Written from the perspective of our lead investigator in a series of horrific events at her private school, Jess is a deep character with a passion for justice and takes us on a truly jaw dropping journey to find the truth. 

Not only were the plot twists unpredictable, but I loved that the book pauses to give you chance to put forward your own theories before the big reveal. Although I was truly shocked by our ending it was heartwarming to see that amongst all the journalists who wanted a good headline there was one person who wanted to provide a true chance for the truth to be published from Jess’s experience at the centre of it all. 

From betrayal, to growth, from new friends to fractured feelings about old ones this book was shockingly engaging, and while some of the betrayals were heartbreaking the growth in relationships between other characters as they form new friendships were heartwarming in their own right.  

Overall I’m kind of mad I didn’t get to this sooner. Having recieved this as a physical arc from YALC I ADORED it and I I’ll definitely continue to check out this author and reccomend this book. 

I actually really enjoyed this book. 
I initially picked it up due to the truly catching title and after starting the book randomly I basically read half of it in one sitting.

Regarding the plot and the thriller mystery I would say it was pretty good actually. Not the best of all but also better than a lot of typical mystery plotlines. I for my part didn’t see a few of the little plot twists coming and actually couldn’t quite figure out the murderer until shortly before the big reveal (but for context, even though I would call myself a mystery enjoyer, I wouldn’t say I’m extremely good at solving cases or whatever so maybe that’s not the best comparison either?)

I was actually a little about what lead was now real and what was fake at some point but I guess that was the whole point of the book anyways

At several parts of the book I was sitting there trying to figure out who and what to trust so if you like to have trust issues I guess go read it? lmao

I surprisingly enjoyed the cast of characters. I could resemble myself with Jess in a few aspects and actually enjoyed the character development of her

even though I think towards the end it seems a tiny bit extreme in my opinion which makes it seem a little bit unrealistic, but to be fair I am not the biggest fan of those big character developments so that might be a me problem

I really enjoyed the whole setting tho. I’m a sucker for YA thriller, especially if they are set in a school or boarding school. I just love this whole concept of living under the same roof with a murderer and being aware that the killer has to be someone of your classmates, possibly sitting next to you in some classes even. In my opinion it just has way more thrill than the normal crime mysteries where you follow a detective or whatever. And the book gets bonus points for the secret society because I am in fact also an average enjoyer of those in books.

Kinda disappointed in the somewhat small role of it though

Now for the negative parts and why it is not 5 stars. Well I guess I was somewhat annoyed by this whole thing with the detective? I didn’t really liked him, sometimes wanted to skip the parts where he was in and sometimes asked myself why he was even there. I do understand that for the plot to be evolving like that someone in his position is necessary

since the police wasn’t much of a helper (but let’s be honest, he wasn’t either lmao)

but idk, especially his part of the ending seemed so random and as if the author just wanted to tie up the last loose ends somehow. 

Same with the whole hit and run arc too tbh, idk I do find it interesting to analyse it in terms of it being a murder motive but at some points it seems rushed and somehow not emotionally involved, since you as a reader never started to feel that much empathy regarding Hugh (since he was dead and there were so many versions of him existing from different perspectives) and clem being the real driver just again felt like the need to tie loose ends but again I couldn’t imagine a different way so I won’t judge there

i did not quite guess the twist (unlike all the others that apparently did). still quite a nice little book

The names of the students alone are enough to read this book… highlights include: 
- Tommy Poppleton
- Annabelle Applewell
- Clementine-Tangerine Briggs
- Millicent Cordelia Calthrope-Newton-Rose