To: KateLowry@pemberlybrown.edu
Sent: Sun 9/14 11:59 PM
From: GraceLee@pemberlybrown.edu
Subject: (no subject)
Kate,
I'm here…
sort of.
Find Cameron.
He knows.
I shouldn't be writing.
Don't tell.
They'll hurt you.
Now Kate has no choice but to prove once and for all that Grace’s death was more than just a tragic accident. But secrets haunt the halls of her elite private school. Secrets people will do anything to protect. Even if it means getting rid of the girl trying to solve a murder...
So I really liked this book until the ending arrived, and then I wanted to hurl this into the cellar. The dank, dark musty cellar that's about to be set on fire.
That's a little harsh, though. This novel operated well as a suspenseful mystery/thriller with teenage protagonists. Their skills and investigations never seemed unrealistic or overpowered, but they still managed to figure out things without insulting my intelligence and accomplish a lot. I could barely put this book down once I started it, and there were plenty of surprises that kept me guessing. <--- Cliched sentence, right, but completely true.
I am fascinated by the protagonist of this story. She's snobby, superior, and has this negative attitude toward everything I like (for example, Latin, bike-riding, ponchos, reading in general), but she's still smart and interesting and I grew to like her by the end of the book. Congrats to the authors for that, I guess, because I would get all rage-monster when she would flippantly dismiss someone else's interest (especially those of her nerdy next-door neighbor, Seth) but I still respected her. Yeah I don't even know.
The other characters in the novel partly made up for the protagonist's narrow-mindedness, as they were all really different from each other and represented different ways of thinking, looking at a situation, ways of life, etc, but again, when the protagonist is so quick to dismiss other people it becomes frustrating.
I gave this book 3/5 stars; it was a 4-star until that awful ending. Yes, I realize it's the first one in a series. But when I finish a book and don't feel like the main character has changed much, and nothing plot-wise has been accomplished, that doesn't give me great hopes for the next. I don't have the emotional energy for a literary tv show that never resolves anything.
3 comments:
I don't have the emotional energy for a literary tv show that never resolves anything.
Excellent summation. I think you just pin-pointed why I give up on certain books when they end on a blatant cliff-hanger.
Although, you didn't say it was was necessarily a cliff hanger. Was it?
Yes, yes it was. But it wasn't the kind of cliffhanger where, you know, mortal peril is still facing the MC on the last page. It's more the kind of huge, general unresolvedness and you're unsure if a sequel will actually help or go in a completely different direction.
Oh that's wonderful.
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