Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Genre: YA, Mystery/Thriller, Contemporary
People who should read this: People who love a YA thriller set in a foreign country, geeky boy crushes, and crazy circumstances.
You meet a random girl on a plane, chat her up real nice, spill all your sorted relationship details and…. BAM! The boy you hate is dead. Did you do it? Is the girl you chatted even real? Or was it all just an accident?
“England wasn’t like the United States, where you could pick up a rifle at Walmart while also grabbing nail polish and a family-size bag of Cheetos.”
YA thrillers are becoming the new hot trend, their titles filling up my Instagram feed. I think it’s great since most thrillers are either too adult for young readers or cover topics young readers wouldn’t be interested in. However, for a thriller to be good there must be a decent level of suspense, a nice twist at the end, and be believable. Jay Kristoff made the best point - for a scary movie to be really scary, have the main character do everything right and they still end up in trouble… or dead. Some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten.
So where does You Owe Me A Murder go wrong?
It’s a thriller that’s what’s wrong?
Out of the gate, the book starts strong. Cook sets the stage between Kim and Connor. Readers aren’t given all the facts about their relationship. Instead, they’re sprinkled throughout the story. This could have worked out well. It sets the story up for a nice reveal later on that makes the reader question the narrator, but when the reader needs to continue not believing the narrator, the moment falls flat. Sorry… the real ending was sitting right there in bold, neon print. It was never going to be the false one. I wanted the fake one to hurry up and end so I could get back to the real story. Sadly, the real ending wasn’t that much better.
“I wonder what you might do if you let yourself really go? You know, every accomplishment starts with the decision to try. And then keep trying, even when it’s hard.”
Going back to Kristoff’s sage advice, the second half fell apart because Kim’s character fell apart - I don’t mean literally. Her character skeleton, foundation, whatever you want to call it, was gone. She wasn’t the same girl we met at the beginning, and her actions no longer lined up with what readers were told. She just kept letting Nicki control her. Fine, Cook tried to make some crazy back story that would prove she could become this version, but it felt forced. I found a millions ways for her to get out of the issue, and not one was taken or thought of. I guess she did try to go to the police once…. That was a fair check mark in the positive box. Most authors skip this idea with some lame excuse to not involve the authorities.
I won’t even get started on my rant about the insta-love portion of the story.
insert *eye roll*
What did Cook do right?
Cook took a massive city, with all it’s touristy things to do, and painted it on paper. I struggle describing the city I live in, yet Cook, without flowery descriptions - most of the book was quite plan - took us on a European vacation. Even down to how overwhelming the museums can get. If anything saved this book for me, it was my respect for her ability to do this. Yes, I wanted more descriptions, the book had the space, but I was never yearning in a scene to grasp the overall layout.
And another check in the positive box, Cook created an interesting backstory for Kim.
In the end, I couldn’t find enough reasons to push it up that half star to three. Originally, I posted my review on Instagram as three, but the more I sat with my thoughts and all the points I was going to make in my blog… it just wasn’t fair to all the other books I rated three stars. A part of me does regret the time I spent on this book. My TBR list is out of control and I need to start being more picky about the books I’m taking the time to read. This book was lucky. I had to read it for book club.
Happy Reading
Love Kait
Reading Challenge: 58/100