kinda_ 's review for:

The Thrashers by Julie Soto

4.0

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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Okay so I had pretty high hopes for this book and it did not disappoint. 
The characters were really lovable, especially Jodi, it felt really easy to relate to her.

One of the main issues in the book, other than Emily, was Jodi’s exclusion from her friends. Although we didn’t see that much instances of her being excluded in the book, Jodi’s inner monologues hit really deep. Julie Soto managed to build an insanely complicated friendship, which at times made you consider if Jodi was an unreliable narrator. Although the Thrashers were close there were clear instances where they let their differences with money, class, etc impact how they saw one another, especially Jodi.

Now let’s talk about Jodi and Julian, oh my God it was amazing (although it was the tiniest bit toxic) I felt like they were really cute together especially when he started caring for her

like when he went to the play, and the party for her

 

The whole plot point with Emily haunting them was my favorite part (second to the Julian and Jodi scenes) it was so eerie to me, especially the ending when Julian was the only one being terrorized by Emily still. It made me wonder if his romantic feelings for her were really his own or Emily’s obsession for Jodi.

The part that made me the most mad was Zach getting his chargers dropped and Julian going to Juvie. Although it breaks my heart it’s understandable why Julian was in juvie, but Zach should’ve also been in jail. He used Emily just like he was willing to do to Keira. And it really shows the difference between Julian and Zach. Zach was the golden boy who had everything handed to him. No one trusted Julian and he had a bad home life. Although they’re similar people, Zach had more privilege than Julian and had a parental figure in his life that knew how to utilize that privilege

One thing I didn’t like was finding out that

Hannah was behind the messages. It felt very anticlimactic especially compared to the scariness we were getting from Emily’s ghost. Although I don’t see another way for Soto to have revealed who wrote the messages it just felt very flat and felt like we could do without that plot point./spoiler> 

And I’m sorry can we talk about Emily? My girl took haunting the narrative to a whole new level. Usually in books when there’s a victim we find out how amazing they are, but we learned that Emily was obsessed. Like obsessed obsessed with Jodi, she would manipulate them and guilt tip them into giving her information they weren’t comfortable with, and even in her death she couldn’t let them go. And her attempting to get the Thrashers to notice her especially Jodi and making Hannah stay in the bathroom was terrifying.

This book has made me realize that I need to divest more time into Julie Soto, especially with how well she takes on hard topics and how she made me fall in love with All these characters despite their flaws. Oh, and her romance wiring is amazing