(Prep School Confidential, #1)
Release Date: July 30, 2013
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 304 pages
In this breathtaking debut that reads like Gossip Girl crossed with Twin Peaks, a Queen Bee at a blue-blooded New England prep school stumbles into a murder mystery.
Anne Dowling practically runs her exclusive academy on New York’s Upper East Side—that is, until she accidentally burns part of it down and gets sent to a prestigious boarding school outside of Boston. Determined to make it back to New York, Anne couldn't care less about making friends at the preppy Wheatley School. That is, until her roommate Isabella’s body is found in the woods behind the school.
When everyone else is oddly silent, Anne becomes determined to uncover the truth no matter how many rules she has to break to do it. With the help of Isabella’s twin brother Anthony, and a cute classmate named Brent, Anne discovers that Isabella wasn’t quite the innocent nerdy girl she pretended to be. But someone will do anything to stop Anne’s snooping in this fast-paced, unputdownable read—even if it means framing her for Isabella’s murder.
I had to throw that out there, right from the start because it's annoying me. I hate that I find myself closest to male character who get the short end of the stick. I obviously have some underdog obsession. Underdog's may fight the hardest to win but it's not usually successful.
I enjoyed this story, on a whole; there were so many people who could've been the murderer and many times I was lost to whom it might really be. So that aspect of the story was a lot of fun, trying to figure it out along with our main character, Anne. Was I successful in guessing who it was? Yes and no. I had it narrowed down to two people. It was one of the two so I consider that fairly successful. I really liked the characters in this book, especially Anthony (no surprising, right?) but also the friends, Remy and Kelsey, especially...oh and Cole; I really liked him. Anne was okay - she was pretty independent, which was great to read and very ballsy but she wasn't anything I haven't read before. As a whole this story was good, but nothing mind blowing and fantastic. I wanted to like it more than I did. I feel like I've read stories that were similar to this (not to mention that this cover just reminds me too much of AKA by Robin Benway) and there was nothing that stood out from this story to make it stand in it's own category.
Would I not recommend this book for those reasons? No; I definitely recommend giving this book a read if you like reading a good mystery book with likeable characters that was just a fairly light read (minus the murder aspect of it). It was entertaining enough to have me stay up reading it but it's not one that I remember a lot from in the next few months.
Thank you so much to Shane from Itching for Books for allowing me to be a part of this blog tour. Also a big thanks to St. Martin's Press for allowing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.
Kara has a BA in English/Secondary Education from Stony Brook University. She loves New Girl, sushi, and puppets that say rude things. It’s her dream to own a bakery someday.
Kara was inspired to start writing in part by her grandmother giving her Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and in part by her father’s bizarre antics, such as blow-drying his car. Her father looked like Borat in the 80′s.
Kara lives on Long Island with a Chihuahua named Izzy and a kitten named Felix. Her favorite authors are Gillian Flynn, Maureen Johnson, and Nelson Demille. She writes full-time, both on the PREP SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL series and on an untitled television pilot for Warner Brothers Studios.
www.karamtaylor.com | twitter.com/@karataylor_
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Good review. Thanks for participating :)
ReplyDeleteThat cover was bothering me bc I couldn't figure out where I'd seen it before until I read where you said it looks like AKA. lol I might still try this one, but won't go in with such high expectations. It sounds fun though. And I always like the underdog too =( Julian (Delirium), Simon(TMI), etc.
ReplyDeleteYES! Minus the fact that this is bright red and that was bright green; both very similar. (Where I enjoyed AKA A LOT more than this book) It's not a bad book but yeah, like you said - don't go in with huge expectations...and who knows, maybe you'll enjoy it more that way?
ReplyDeleteYAY for the underdog love! :D