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emilineopines's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
I LOVED this. It's not perfect, could maybe be a 4.75, but I just loved it so much that I have to give it the full 5. This book is the closest thing I've found to Veronica Mars. The book is based in DC instead of CA, and it focuses less on class and has less humor, but this book gave me nearly identical feels to watching the first two seasons of VM. I had more or less given up on YA in the last few years as I'd felt that everything I was picking up was giving me the same particular flavor and that flavor was just not to my taste anymore. But this book used traditional YA settings (prestigious, insular school) and tropes (bildungsroman, adults make mistakes too, emotions) to such excellent effect and were perfect for the story being told. Also, the teenagers shown felt a lot more like actual kids I could conceivably have met at their age than the typical YA characters I've come across. For one thing, like in recent read Elatsoe, I was relieved to see that the heroine and her friends had adult supervision. The kids are able to get into major trouble, but when things get super heavy, adults are allowed to impose boundaries and keep the kids safe. Additionally, part of what brought on my YA burnout was when the teen characters would act in ways I found inexplicable, despite reviewers assuring that "well that's just how teens are." But often times that wasn't how I was as a teen, nor were any of my friends (we were a boring bunch, but still). However, Tess, - glorious, glorious Tess - she if anything acted more rationally, less emotionally than I would have in her position. I understood and believed every unfair and irrational emotion she had. If it wasn't already clear, I ADORED Tess as a heroine. I was endeared to her motley crew of friends and also enjoyed the adult characters and their dynamic. I appreciated that Tess's angst came from her relationships with Ivy and Gramps; those dynamics felt very grounded. As far as the mystery element, that is not my genre so I'm hardly knowledgeable, but to my mind it was competently done. It contained some genuinely surprising reveals, and I don't believe I called any the many twists and turns.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Violence, Dementia, Death of parent, Kidnapping, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Bullying
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