thriller – cafeyre

Synopsis:

Ivy, Mateo, and Cal were close friends in middle school. They lost contact soon after they entered the doors of high school. They met again on the day they all needed a break from school. They decided to relive ‘The Best Days of Their Life’, which is the day they became friends. However, they didn’t expect that this day they will walk into the middle of a murder scene. Brian “Boney” Mahoney was supposed to be accepting his newly won position of class president, but instead, he was the one laying on the ground.

Book Review:

The story is about teenagers that got themselves into such a mess that slowly they had no idea how to get out of it. They made so many mistakes on their way but without them, there wouldn’t be such a good book by the end. I like that instead of just ignoring what they’d seen and leaving it all for the police, they tried to learn who’s guilty of Boney’s death. One of the reasons for them was that Ivy was the main suspect in this case.

Besides them playing detectives, I love how many subjects this book included like the relationship between an adult and a minor, drugs, school pressure, consequences of revenge, and unequal treatment of people of color. But that wasn’t all. Each of the characters also had their own secrets that turned into a storm between this group of theirs when the truth came out. However, I think that this part was one of the things that made them stronger and finally got them back to being friends.

I was suspecting so many in this book to be a murderer, or just connected to the murder. By the end, even the main characters were on my list of suspects. I was quite surprised when the truth came out, I didn’t even think that this person could be guilty of that, which means the author was successful with the ending of the story.

I’m not sure what to think about the ending. It was quite open so I’m wondering if there’s going to be the second book in the series. The author would need to come up with a new murder or drama to make it work but I would be happy to read it. This book has only 280 pages but it’s very easy to connect with the main characters, which is a major advantage. Overall, I loved the book and I think it might be my favorite book of this author.

Rate: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I would like to thank TheWriteReads, Penguin, and Karen M. McManus for providing me with a copy of this great book! I was so happy to take part in this book tour, and I could share my review with you!

Amazon.com: Pretty as a Picture: A Novel: 9780670016396: Little, Elizabeth: Books

Title: Pretty as a Picture
Author: Elizabeth Little
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Pub. Date: 01 July 2021

Synopsis

Marissa Dahl is a shy film editor who’s been hired to work with the legendary director Tony Rees on his new film. She travels to the small island off the coast of Delaware, where the movie is going to be shot. In the beginning, she tries to stay out of everyone’s way and spend her time in the editing room, turning pictures into actual stories. However, even she was able to notice that something very wrong was going on around the set. Scandals, accidents, schemes, and fired crew members were only the beginning of the big mystery. Besides it all, no one seems to know what happened to the editor she was hired to replace.

After some time she meets two young girls who are determined to solve the murder mystery, which is also a central subject in the movie they are shooting. Shortly after Marissa is drawn into the investigation and tries to find as many clues on who’s the killer as she can, especially that it seems that the killer may still be on the loose.

Book review

I made a huge mistake when I read this book on my way to Croatia. I’m so bad with picking up the important details when I’m in the car and in this book it was very important to do. This is the reason why I cannot tell you if I was surprised by every plot twist because I didn’t pay enough attention or because it was unexpected. That’s my fault. Wrong time and wrong story. However, I can tell you that the plotline was very interesting. I’ve always liked to read stories based around Hollywood and movies, so when I saw this book on NetGalley I immediately decided to read it! I wasn’t disappointed when I finally read it.

The story focuses on Marissa who at first doesn’t seem like a very interesting character, however, with time I found her interest in mystery very intriguing. Especially, that most of the time she repeats that she prefers to stay back in the editing room and do her job rather than being around people. However, when she learns that no one working on the movie knows why the previous editor was fired, she tries to get out of her comfort zone and find a way to contact him. During her little investigation, she learns much more about the strange atmosphere and accidents on the set. I think from this time on the story and the protagonist was growing on me and I wanted to know more and more about what’s gonna happen next. The introduction of the so-called killer of the girl they made a movie about in the early stage of the book was so unexpected that I just wanted to learn more and more with each chapter. The character I would like to read more about in the book would be Tony, the director. I don’t think we had enough scenes with him to be able to analyze his personality and actions, even if he played a very important part in the story.

To be honest, I didn’t expect this book to end in the way it did. On one side it was a much smoother ending than I was expecting but on the other, I would never guess that this is how it will end. I don’t know if it’s good or not but I was satisfied with this ending. It was a very nice closure to the book.

Rate: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I would like to thank NetGalley, Pushkin Vertigo, and Elizabeth Little for providing me with a copy of this book!

Video of the Day

I decided to choose something different this time. Instead of adding a song of the day, I will share with you one of my favorite murder mystery YouTube channel that I’m obsessed with! I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do!