This book is a young adult take on the classic murder whodunit. A group of friends goes to a mansion alone, but not all of them survive the night.
I will say I really enjoyed the concept of the book, but I had some issues with the execution which led to the whole experience coming up a little short. The book is described as being a mixture of One of Us is Lying and Knives Out. While this is true to some extent, I will say it didn't feel as suspenseful. Despite being in a house with a murderer, no character seemed worried about it. They all seemed nonchalant about it or were too dramatic.
Not only that, a majority of the book and the information about other characters is learned through police interviews that are being eavesdropped on by the main character. I was disappointed that the main character was not trying to actively be a detective. After the second round of interviews, I was bored of the format. The police were also not very realistic. At a certain point there were too many coincidences that they stumbled upon which made me think they weren't actually detectives, but alas they were. It was just not good character development ... or maybe there wasn't enough research in police procedure?
I will say, I liked how each character was described and how their personality was shown. Each character got a chapter (if not more) that was a flashback. In this way, you could learn about current relationship tensions and what they were really thinking. I enjoyed these parts of the book most, but this largely could be because these chapters had the most action. My only slight complaint is that the chapters weren't labeled with the characters names. This made it difficult to immediately know who was speaking.
As for the actual murder and killer, I was surprised as to who it was in the end. While I wasn't a fan of the ending (no spoilers!), I will give points for being able to hide who it was for so long.
Overall, a book about a friend being killed should shock me and make me tense, but the bite of this book was taken out by the odd format and lack of suspense building. It wasn't an awful book, but it wasn't the best either.
I will say I really enjoyed the concept of the book, but I had some issues with the execution which led to the whole experience coming up a little short. The book is described as being a mixture of One of Us is Lying and Knives Out. While this is true to some extent, I will say it didn't feel as suspenseful. Despite being in a house with a murderer, no character seemed worried about it. They all seemed nonchalant about it or were too dramatic.
Not only that, a majority of the book and the information about other characters is learned through police interviews that are being eavesdropped on by the main character. I was disappointed that the main character was not trying to actively be a detective. After the second round of interviews, I was bored of the format. The police were also not very realistic. At a certain point there were too many coincidences that they stumbled upon which made me think they weren't actually detectives, but alas they were. It was just not good character development ... or maybe there wasn't enough research in police procedure?
I will say, I liked how each character was described and how their personality was shown. Each character got a chapter (if not more) that was a flashback. In this way, you could learn about current relationship tensions and what they were really thinking. I enjoyed these parts of the book most, but this largely could be because these chapters had the most action. My only slight complaint is that the chapters weren't labeled with the characters names. This made it difficult to immediately know who was speaking.
As for the actual murder and killer, I was surprised as to who it was in the end. While I wasn't a fan of the ending (no spoilers!), I will give points for being able to hide who it was for so long.
Overall, a book about a friend being killed should shock me and make me tense, but the bite of this book was taken out by the odd format and lack of suspense building. It wasn't an awful book, but it wasn't the best either.