Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Savana Caruso receives a text in the middle of the night from someone pretending to be her childhood friend Jesse Melo in an absorbing murder mystery by Lepore (This Is Why We Lie). Summoned to a remote warehouse that local teens use as a party spot, Savana never imagines that her clandestine meeting will result in her witnessing a murder. But after someone falls from the building's fourth floor, the incident sets off a chain of events that seems to stem from thorny relationships between Savana, Jesse, and the rest of their friend group. Savana begins receiving text messages from an unknown source threatening to pin blame for the death on Jesse, and the two teens must work together to uncover the truth before the police close in. The many interconnecting threads--rendered via Savana and Jesse's dual first-person POVs, which chronicle alternating timelines taking place before and after the crime--never fully fuse into a coherent narrative. Nevertheless, Lepore ambitiously deploys a freshly realized plot via lean prose, and a resolution that admirably sticks the landing rounds out this labyrinthine thrill ride. Characters largely read as white. Ages 13--up. Agent: Ross Whitney, Irene Goodman Literary. (May)
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Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up--Lepore's latest thriller opens with misdirection and murder as protagonist Savana Caruso witnesses a deadly fall from a warehouse window. Lepore then flashes back three months, where readers are introduced to Jesse Melo and his friends Raf, Owen, Freddie, and Tara. While Savana has known Jesse for years, she is a newcomer to this other group, and the narrative alternates between her and Jesse's perspectives. It is abundantly clear that tension bubbling up within Jesse's friend group connects directly to Raf, whether in relation to his attempts to control his girlfriend, Tara, or his jealousy towards his teammates on the football field. The first big reveal hinges on whether Raf is the victim or perpetrator of the warehouse death, and Savana spends the second half of the book evaluating the motives of each suspect. Unfortunately, the journey to the perpetrator is unsatisfying: important plot elements connected to football and family tensions are often handled obliquely or off-page despite being central tenets of the murder case. While some misdirection is understandable, the secondary characters and story lines needed more care and direct handling. The split perspectives of Jesse and Savana are handled well, though the author's use of text message exchanges and police reports are often superfluous to the story. VERDICT While this book starts strong and works in a few interesting twists, too much relies on omission to hide the culprit. An additional selection for libraries where thrillers are in high demand.--Michael Van Wambeke
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Urgent messages lead two friends to the site of a murder. When one member of a group of high school students is killed at an abandoned warehouse in their seaside town, his fellow classmates have boatloads of motives--and few have alibis. This teen suspense pick is divided into sections taking place before and after the crime. It also features dual first-person narrators: Savana Caruso, a high schooler who moved to town with her mom several years ago after her parents divorced, and Jesse Melo, her next-door neighbor and crush who has a troubled family of his own. After receiving a cryptic text asking for help that seems to be from Jesse, Savana heads out at night to the warehouse her classmates used as a summer party spot and is shocked when she sees someone falling from a window several floors aboveground. Jesse went to the warehouse after receiving a mysterious message of his own. Savana and Jesse, both of whom are suspects, decide to work together to try to catch the killer. The book's format includes police memos, online messages, audio recording transcripts, and other documents that play a role in the case. This variety, along with the fast pace--the narrative hits the ground running from the first page--will maintain readers' interest and keep the pages turning as they try to guess what really happened on that fatal night. Most characters read White. A one-sitting read for teens who love a whodunit. (Mystery. 13-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
