The Cheerleaders, by Kara Thomas ~ 4.0 Stars

Tags

Abortion, Coming-of-age stories, Murder, Mystery, Statutory Rape, Suicide, Suspense, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Delacorte Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: July 31st, 2018

384 Pages

Synopsis: There are no more cheerleaders in the town of Sunnybrook.

First there was the car accident—two girls hitting a tree on a rainy night. Not long after, the murders happened those two girls were killed by the man next door. The police shot him, so no one will ever know why he did it. Monica’s sister was the last cheerleader to die. After her suicide, Sunnybrook High disbanded the cheer squad. No one wanted to be reminded of the girls they lost.

That was five years ago. Now the faculty and students at Sunnybrook High want to remember the lost cheerleaders. But for Monica, it’s not that easy. She just wants to forget. Only, Monica’s world is starting to unravel. There are the letters in her stepdad’s desk, an unearthed, years-old cell phone, a strange new friend at school…Whatever happened five years ago isn’t over. Some people in town know more than they’re saying. And somehow Monica is at the center of it all. 

There are no more cheerleaders in Sunnybrook, but that doesn’t mean anyone else is safe.

Before I begin I want to list a few trigger warnings: Statutory Rape, Suicide, Teen Pregnancy, Abortion, Murder, and Drug Abuse.

Phew. So, you might have surmised that The Cheerleaders is a pretty grim read, and you’d be right. It’s dark and gritty, and surprisingly realistic. I would have given it 5 stars except for one thing that kept bothering me through the book. Before I tell you you need to know this verges on spoiler territory, so if you haven’t read the book but are planning to, skip the next paragraph.

***As the book opens, sixteen-year-old Monica has just had an abortion after having a short relationship with a guy ten years her senior. It’s kind of dropped in there and then doesn’t go anywhere until the man shows up as a new coach at her high school. The big problem I had which caused me to to mark the book down a full point, was that instead of acknowledging directly that their sleeping together was statutory rape, there’s more victim shaming, especially from Monica herself, which really annoyed me. I kept hoping that by the end of the book Monica would realize that this creep took advantage of her at a time when she was especially vulnerable, but nope, that never happened. I don’t understand why Kaza Thomas decided to go this route, especially with the current social climate and the Me Too movement. It’s too bad because otherwise I loved everything else about the book. ***End of spoiler***

Monica is someone I think most teens will relate to. She’s not perfect and she tends to act impulsively, but her heart is in the right place. While she didn’t have a close friendship with her older sister, she’s determined to discover the truth. The relationship between family members is realistic as are the ones Monica has with her friends. There are also chapters that are interspersed from Monica’s sister Jen which looks back at the events of five years ago and what led up to the deaths of five teenage girls in such a short amount of time. The mystery kept me guessing for much of the book and there were quite a few twists that caught me by surprise. 

Overall, The Cheerleaders is an intriguing whodunnit that does a good job of avoiding the usual suspension of disbelief issues that are prevalent in many similar amateur teen sleuth stories. It doesn’t have a happily-ever-after ending, but it provides closure for the characters and leaves the reader hopeful for Monica and her family. 

 

 

Frayed ~ By Kara Terzis – 2.5 Stars

Tags

Mental Illness, Murder, Mystery, YA Fiction

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: June 7th, 2016

Synopsis: Dear Kelsey,

My therapist tells me I should write you a letter. Like flushing all my thoughts and feelings out of my system and onto paper. I tell her it’s a stupid idea.

But here I am, writing a letter to a dead girl. Where do I start? Where did our story begin? From the moment you were born…or died?

I’ll start with the moment I found out about you. Your lies and my pain. Because it always begins and ends with you. And that end began when Rafe Lawrence came back to town…

Ava Hale will do anything to find her sister’s killer…although she’ll wish she hadn’t. Because the harder Ava looks, the more secrets she uncovers about Kelsey, and the more she begins to think that the girl she called sister was a liar. A sneak. A stranger.

And Kelsey’s murderer could be much closer than she thought…

I had a difficult time coming up with a rating for Frayed. While there were some genuinely good moments in it, in the end the bad outweighed the good which is why I wound up going with a lower rating. This is one of those stories where no one can be trusted, which in some respects I liked. Everyone seems to have hidden motivations and it’s intriguing discovering each one. I found Ava to be a difficult character to relate to though. While I sympathized with her circumstances, I found her incredibly annoying at times, particularly in regards to her relationship with her boyfriend. Her constant letting him off the hook really got on my nerves. As did her allowing herself to be used and walked on by just about everyone in her life. The secondary characters are all unlikable and have no real depth, and I found myself thinking on more than one occasion that I wouldn’t wish to meet any of them in real life. The identity of the murderer caught me completely by surprise, which ordinarily would be a good thing, but in this instance, the shock came because of a complete lack of foreshadowing. Just to make sure I hadn’t missed something, I went back and re-read a few chapters, but nope–not a hint. When the big reveal came it was totally out of the blue and made little sense to me. Ultimately I think Frayed could have been a much better book if more time had been spent on developing both the characters and the plot. It has received many positive reviews on Goodreads, so if the premise interests you, I definitely advise trying it. Personally though, this just wasn’t for me.

September 11th ~ 13 Years Later

Tags

Heroism, History, Murder, Politics, Terrorists

It’s amazing to me that it was thirteen years ago when the most despicable attack on our country was made by evil individuals whose twisted agenda, made a mockery of a peaceful religion. I was still a children’s librarian and was setting up before we opened. The phone rang, shattering the silence. It was one of my colleagues who worked on the circulation desk on the main floor. She told me to go on AOL because a plane had just crashed into one of the WTC towers. I immediately went online and watched, horrified as the smoke and flames poured out of the building, never guessing that this could be a deliberate act. I went upstairs where everyone was gathered around the computer. Then the second plane hit. I heard gasps, then people crying including myself. I felt as though someone had just punched me in the stomach. Okay, one plane, maybe the pilot had a heart attack, but two? How could this happen? We were the United States. Who could possibly hate us this much? As the unimaginable events continued to unfold throughout the day, our Assistant Director set up the tv in our meeting room so we were able to take turns watching the news coverage. It was surreal. You didn’t really want to see the horrific images, yet you felt like you had to bear witness to what was happening, especially the incredible heroic actions of firefighters, police, and even ordinary citizens. No matter how many years pass I will always remember everything regarding the events of that day. My husband calling to check on me. Which library patrons came in. The conversations. The reactions. For me, September 11th was the day we lost that secure feeling that as terrible as the fighting was in the rest of the world, particularly the Middle East, it would never touch us here at home. That our foreign policies could never inspire such hatred and resentment that people would actually want to kill as many American citizens that they could. September 11th, 2001 was the day our country lost it’s innocence.