lizzie_purplephoenix 's review for:

Suspicious Minds by Gwenda Bond

4.0

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*3.5 stars
I have yet to read all the Stranger Things books (this is my fourth), but I imagine this is likely to have been one of the hardest to write, in terms of plot structure and tone. It has extremely dark and heart breaking subject matter - we all know how it's going to end for the main protagonist - but it also needed to be appropriate for teen readers in terms of tone. So bearing all that in mind, I think the author did a really good job. Having got over the fact that

Spoiler

anyone would willingly enter into such experiments in the first place

, I warmed quickly to our four main characters and their friendships, and I really liked

Spoiler

Terry's relationship with Andrew (though his death didn't pack enough of the emotional punch it should have - the impact on Terry was written in too distant a way, for some reason

. It manages to wrap up this particular story in as conclusive a way as could be managed, under the circumstances. It also did a good job of placing the story firmly in 1969/70, with accurate (as far as I can tell) references to events and music, and details like clothes too. Of course, one has to suspend a lot of disbelief, there's a lot that feels unrealistic and illogical in how things play out (I don't mean the mere existence of MKUltra, which was a real thing), but so what really, I was happy to just enjoy the ride.