LitPick Review
Five of Bayview High’s students go to detention one day after school, including Simon, the creator of the school’s notorious gossip app. All five of them were caught with cell phones in their bags by their technophobic teacher. Only, none of them knew where the phones came from. When Simon goes into anaphylactic shock and dies, the other four students’ lives are turned upside down. What they think, at first, must be a tragic accident is soon revealed to have been murder. And all four of the other students are prime suspects. Not only because they were in the room at the time, but because all four of them were about to have their secrets revealed on a gossip app for their school, run by none other than the boy who was killed. Who killed him? No one knows. But what we do know is that someone would do anything to keep their secret from getting out.
Opinion:
I completely adored this book! It was very intriguing, and I didn’t want to put it down. Trying to figure out the killer’s identity kept me turning the pages until the very end. It was really well written and kept me guessing the whole time. In the beginning, I did have a theory about who killed Simon (and it turned out to be right), but I didn’t figure out everything, so it was still a bit of a surprise!
I found that the four characters whose points of view we read from were all quite likeable. I kept hoping that all of them were good people and that they’d have happy endings. I also liked that we got to read from all four of their points of view. I found it interesting to get inside their heads and see what all of them thought about what was going on. I think that the author did a great job developing the characters and helping them grow. However, I did think that the author kind of portrayed all four sets of parents in a negative light, some worse than others. It seems that, in the Young Adult genre, we don’t see very many healthy relationships between parents and their children.
Overall, I thought this was one of the best mystery books I’ve read. I would highly recommend this book. Five out of five stars.
