Top Ten Clues You're Clueless

by Liz Czukas

The day before Christmas, money goes missing from a donation box at GoodFoods Market and Chloe and five of her teenage coworkers--held in the break room until the police arrive--try to identify the real thief.

• ISBN10: 006227242X
• ISBN13: 9780062272423
• Publish Date: 9 December 2014
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[girlinthepages]

5 Things About This Book:
1) It’s deceptively Chistmas-y. Until Lauren brought it to my attention, I had no idea this was a holiday book. It actually takes place on Christmas Eve, and rather than being a “holiday” book, it’s more like a book that just so happens to take place on a holiday.
2) It has a Breakfast Club vibe. Chloe and her fellow teen coworkers are all detained after their Christmas Eve shift under suspicion of theft. As they wait for the police to arrive in the snowstorm, shenannigans ensue as they have the run of the store to themselves.
3) The protagonist has diabetes. I thought this was a really interesting aspect of the book, to see how Chloe’s condition impacted her day to day life and how she managed it.
4) It’s very YA. The setting, the circumstances, the group of teens that seem to come from every walk of life…it’s all very YA, fluffy in the right ways but also lightly grazing some more serious topics. While it was a fun read and pretty much what I expected, I wish the author had given a bit more weight to some of the issues that were brought up.
5) It’s a little predictable. Maybe I read too many mysteries, or maybe it just wasn’t that hard to figure out, by I figured out the “culprit” pretty early on. I still enjoyed Chloe’s love of mysteries and her encouraging everyone to try to solve it with her, though! This book is just plain cute.

[readingwithwrin]

4.5 stars

"I think about Sammi's attitude, and Micah's naive genius, and Zaina's shyness. I think of how they all rallied to take care of me, and how none of them treated me any different when it was over. I think of how lonely I've been since I started at my new school. I think of how i don't really want to leave, even after all these hours together."

See reviews first on my blog

Chloe ends up working at the supermarket on Christmas Eve. But she's okay with this because she hopes to be working with her Crush. What she doesn't expect to happen though is for someone to end up stealing from charity and her and five other teenager employees being the ones accused. With no idea who took the money and none of the teenagers admitting to the crime. They are stuck in the supermarket until the police arrive or someone admits to it.
With none of them wanting to admit to there parents the real reason they have been asked to stay late they all come up with different stories that they hope will workout and save them from parent disappointment/lecture.

"Top Ten Worst Mom Phrases
10. Young Lady
9. Anything that includes your middle name
8. I thought you were dead! Or worse!
7. I worry about you!
6. You know, when I was your age...
5.You're not going out like that, are you?
4. Look me in the eyes and tell me that again.
3. If all your friends jumped off a cliff would you?
2. I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed.
1. Do what you think is right. I'm sure you'll make the right choice."

While stuck not only do they all actually get to talk to one another for a change, but they also start learning about each other. They even start coming up with possible suspects. That is until the manager puts them to work cleaning while they wait. That's when Chloe who is diabetic ends up almost passing out from lack of eating. With the help of her new friends though she is able to overcome it and get back to 'normal'.

Overall I really enjoyed this story. All of the the characters in this story were fun, yet real at the same time. The six teenage employees while accused of the crime had no evidence against them. So they all decided to play detective and start working out who could have taken the money, and how much money exactly was taken.
While this story does involve romance, it is not super insta-love and the characters have known each other for quite a while so I didn't mind it.
I don't want to say too much else because I don't want to give anything away. But I will say this if you want a quick not super romantic Christmassy read that involves a mystery than this is the book for you.

[Linda]

This review was originally posted on (un)Conventional Bookviews
Top Ten Clues You're Clueless is a sweet, whimsical tale of six teenagers who worked in the same GoodFoods market on Christmas Eve.



Top Ten Clues You're Clueless is a fast read, which is a good thing, because we only follow the main character, Chloe, and her fellow young employees for a few hours. It's impossible to really get to know the characters very well in such a short time, and the story itself was very light, just slightly touching on some important topics before moving on to the next one. Chloe had diabetes, but didn't want her co-workers to know. She also had a crush on one of them, and that was an important part of her inner dialogues and her numerous lists.

Because it was Christmas Eve, the GoodFoods market was going to count how much money had been collected for charity, and the main plot of Top Ten Clues You're Clueless was that it was obviously quite a bit of money missing from the box. And who else would be blamed but the six teens working in the store? The unfairness of that particular way of seeing things was something that really touched me, though, and I'm sure it would have been even worse if I had been the protagonist's age.

Sweet and whimsical, but without much substance, I enjoyed the writing quite a bit, and the lists Chloe kept making were quirky as well. Written in first person present tense from Chloe's perspective, her inner thoughts were just as important as the rest of the story that unfolded around her and the other characters.



I know - it's so nerdy, right? I keep hearing that being a geek is cool now, but I'm not sure the rest of the world has gotten the memo, because I still feel like a pretty big dork compared to a lot of people at my new school. And being insecure makes me want to write more lists, which makes me feel nerdier, which makes me write more lists... You can see my problem.

So that's what I'm doing while I key in the code for my customer's giant bag of limes. It's hard to imagine what a small blond woman could do with that many limes.

I'm really working my way through my mom's paperback mystery collection, so I guess that's something. Something antisocial and vaguely depressing, maybe, but it's something.

[limabean74]

4.5 stars. I adored this book, It was so much fun and has a great cast of characters. Review to come!

[Leah]

When I spotted Top Ten Clues You’re Clueless on Edelweiss, I downloaded it immediately. I’ve heard VERY good things about Liz Czukas and have her other novel on my book shelf to read, after having it recommended to me as a light and funny YA read, so I was hoping for more of the same with Top Ten Clues You’re Clueless – especially with a title as awesome as this one; it’s probably one of my favourite book titles, ever!

whatiloved

IT’S SET IN A SUPERMARKET. As a person who works in a supermarket, it has been my dream for three years to read a book about a supermarket and it’s finally arrived! *Blows horn trimphantly* Not only is it set in a supermarket, but it’s actually spot-on. Chloe is our narrator and she narrates life in a supermarket as if she works in the same one as me! Same crazy customers, same crazy situations, and all the irritants that come with supermarket work. It made me so happy, I tell you. SO, SO HAPPY.

Chloe is actually a wonderful narrator. The plot itself is a bit crazy – a charity box filled with money is stolen, and Chloe and her “youngling” co-workers are pretty much held hostage for the evening until the cops arrive, on Christmas Eve. But because Chloe is so lovely, and the setting was so wonderful, I really enjoyed the book. I loved that Chloe was some sort of amateur detective, trying to figure out who stole the money; I liked that she was so sweet and that she wrote top ten lists – I could have read a whole novel filled with Chloe’s varying top ten lists. They were so much fun! Chloe’s co-workers, too, were lovely, with Micah making the most impression. I do like a clever boy. It was just such a fun, sweet read. So lovely to come back to, for each read.

thenotsogood

I don’t really have any complaints – I mean, the plot is a little thin on the ground and I’m not quite sure it’s legal to hold under-age staff for so long, on Christmas Eve. It was all a bit too hostage-like for me, although the hi-jinks the kids get up to was quite fun. Apart from that, I can’t really complain – the novel did exactly what it said on the tin!

verdict

Top Ten Clues You’re Clueless is a cute, sweet story – and best of all, it’s set in the real world and in a supermarket of all places. The storyline was a teensy bit thing, but Chloe was wonderful. Such a lovely young girl, and as I said the book does exactly what I expected it to do. It took me away from reality for a while and made me laugh and nod my head at all the crazyness you see in supermarket life!