Renee
Written on Jul 1, 2019
I had quite a few problems with this book. I expected it to be obvious, no real plot twists, bland characters, and a writing style that is easy to read but also not special. All those things were true. But I was ok with that, because I know Sara Shepard's writing. It is that way.
My issue with the characters is that literally everyone in this series is trying to tear each other down. The guys, the girls, the parental figures, every single person. It's not that they are bad or morally grey, but just straight up evil. I got so tired of them being evil without any reason. Literally no one could just be a nice person for 10 seconds. Even the girls that were supposed to be sticking together mentioned every single time that they did not trust each other and thought one of the other girls might have murdered Nolan. There are some truly evil people at Beacon High and I'm worried about Sera Shepard's view of teenagers and parental figures. Oh and of the cops, because they never seem to do their job right and always pick on teenagers, which is kinda weird.
Another thing I wanted to address is the fact that this book touches on almost every home situation and difficult life situation I could think of. Drugs, alcohol addiction, bullying, bullying because of sexuality, having same sex parents, overachievement, hoarders, not being able to take care of yourself, multiple personality disorder, popularity issues, split up parents, cheating, cheating with a younger brother, manipulation, betrayal, unhealthy competition between friends, evil stepparents, stepping out of your comfort zone, nudes spread around school, fake rumors, sexual abuse, using people, teacher-student relationship, losing a sibling, losing a best friend, post traumatic stress symptom, impersonation, and the list keeps on growing. This book shows that all these things happen and that even though one might seem to be perfect on the outside, you never know who they truly are and what they deal with. That is a good thing, but at a sudden point the list of things that are addressed in this book got so long that it felt a bit ridiculous, as if everyone needed to have something messed up happened to them otherwise they would not be living in this place. Also, the topics are touched on, but never really fully addressed in a way that some subjects should be addressed, because we only have 250 pages and there also is a murder to solve.
Overall I enjoyed this book. It was a fast read, entertaining, at times annoying, but don't expect any answers. I understand that when there is a continuation there are often no answers to a mystery given, but with this book there was just nothing given. Except for obvious stuff that the reader already knew from page 50. Personally, I would recommend the series instead of the books, but you can fly through them so why not try both?
