By The Time You Read This, I'll Be Gone (Murder She Wrote #1)
Stephanie Kuehn
Amazon Summary:
Beatrice Fletcher is obsessed with unsolved murders in her small town of Cabot Cove, Maine like her great-aunt Jessica, the famous mystery writer. But when her best friend Jackson goes missing, this time the mystery is personal.
Then Jackson fails to show up for a late night meet-up, and instead, Bea stumbles upon three students from the elite Broadmoor Academy: overly-friendly and slightly vicious Leisl, her aloof twin brother, Leif, and Carlos, who knows more about, well, everything than he’s letting on. They’re worldly, secretive, and big on playing games like tenace, the hush-hush Broadmoor tradition where anything or anyone can be a clue to future fame and fortune, and players will stop at nothing -- including murder -- to get ahead.
If Bea wants to find Jackson, she too must join the game and play to win. Everyone in Cabot Cove has secrets, and it’s up to Bea to ferret them out before it’s too late in this thrilling modern update of the classic television show.
My Review:
6.75/10
I want to start off by saying I have never watched or read the original Murder She Wrote, so going into this I had hopes that this would stand on it's own. And for the most part, it did. Jessica Fletcher, the original person in Murder She Wrote, was not really in this story, which felt good. I liked not having to watch hours of TV, to understand a book. That being said there are two things I would like to discuss in my review today.
Let me start with what I loved. This author if you didn't know was a psychologist. And seeing as this is a YA novel, I was really looking forward to see how she uses mental health issues in the life of a teenager. And she made Bea, the main character, very relatable. With Bea, she has deep set anxiety, and depression. And I found I can relate to her on some levels with the anxiety. Bea also goes to therapy in the story, and I enjoy being able to see what the therapist and her talk about. We get pages of their dialogue and it was interesting to see what her therapists' advice was. She talks about what is going on and how she is feeling towards her missing friend. Which brings me to the next part, that I want to talk about.
The mystery. Everyone knows I am a sucker for a good mystery, but this really didn't keep my interest. I was waiting for this book to pick up speed, but it didn't. It took the first half of the book to really get me interested, and even then, this book wasn't as well paced as I would've liked.
By The Time You Read This, I'll Be Gone is a book I didn't enjoy as much as I would've liked, but I do think that other's might really enjoy it. If you are a fan of:
- Murder She Wrote
- One Of Us Is Lying
- Gone Girl
This book will be right up your ally.