#2021reads

As stated above, Jessica Goodman is an amazing author and I love every book she has released. This one was no different and had me from the the start. The characters, the plot, the pacing, and the twist were everything I wanted in a book and more.

The main characters are Stella and Ellie Steckler, sisters on the cross-country time that are trying to outdo each other and get into college. Both girls are relatable and easy to imagine yourself as. 

At the start they are both coming off summer. Stella is returning home as the black sheep of the town, and Ellie had some personal issues that sets her whole goal for the sister.

I adore them both, of course I had a favorite of the two, Stella, but they both were amazing. I want to applaud Jessica for writing a main character that was lesbian, without making it her whole identity. 

I have a theory, that when reading a murder mystery within the first 60 pages, you have met the killer. So I made a mental list of all the characters and who could do the murder. Of course there hadn’t been any current murders yet in the story, just the ones from a decade ago, and I was still thinking it was the same person, so I was a bit stumped.

But on page 93, Ellie tells Noah that she told Mila, their secret. Which is they been sleeping together during the summer, Ellie got pregnant and had an abortion. 

To me that gave him Motive. The means, I would say yes, and had yet to have an opportunity, though it would be easy, considering they go to school together and on the same team, he could give her a ride or something.

By the time that Mila goes missing, I was grinning, knowing it had to be Noah, though when they find her phone, I was a bit stumped, but still confident. Maybe he has help from either his girlfriend and friends. He was trying to frame Stella since he was around when the Id fell out of her locker.

Ellie behavior with Nate, farther confirmed it for me, and Ellie was his accomplice, though I didn’t understand why she was helping her sister when she could let her take the fall, but that would have been out character for her.

But everything was falling into place. Ellie was the girl in the photo with Mila the day of her death. Nate and her looks, their talk in the forest. It was all adding up. When Noah attacks Ellie in her room, I was positive I had got it right. Ellie told Stella what happened and it made sense.

And then it didn’t. Like Stella, I notices somethings didn’t add up, like the phone and Id. Plus Noah and Ellie never went into the pit, so why was here shoe not with her body and missing the laces. Why did she had broken ribs and head trauma when she only had a broken ankle when they left her.

I was stumped, when they get to the lodge and Julia ask Tamara to call the police and she says no. I though, HA, it’s her, and yet still I was wrong. Raven being the killer was something I thought at one point during the first 60 pages, just because she was already introduce, but dismissed it early one.

But in the end, it was Raven. Her motive was heartbreaking, and in the end I did feel for her, though I didn’t like her trying to frame my homegirl Stella.

The thing about Jessica Goodman books is that the killer motives are the most terrifying because they are so comment and relatable. We have all bee jealous and wished to one up someone. Wished they would go away so we could shine.