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Nearly Dead: Am Ende stirbst du
by Elle Cosimano
And my search for a great YA thriller continues. Can I just leave my review at that? Because really that sentence sums up Nearly Gone nicely. This story had so much potential to be a great thriller, but it lacked so many of the necessary things to be able to take it there.
Nearly, the silly name her mother gave her, she prefers to go by Leigh, is a smart, driven high school junior who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Her father vanished when she was younger and every week she combs the “missed connections” section of the local newspaper looking for a message from him that she’s never found. Is there really a local paper, one with news, not just some free weekly, that has a missed connection section? Isn’t that what Craigslist is for?
One day, while reading the paper, Nearly is drawn to an ad that seems like it’s written to get her attention. She doesn’t pay too much attention to it through and instead focuses on competing for the $25,000 scholarship her school offers to the junior who finishes first in chemistry. Nearly desperately needs to scholarship to go to college, but she’s competing against her best friend (although I thought she was more of a frenemy), Anh. When Nearly goes home that afternoon she finds a a box with a cat in it that’s had its throat slit. Nearly doesn’t seem particularly traumatized by this, she just figures it’s a prank some of the kids in her trailer park community are playing on her. This is my biggest issue with this book: very few of the emotions/reactions of the characters rang true to me.
On Monday, Nearly learns that one of her classmates was brutally attacked and she later realizes that the classified ad that stood out to her the previous week might have something to do with it. She decides to go to the police, but they treat her like a suspect and generally seemed like bumbling caricatures. However, while at the police station, she conveniently overhears the detective she just met with talking about using a confidential informant they have planted in her school to monitor her.
When the CI approaches her she realizes he’s the troubled kid who’s started hanging out with the neighborhood drug dealer. She tries to distance herself from him, but he is relentless with her and eventually, despite her wariness of him, she comes to have romantic feelings for him. I didn’t mind the CI story, I did mind the pretty implausible way she overheard the police talking about him, but the chemistry between them was strong and, considering my issues with the other parts of the story, the CI storyline was probably my favorite part.
As the story continues, more and more students at Nearly’s high school turn up injured or dead and there’s a classified ad, seemingly directed at Nearly, for each attack/murder. It seemed as though I was supposed to worry that Nearly would be the next victim, but I never felt any real sense of fear or urgency or worry. As I mentioned pretty much none of the reactions in this story rang true. I have to believe that if someone was really attacking students at a high school like this that, after the first attack, steps to protect students would be taken and the media would be swarming, but everyone in the story from the students to the administration to the community were so blasé about what was happening. It was so strange.
I went into the story expecting an urban setting, the description talks about it talking place in DC, but that was not the case. I didn’t mind, but the idea of it being in DC was planted in my head so the suburban, maybe even more rural, Virginia setting was confusing at times. There is one small part of the story that takes place in DC, but it could have easily taken place somewhere else.
Bottom Line: I say skip Nearly Gone. The actual writing was fine, but the characterizations and situations rarely rang true or made for a compelling story. I will say that I didn’t guess the killer until the end, but the randomness of the killer and the stretch to tie his reasoning in with the rest of the story forced me to suspend my disbelief even farther.
I received an electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
This review first appeared on my blog.
Nearly, the silly name her mother gave her, she prefers to go by Leigh, is a smart, driven high school junior who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Her father vanished when she was younger and every week she combs the “missed connections” section of the local newspaper looking for a message from him that she’s never found. Is there really a local paper, one with news, not just some free weekly, that has a missed connection section? Isn’t that what Craigslist is for?
One day, while reading the paper, Nearly is drawn to an ad that seems like it’s written to get her attention. She doesn’t pay too much attention to it through and instead focuses on competing for the $25,000 scholarship her school offers to the junior who finishes first in chemistry. Nearly desperately needs to scholarship to go to college, but she’s competing against her best friend (although I thought she was more of a frenemy), Anh. When Nearly goes home that afternoon she finds a a box with a cat in it that’s had its throat slit. Nearly doesn’t seem particularly traumatized by this, she just figures it’s a prank some of the kids in her trailer park community are playing on her. This is my biggest issue with this book: very few of the emotions/reactions of the characters rang true to me.
On Monday, Nearly learns that one of her classmates was brutally attacked and she later realizes that the classified ad that stood out to her the previous week might have something to do with it. She decides to go to the police, but they treat her like a suspect and generally seemed like bumbling caricatures. However, while at the police station, she conveniently overhears the detective she just met with talking about using a confidential informant they have planted in her school to monitor her.
When the CI approaches her she realizes he’s the troubled kid who’s started hanging out with the neighborhood drug dealer. She tries to distance herself from him, but he is relentless with her and eventually, despite her wariness of him, she comes to have romantic feelings for him. I didn’t mind the CI story, I did mind the pretty implausible way she overheard the police talking about him, but the chemistry between them was strong and, considering my issues with the other parts of the story, the CI storyline was probably my favorite part.
As the story continues, more and more students at Nearly’s high school turn up injured or dead and there’s a classified ad, seemingly directed at Nearly, for each attack/murder. It seemed as though I was supposed to worry that Nearly would be the next victim, but I never felt any real sense of fear or urgency or worry. As I mentioned pretty much none of the reactions in this story rang true. I have to believe that if someone was really attacking students at a high school like this that, after the first attack, steps to protect students would be taken and the media would be swarming, but everyone in the story from the students to the administration to the community were so blasé about what was happening. It was so strange.
I went into the story expecting an urban setting, the description talks about it talking place in DC, but that was not the case. I didn’t mind, but the idea of it being in DC was planted in my head so the suburban, maybe even more rural, Virginia setting was confusing at times. There is one small part of the story that takes place in DC, but it could have easily taken place somewhere else.
Bottom Line: I say skip Nearly Gone. The actual writing was fine, but the characterizations and situations rarely rang true or made for a compelling story. I will say that I didn’t guess the killer until the end, but the randomness of the killer and the stretch to tie his reasoning in with the rest of the story forced me to suspend my disbelief even farther.
I received an electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
This review first appeared on my blog.