ARC, 336 pages
Release Date: January 8, 2019Published by: Delacorte Press
Read from: December 17-22, 2018Stand-aloneSource: NCTETW: Death
For fans of: Contemporary, Thriller, Mystery, Realistic Fiction, YAEcho Ridge is small-town America. Ellery’s never been there, but she’s heard all about it. Her aunt went missing there at age seventeen. And only five years ago, a homecoming queen put the town on the map when she was killed. Now Ellery has to move there to live with a grandmother she barely knows.
The town is picture-perfect, but it’s hiding secrets. And before school even begins for Ellery, someone’s declared open season on homecoming, promising to make it as dangerous as it was five years ago. Then, almost as if to prove it, another girl goes missing.
Ellery knows all about secrets. Her mother has them; her grandmother does too. And the longer she’s in Echo Ridge, the clearer it becomes that everyone there is hiding something. The thing is, secrets are dangerous–and most people aren’t good at keeping them. Which is why in Echo Ridge, it’s safest to keep your secrets to yourself.
*MY THOUGHTS*
“If I believed in omens, this would be a bad one.“pg. 1
Echo Ridge is a very small town with the same people that live there year after year. Ellery has never been…. Until now. The small town is hiding more secrets than should be possible. Starting with all the girls that have gone missing in the small town. In other words, these secrets are dangerous. Ellery has to uncover them all to save herself….And hopefully the rest of Echo Ridge as well.
“…but if years of reading true crime books and watching Dateline has taught me anything, it’s this. It’s always the boyfriend.“pg. 21
I know I love a thriller when I can’t guess the killer. And McManus is an awesome about making you guess until the very end. And she definitely fooled me. I guessed the person at one point, but it only crossed my mind. Towards the end I was looking at someone entirely different. This mystery is filled with so many twists and turns and it was wonderful.
“It hits me, as I finish my Coke in silence, that Declan’s life is a lot shittier up close than it seems from a state away.“pg. 70
Then there’s the characters. This one is told in multiple POVs (Ellery and Malcolm) and that worked really well for this book. Malcolm’s brother is the guy who was being looked at for another murder of a Homecoming Queen 5 years ago. And Ellery is a true crime buff who is using all her skills to try solving these murders on her own after coming back to the town her aunt disappeared from all those years ago. So naturally they get along great lol They are so different, but they work so well together.
“Stop thinking the best of people. […] Nobody’s doing it for you.“pg. 165
As for the writing style, I can definitely say that McManus seriously has a dark mind. The twists and turns from this book were like nothing I was expecting from a YA thriller. It was really dark and I loved it. And speaking of dark, let me just say, I really hope she doesn’t change the last line in the final copy. I had to quickly cover my mouth when I finished this one, because I remember saying “WTF” out loud.
“There’s something deeply, fundamentally satisfying about confronting a monster and escaping unscathed. Real monsters aren’t anything like that. They don’t let go.“pg. 181
I don’t think I could have picked a better 2019 read to start with if I’d tried. This one had all things I love about thrillers in a book and I could not put it down. It definitely put me in the mood to want to read all the 2019 books I have now if they’re all going to be like this. Thank you McManus, you have set the bar for 2019 very high!
THAT LAST LINE.