Krysten’s Review

I’m a big mystery/thriller fan, but this was my first YA mystery/thriller. The fact that it was geared toward younger readers did not in any way make the mystery less thrilling, and while I had a suspicion about the character that ended up being the villain, Roehrig did a great job throwing me off.

There are a lot of big issues at play in this book. You know straight off that kidnapping is probably going to be one of them, and pretty soon you find out sexuality and politics are important issues as well. But as the book goes on, it gets darker and darker. It’s been awhile since I was in high school, but I’m not sure that as a teenager, I would have wanted to read about issues like this with no warning. (But of course, giving a warning would have spoiled the plot twists.)

I found myself empathizing with Flynn throughout the whole book. His life was turned upside down practically overnight, and he was dealing with two major life-changing events throughout the course of two weeks. (Two weeks?!) Roehrig does a good job getting us into Flynn’s head, and as he found out more and more, as things didn’t add up, I too felt his confusion. I had mixed feelings about January: I went back and forth from liking her in Flynn’s flashbacks, to hating her guts when he found out what she’d been saying about him, and then finally to sympathy. It was hard for me to keep up with her, even though she was (technically) barely in the book—just like I imagine Flynn was feeling.

One thing that bothered me about this book is that Flynn’s character didn’t match up with the way he thought and spoke. He’s a 15-year-old kid in public school (nothing against public school — I went to one, so I know how they work) and he’s narrating this book like a college professor. Case in point:

Their chests heaving, they stared daggers at each other over her head, but as January continued speaking, the destructive energy that had erupted with such abruptness began to dissipate just as quickly. Other volunteers rushed in then, converging on the scene urgently if already too late, and led the two angry pugilists away from each other.

Really? A 15-year-old boy said this — and also used words such as prevaricated, obfuscations, compos mentis, diaphonous, aubergine and in situ correctly (just to name a few)? And then later he called someone a “total asshelmet”? This just didn’t jive for me. But then again, if Flynn really is that smart, I guess it’s no surprise that he was able to crack the case before a team of trained police officers were able to.

I was also a little surprised about how easy it was for Flynn to reveal his secret. Not easy to him, of course—easy for the plot. With the exception of Micah, at least at first, pretty much everyone accepted it and there was very little in the way of negative repercussions. I’ve never dealt with a situation like this personally, but that seemed a little unrealistic. But maybe I’m just cynical. If not… more power to Flynn. It should be that easy, and people should be that accepting and understanding.

As a side note… was anyone else a little concerned about the fact that this 15-year-old kid was dating a 19-year-old college student? No one in the book—not even Flynn’s parents—seemed to think that was weird at all, which I thought was really weird.

As with many mysteries and/or young adult novels, however, a certain suspension of disbelief is required to get through the book without questioning everything. To have a good thriller, a lot of bad stuff has to happen in a short period of time, which can make it seem like a drama-fest if you ask too many questions. That said, the mystery and plot twists were well thought out (if way above the problem-solving capacity of most 15-year-old kids), the characters engaging and three dimensional (for the most part — I thought a little more development of the perp would have been good, as he was something of a trope), and I was on the edge of my seat for most of the book. Despite the fact that it’s somewhat unbelievable all this is being narrated by a kid, the prose is engaging, descriptive, and catches your attention right away. All in all, this was an unputdownable (how’s that for vocabulary?!) and fast-paced read, and I will be looking for more of Roehrig’s books in the future.

Thanks to Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing a digital copy of this book for review.