inlibrisveritas
The book starts off with a prologue of two girls being questioned over the death of their friend, and the first official chapter is the news coverage of a memorial being built in her honor years later. It’s a great start for the book, however I think due to the fact that it flips between the present and the past so frequently some of the story becomes jumbled. The whole story unfolds in the correct order but there are interludes of the two woman watching the news cast or saying something kind of unrelated, and it made it hard to follow. Of course the farther you get into the story the more realize that all of the seemingly random stuff actually does piece together but it takes the whole book to get to that point. There is also a lot that centers around the news reporter that has really nothing to add to the story and only served to annoy me.
All of the characters this focuses on are depressing, and every one of them has something terrible related to them. Laura, or Lola, is the main character and the one who narrates the whole novel. I didn’t really relate to her at all, and that probably has to do with the fact that I don’t get her personality. She’s kind of a push-over and she relies on others a bit too much, and when she finally gets that streak of independence it kind of goes wrong. She finds herself friends with Chloe, who in my opinion wasn’t that great of a friend and was more of a user than anything else. Chloe has been immortalized in her death as an innocent girl in love, and Lola works her way through the novel disproving that theory one story at a time. Emma is the third girl in this trio and while she and Lola don’t really consider themselves friends they anchor each other in the past. These three girls withheld so many secrets from each other it’s kind of insane, even when it would be beneficial to share they keep lying to each other. It’s kind of petty but then again I guess that’s how some teenagers are. I just found the three of them (especially Lola) frustrating, and I found the way Lola sought after Chloe’s approval sad.
I know that this is a good book overall, but I didn’t enjoy it. The mystery and lies repealed me more than it drew me in, and the story just felt grimy. It’s certainly not a feel good book and the issues it features are real, so before you grab this book be aware that this is not a light mystery novel.