A dark and vindictive tale.
When Sierton High’s cheer captain, Ella Moore, is found dead after a party, all eyes turn to the other seniors who were with her that night.
Each one had a reason to want the white-blond Ella, a vicious bully, to disappear. Her boyfriend, Scott Russell, recently discovered that Ella was cheating on him. Lucy Aguilar resented Ella for stealing Scott from her. Naomi Chen was being blackmailed by Ella over information that could have destroyed Naomi’s reputation. Then there’s brooding outcast Isaac Caldwell, whose sister was driven by Ella’s bullying to the point of attempting suicide a few years prior. Newcomer Dawn Foster, who just moved to Wisconsin, was also at the party but left before anything seemed amiss. As rumors spread, Dawn starts digging into her classmates’ secrets for clues that could lead her to the murderer. In alternating chapters set three years in the past, shy, self-conscious freshman Hannah Smith joins the Sierton cheerleading team and immediately becomes the target of relentless mockery led by who else but Ella. The story begins as a typical murder mystery, but a chilling twist in the third act will make readers rethink everything they’ve read up to that point. Until then, it’s up to Dawn’s investigation and the tension between the past and present storylines to keep readers going, since most characters lack the depth to garner much interest. Central characters are white; Lucy is Latina, and Naomi is white and Asian.
A dark and vindictive tale. (content warning, author’s note) (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781728293394
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A gripping tribute to resilience.
A girl with amnesia and a boy suspected of harming his girlfriend overcome adversity to find the answers they seek.
A 17-year-old girl wakes up in a ditch, disoriented and with no memory of who she is or what happened. Found by the Alton, Oregon, police, she is brought to the station. Soon after, Wayne Boone, a man claiming to be her father, shows up. He has photos of her on his phone and her high school ID card, with the name Mary Boone. Wayne convinces the police to release Mary into his custody. The more time Mary spends with Wayne, however, the weirder things get: He’s unaware of her food allergy, and as her memories start to return, they don’t conform with Wayne’s versions of her life. In the town of Washington City, across the Willamette River, Drew is in a bad place. His girlfriend, Lola, has disappeared, and Drew was the last person to see her. His adoptive dads and cousin are the only ones who support him; everyone else, including the sheriff, thinks he’s responsible for Lola’s disappearance. Intent on finding Lola, Drew finds help in an unlikely ally, Lola’s best friend, Autumn, who is the sheriff’s daughter. But will they find Lola in time? The two immersive storylines bring to life the trials and frustrations each main character faces in this debut, which is a thrilling delight right up to the unexpected and bittersweet conclusion. Most characters are cued white; one of Drew’s dads is Guatemalan.
A gripping tribute to resilience. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781728270111
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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