AUTHOR: Lauren Oliver
PUBLISHER: HarperCollins
PUBLISHING DATE: October 2, 2018
FROM GOODREADS: It’s been five years since Summer Marks was brutally murdered in the woods.
Everyone thinks Mia and Brynn killed their best friend. That driven by their obsession with a novel called The Way into Lovelorn the three girls had imagined themselves into the magical world where their fantasies became twisted, even deadly.
The only thing is: they didn’t do it.
On the anniversary of Summer’s death, a seemingly insignificant discovery resurrects the mystery and pulls Mia and Brynn back together once again. But as the lines begin to blur between past and present and fiction and reality, the girls must confront what really happened in the woods all those years ago—no matter how monstrous.
MY THOUGHTS: So this was pretty much the first book I read in November and I figured I better review it before I forget altogether. And believe me, that wouldn't be a hard thing. So five years ago Summer was murdered. Although justice was never served, everyone believes her best friends killed her. And to be honest, at times I think the best friends believed one or more of them did it as well. All three girls were obsessed with a book called "The Way to Lovelorn" and patterned their every move worshiping the book, the author and even wrote a sequel for themselves. This obsession caused reality to blur into fantasy so it's no wonder no one ever found out what happened to Summer. Or maybe it's because everyone is incompetent. So this book resolves the murder in a long drawn out fashion.
So here's the thing. I despised these characters - even Summer. I really couldn't feel sorry that she was dead because she was such a horrible teen. I pretty much only finished the book so I could learn who actually killed her because I wanted to thank them. The book is told in dual POVs of Mia and Brynn in alternate time frames. At first it was really kind of too much. I did manage to get into the rhythm and while I usually love both formats, I discovered I'm not much of a fan of both at the same time.
The only redeeming thing about the book was Mia's best friend and Brynn's male cousin. I found them to be refreshing and likable even if there was a lot of fat shaming about the friend. I would have rather had a book about them.
I read "Rooms" by Oliver in the past and liked it a lot but know that like this book, it also got very mixed reviews. I think Oliver books will just continue to be hit or miss for me so the synopsis will have to be pretty good to get me to pick up another.
RATING: 2 PAWS
