Book Review Wednesday: The Amateurs

Over the weekend I was looking for a new book to read. I broke out my Nook which I haven't read on in forever (thank you, iPad) and really wanted to read something new. I didn't want it to be a memoir or self-help... I just wanted some good old fashion fiction in my life!

I looked on my Goodreads and saw that there were a few Sara Shepard books that I've been meaning to read. She's the author of "Pretty Little Liars" and she writes really great Young Adult thriller type novels.

One of them is called "The Amateurs" and that's the book I decided on. I actually started reading it while in bed on Saturday afternoon but then decided to move that party to a park bench. I walked to my local park, sat on the bench for two hours and read as much as I could. I later went home and finished the entire book!

I love finishing a book in one day. It's very thrilling and satisfying... it gives me my reading bug back.

But, as for The Amateurs ... its main plot is that there is a cold murder case in a tiny Connecticut town that has been unsolved for 5 years. A young girl, Helena, was taken from her backyard and turned up 4 years later, dead, in a park a few counties away from her home.

Her sister, Aerin, is one of the few narrators of the book and she writes on a cold case board to find people to help solve her sister's murder.

Following so far?

Someone reading the cold case form, Seneca, decides to head to Connecticut to visit her online friend Maddy, and also solve this case.

From there, it's a lot of twists and turns and super interesting. It's typical teenage angst with lots of family drama thrown in. It definitely has a Pretty Little Liars feel to it but more mature and not as silly.

Once the plot is coming to a close, you feel satisfied with the ending (or what you thought was the ending) but then in typical Sara Shepard form, she throws a huge wrench in everything and your world is turned upside down. It was a twist so grand you really didn't even see it coming!

The sequel is coming this fall and I was so pissed when I went to go buy the 2nd book and it was only available for pre-order!

If you're in the market for a quick, easy, but super interesting read I highly recommend this. It's not as gory as other thriller/mystery novels I've recommended, definitely more on the tame side of things, but it's still exciting.

What book have you read recently?
xoxo
B