Ash Parsons

Plum Winter and her two best friends sneak into an influencers-only festival event on a private island in the Caribbean, only to discover that a killer is in their midst.

You're So Dead

Holly

Let me start by saying that I was so looking forward to reading this book, so I am incredibly disappointed in how it turned out. 

In terms of narrative, there was a lot of telling and minimal showing, and the overall story felt dry. Furthermore, the book does not try to be subtle when dealing with some of the "influencers," outright stating "hey this person is a bad person" rather than letting the person's actions speak for themselves (for the record, I agree with the characterization but not with how it was executed). There was minimal background provided for the main character--I know more about Sofia's family and background than Plum's, and we aren't shown much characterization of Marlowe and Sofia, we're told "Sofia is x, Marlowe is y," but there's nothing to back that up in the story itself. Like what happened to Peach's mom? Why are they named after fruits? How did Peach and Plum become so close before Peach's influencer career took off? 
Now for spoilers:
(view spoiler)[ The killer made absolutely no sense. We never saw the video that caused the killer to decide to kill everyone, so there were no breadcrumbs to follow that even hinted at who the killer could have been until their story falls apart. Also, Marlowe showed no signs of having a crush on Plum until 75% of the way through the book, so it came out of nowhere. Meanwhile Plum is obviously crushing on Marlowe--to the point it's painfully obvious for everyone. Except Marlowe is the one who everyone saw crushing on Plum??????? 
Krystal should have called the authorities when her sister wasn't checking in--she knew the location of the festival, why didn't she tell someone? 
The actual ending made no sense, and for all of this to be a "lesson in what you say online" was incredibly cheesy for what it was--a murder mystery. Is this an important lesson? Yes! But there are other narratives that would've been more complementary to the theme than "influencers on an island who are killed by someone they unknowingly mocked;" the influencers themselves had no clue and didn't realize it! Also how does Peach's overconsumption apply to mocking the guy?? I have so many questions and frustrations.  (hide spoiler)]

Zoey 

Not that bad a book in terms of plot but I personally did not like the ending, it's pretty abrupt and kind of weird. That's what I can say without actually spoiling the book.

Leigh Osborne

Samantha Bass

From the get go, this book confused me. Not because of what was written, but how it was written. It was written like it was trying so hard to be marketable to gen z, but also too hard. The dialogue, the narrative, all of that was so weird and it didn't flow very well. But then the actual events and plot of the book was so well written and good.

This book was such a conundrum that at one point I was considering DNFing it, but then it got good and I decided to keep going. I was very surprised to find myself at one point literally absorbed in the book and unable to put it down. I thought the actual writing would be so off putting, but it got better as the book went on and I could get through it. 

Now, I've always been judgemental of authors who try too hard to make a book relatable to a certain generation or age group. Even as a child, adults trying to capture teen culture has definitely made me roll my eyes, which is why I don't even try to understand their jokes and slang, because it's really only relatable to them (For context, I'm 23 and technically Gen Z, but I'm a total cusper aka Zillenial). It was so clear that the author was making jokes that might be relatable to teens now, but then they kind of fell flat. It was pretty unbearable to read at times.

And the whole influencer plot line was good, until anyone opened their mouths and spoke. I don't want to sound too harsh with this book, because ultimately I enjoyed the story, until the ending, but man some things were just not great. 

The characters were all pretty one dimensional and spoke so weird. All of the dialogue was just ... strange? I guess that's the best word. And then you have the motivation for this whole fiasco in the first place. 

No spoilers, but it did not make sense and I think it actually ruined the book for me in my opinion. Like this had so much potential to be so witty and funny and good, but it just wasn't. I feel so mean for saying this, but the characters were ultimate flops. And this combination of a relatively good plot, good build up, excellent mystery, mixed with these one dimensional, lame characters was so disappointing. 

And don't get me started on the main character, Plum. While I love seeing bisexual main characters, something about the way Plum was written was annoying. Like she's obviously in love with her best friend from the first page, but constantly denies it, then we get constant reminders through her goo-goo eyes that she's in love with her friend. And I'm not a fan of that style of writing in general, so this isn't an attack on the author, but I just thought that Plum's constant need to be "seen" and in the spotlight, mixed with her denial of her feelings, and then obsession with her friend was a horrible mix. She was kind of annoying at times and it brought down the book even more. 

Then we have the side characters, which I won't even go into, because then we'll be here all day. But in general, just annoying people and even the most "normal" people could come off so irritating. Yikes...

I don't know, I have very mixed thoughts on this. Like I said - the plot and murder mystery itself were relatively good (though I hated the ending), but the characters kind of sucked. And the ending was so abrupt that I was actually mad the book ended because I felt like even one more paragraph would have made this story feel more complete than what we got. 

Overall, I liked the story, but I had some majors issues with the characters and the ending. It was honestly so hard trying to rate this because on one hand I could say it was two stars and on another, I could say three and a half. So I'm gonna go with three for now, but might drop it to two and a half if I think about it more.

You're So Dead

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