of course was no exception. The magic of this book was just one more thing that added to the mysterious atmosphere of this book. And while I really enjoyed the magical elements of this book I wish they had some more explanation too. It was just something that existed and we never got much information about what was happening and why. I just have so many questions when it comes to the world and plot of this book.

However, one of the really interesting things about this book was the characters. I am going to assume that these are not the kind of characters most people will enjoy. But I really enjoyed them because Nova does unlikable characters so well. Because the characters here are truly terrible. The two main characters are Chloe and Ruby. Ruby for one is truly terrible. She's manipulative and does some completely heinous things throughout the book taking advantage of people who care about her. The only person she really cares about is Chloe who is unable to see how awful she really is. I went into this book expecting a good story of sisterhood and I got one that was about a crazy and codependent family. It was definitely really interesting and kept me guessing though. If you like books about terrible people then this is definitely the book for you.

On the whole I enjoyed this book but it wasn't as tight a book as I was hoping. The setting and world is really interesting and atmospheric but there just wasn't enough info or explanation to it, but it does have interesting and unlikable characters.

I give Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma 8.5 out of 10 stars

Buy/Borrow/Bypass: Borrow. I picked this up from the library and I think this was the right call. It's an interesting read but it didn't blow me away like I was hoping. If you like any of the author's other books then I would pick this one up as well.

Have you read Imaginary Girls? What did you think? Leave  me a comment with your thoughts. Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY READING!

Audiobook Review: People Like Us by Dana Mele

Title: People Like Us Written by: Dana Mele Published: February 27, 2017 by Putnam Books for Young Readers (Penguin Group) (Amazon / Goodreads) Synopsis: Kay Donovan may have skeletons in her closet, but the past is past, and she's reinvented herself entirely. Now she's a star soccer player whose group of gorgeous friends run their private school with effortless popularity and acerbic wit. But when a girl's body is found in the lake, Kay's carefully constructed life begins to topple. The dead girl has left Kay a computer-coded scavenger hunt, which, as it unravels, begins to implicate suspect after suspect, until Kay herself is in the crosshairs of a murder investigation. But if Kay's finally backed into a corner, she'll do what it takes to survive. Because at Bates Academy, the truth is something you make...not something that happened.

I was really looking forward to reading this book. It has a lot of things that I really love including boarding schools, mystery, unlikable protagonists. It should have been a home run. But to continue the baseball analogy because why not, it was only a double. Good but not great.

One thing that I did like was the setting and atmosphere. Boarding school settings are always great for these kinds of stories. Without even really trying to, the author was able to create a mysterious and interesting location to set her book. It wasn’t an over the top creepy old school, the atmosphere was subtle. It felt both modern and mysterious. Plus I love that it was set in New England. I am such a fan of New England (I did just move back to Rhode Island) so of course I love books that are set there. And it felt very New England without being too cliche. Although I could have done without the detective having a think Boston accent, because that is a little too cliche.

The other great things about boarding school stories is that you have characters who spend all day every day together so there is not much to hide. But bless them they try. One of the things that attracted me most to this book is that it had unlikable characters and unreliable narrator. That’s how I like my mysteries. I like when I spend some of not all of the book wondering if the protagonist maybe just did the crime. And while I only briefly suspected Kay, she was my favorite kind of main character. She had secrets that she was trying to keep and it made her complex and intriguing. You don’t find out until close to the end the dark deeds she has in her past. It was a good reveal I just wish that it held a little bit more weight. Maybe learning it sooner would have helped create more tension for me.

But that wasn’t the only reveal that kind of fell flat. I went into this hoping for a complicated and intense mystery. That is not what I got at all. The plot was really very basic and the attempt at a whodunit just didn’t wow me. It tried to make me suspect numerous people throughout the book but I really just saw them for what they were, red herrings. The actual culprit was pretty obvious to me and her reasoning wasn’t even much of a surprise. I know I tend to be pretty good at solving mysteries but this one just didn’t confuse me at all. And all the twists and turns just felt like distractions. I am hard to please when it comes to mysteries though so it’s not that it’s a bad one, it’s just not one that I loved.

One thing I did really like though is the characters. I already mentioned Kay but she wasn’t the only unlikable person in this book. To be honest, it was a little trope-y but I was okay with that. Kay and her friends were kind of your typical “mean girls” but I liked that about them. Basically all the teenage girls were pretty terrible but I liked that they were able to be rude and unlikable. It made for complex characters who you are almost rooting against which makes for an interesting read when people are being murdered. And it made the person who was the culprit feel a little justified in their actions. I mean there is not justification for murder but having someone get their comeuppance is always interesting to watch.

I think what made it so that these characters weren’t just straight up tropes is that this is also a book full of diverse characters. You had different races as well as sexual identities. The book did a good job of handling gay and bisexual characters. Without even realizing it, three out of my last four books have had bisexual MCs. I’m really loving that these kinds of romances are shown and that they’re not always put on a pedestal. In this book there was such a complex romance I’m not even sure if I can call it a love square, maybe a love hexagon. These people just kept changing partners and having crushes on anyone and everyone. And that being said, there really wasn’t much romance in this book, which I even more appreciated.

Oh the whole this was a good read but wasn’t great. If the plot had impressed me more than it did then this would knocked it out of the park (hey, another baseball analogy) but it ended up just being a middle of the road kind of YA mystery.

I give People Like Us by Dana Mele 8 out of 10 stars

Buy/Borrow/Bypass: Borrow. If you like boarding school stories and are looking for one with diverse characters then I think you may like this one. Or if you are looking for a book with unlikable protagonist then check this one out. But if you want a complex mystery that is going to wow you, you should probably look elsewhere.

Have you read People Like Us? What did you think? Leave me a comment with your thoughts. Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY READING!