The Amateurs (Amateurs, #1)

by Sara Shepard

Everyone's dying to know the truth . . .

When Aerin Kelly was eleven, she idolised her seventeen-year-old sister, Helena, and they did everything together. They made Claymation movies and posted them to YouTube. They made fun of Windmere-Carruthers, the private school they attended, they invented new flavours for their parents' organic ice cream shop, and they dressed up their golden retriever, Buster. But when Helena went into senior year things started to change. Rather than being Aerin's inseparable sister, she started to push her away. Then, on a snowy winter's day, Helena vanished.

Four years later, Helena's body is found. Wracked with grief and refusing to give up on her sister, Aerin spends months trying to figure out what exactly happened to Helena and who killed her. But the police have no leads. A young, familiar officer named Thomas wants to help and suggests she checks out a website called Case Not Closed. Hesitantly, she posts, and when teenagers Seneca and Maddox show up on her doorstep offering to help investigate she accepts in desperation. Both have suffered their own losses and also posted to the site with no luck, so they are hoping this case might be the one they crack. But as their investigation begins, it seems that maybe it's no accident that they are all together, and that maybe the crimes have something - or someone - in common.

• ISBN10: 1471405265
• ISBN13: 9781471405266
• Publish Date: 6 October 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Hot Key Books
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[readingwithwrin]

"Just one more day to hug her, tell her I love her, all that shit. I'd trade that for anything."

Shepard has done it again, I am invested in this group of friends getting to the real killer and all staying alive! That ending... OMG.. I need the second book now! I have to know what happens next!

We have Aerin, Seneca, Maddy, & Brett who are all amateur high-school/college teenagers trying to solve murders. Two of them want to solve the murder of a loved one, and the other two just want to help. I'm not going to go into each of the characters personalities or anything like that, because that is really apart of what made me enjoy the story so much.

This makes it a very complicated story to tell at times it would seem, but it's not. We switch perspective each chapter, which really helps us see how/what everyone's feeling and how they are helping the case. The group surprisingly work together fairly well after a few hiccups that happen, but ultimately they make a pretty good team, as long as no one is drunk.


Did things very conventionally fall together once again? Yes
Did the teenagers make dumb decisions that were extremely unsafe? Yes
Did they keep things from the police? Yes

Honestly at this point for me these are just things that are going to happen in a Shepard novel, its how she writes and it's what I've come to enjoy about her books. They make them a little too similar at times, but at the end she always throws something in that was very unexpected and has me drawn back in once again. I also love how easy I can read her books, yes they are very thrilling, but there also ones that don't scare me too much either. I can't wait for book two and to see what happens next.

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I read this when it first came out and was awed. It was fantastic. However, it's got a cliffhanger ending and I hate waiting for sequels. So I put it out of my mind for a while and eventually got hooked on other things. Now that the sequels have been published I got myself set up for a reread so I can finally know the ending.

Seneca is a complete mess. Well, they kind of all are. But I did like them all. Aerin was probably my favourite and I liked Thomas. The romance between Aerin and Thomas was nice - the romance between Seneca and Maddox was a disaster. It didn't add anything to the book. The mystery itself is riveting. I like how they track down the clues and find new evidence to help solve the case. I felt sorry for Aerin and Seneca - their pain was fairly obvious - even if their methods of dealing with it were pretty different.

The Amateurs does really highlight the dangers of the internet. The most obvious being Seneca thinking Maddy was a girl. (And how confusing is the whole Maddox/Madison thing - awkward) But also the difficulties for them in continuing their friendship in the real world. It's a lot easier to admit things online than it can be face to face and this was highlighted in the text.

It was a great read and I loved every minute of it. Can't wait to get started on the next one.

[layawaydragon]

I was pleasantly surprised by The Amateurs. Besides from one racist incident, I don't have a single complaint.

I thought I would like it sure enough, but I got swept up so quickly with these kids, the story, and couldn't get enough.

But what really clenched it?...

THAT ENDING! So creepy and disturbing. I really did NOT see that coming and I will most def. be continuing the series to find out more.

FYI: There is this really racist moment where Brett suggests Madison "Asian bond" with a Chinese woman when she's Korean. All he says is "oh, my bad." But NO ONE stood up for how FUCKED UP that is, even if she was Chinese. Ugh, so annoyed with them all for that, especially Brett.