Summary
Monica knew it was probably a bad idea to hook up with a guy so much older than her. It didn’t take long to get pregnant. And even less time to end the pregnancy. And that’s what started it all. One time rifling through her step-father’s desk, looking for painkillers for the cramping. That’s when she found the letters. One for each year after her sister’s death. “It wasn’t him. Connect the dots.”
Five years ago, five cheerleaders died within weeks of each other. Two in a horrendous car accident. Two were murdered. And one committed suicide. Monica’s sister, Jen.
But the letters in her step-father’s desk call all of Monica’s assumptions into question. And finding Jen’s old cell phone stashed in the desk, too, raises new questions. Why would her step-father keep the old phone? Are there secrets on it that explain what might have caused five girls from the same squad to die so suddenly? Monica is determined to keep digging, no matter what, until she finds the truth.
Review
Wow! This was stunning. A start-to-finish read in the spirit of We Were Liars or One of Us Is Lying. Tightly plotted and suspenseful with fascinating characters. This is the sort of book that will hang with me, every time I see that cover.
My heart broke for Monica. She and her family are still grieving the loss of her sister – after the losses of four of her friends in tragic circumstances. Monica seems to be going through the motions of her life to the point of sleeping with this adult as maybe a way to shake things up. But her investigation takes over in a similar way, changing her behavior and her relationship with everyone around her. She’s desperate for answers, for the truth, and it’s compelling.
When all the pieces of the story were finally laid out in front of me, I was pleasantly stunned. I put pieces of it together, but the full picture was a satisfying surprise. This is an author I would read again.
(Lots of mature content in this one – suicide, statutory rape, abortion, etc., and some language)