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joeycron 's review for:
Pretty Dead Queens
by Alexa Donne
One line summary: Murder Turducken.
Just like with The Ivies, I can’t help but feel Donne’s writing fits this genre SO well. Pretty Dead Queens is a YA mystery following our main character Cecelia who goes to live with her grandmother in a coastal town in Northern California after her mom passes away from cancer. Her grandmother is a famous mystery writer whose first book was about a real life prom queen from their town that was killed in the 70’s. When history seems to repeat itself and another queen ends up dead, Cecelia’s the one to find the body and takes it upon herself to solve the murder.
This was one of my most anticipated books for 2022, and am so grateful I was able to get an early read. I loved that throughout this book, there were SO many possibilities for who could’ve been the murderer, and the build up to the final scenes felt pretty epic and satisfying.
Criticism-wise, I do think it was a little slow in parts while introducing possibly too many characters. Since this is really solving 2 murders from decades apart, it’s just natural that there would be 2 sets of characters from both eras, but I do think it slowed the pace down a little for me personally. I also want to note that this is probably going to be listed as a “thriller” but I think I’d set my expectations going into it more so as a “mystery” for the pacing. However, the last quarter I’d say was just complete perfection in my eyes and an absolute page-turner.
4.5
Just like with The Ivies, I can’t help but feel Donne’s writing fits this genre SO well. Pretty Dead Queens is a YA mystery following our main character Cecelia who goes to live with her grandmother in a coastal town in Northern California after her mom passes away from cancer. Her grandmother is a famous mystery writer whose first book was about a real life prom queen from their town that was killed in the 70’s. When history seems to repeat itself and another queen ends up dead, Cecelia’s the one to find the body and takes it upon herself to solve the murder.
This was one of my most anticipated books for 2022, and am so grateful I was able to get an early read. I loved that throughout this book, there were SO many possibilities for who could’ve been the murderer, and the build up to the final scenes felt pretty epic and satisfying.
Criticism-wise, I do think it was a little slow in parts while introducing possibly too many characters. Since this is really solving 2 murders from decades apart, it’s just natural that there would be 2 sets of characters from both eras, but I do think it slowed the pace down a little for me personally. I also want to note that this is probably going to be listed as a “thriller” but I think I’d set my expectations going into it more so as a “mystery” for the pacing. However, the last quarter I’d say was just complete perfection in my eyes and an absolute page-turner.
4.5