About:
The Lovely Bones meets Black Swan in this haunting psychological thriller with twists and turns that will make you question everything you think you know.
It’s too late for you. You’re dead. Those words continue to haunt Claire Cain months after she barely survived a brutal beating in Chicago. So when her father is offered a job in another state, Claire is hopeful that getting out will offer her a way to start anew.
But when she arrives in Peculiar, Missouri, Claire feels an overwhelming sense of danger, and her fears are confirmed when she discovers the body of a popular high school student in the icy woods behind the school, surrounded by the town’s feral cats. While everyone is quick to say it was an accident, Claire knows there’s more to it, and vows to learn the truth about what happened.
But the closer she gets to uncovering the mystery, the closer she also gets to realizing a frightening reality about herself and the damage she truly sustained in that Chicago alley.
My Thoughts
This book really captured my attention from the get go. The book tells about both Claire and her life and Serena and her death. When you meet Claire, you like her because she’s a good person. Smart, studious, pretty. But her over-ambition is just going to get her in trouble. And it soon does. She is beaten almost to death by a gang because of a news article she wrote that was picked up by a news media outlet also. The gang beats her because she exposed a drug ring at the high school.
She survives the beating after months of rehab and healing. Her father takes a job in Peculiar, MO they move so she can return to school. She then encounters some strange and peculiar (haha oh yes, I did) people and things. One of the most unusual things are the feral cats that are everywhere. She meets a couple of her classmates right off and one of the them, Becca, sort of adopts her as her new best friend.
Serena you find out has disappeared. And no one has heard or seen her since school let out unexpectedly due to a snow storm. Serena was a member of the school newspaper and was working on a myth related to the school. Claire takes over the article and research to see if she can find out what happened to Serena. After a lot of research, she determines that Serena might have been on to something. Claire ends up stumbling upon a different secret as well during one of the school’s dances. A student and teacher are having an affair…that’s why Serena was killed! Apparently, her killer didn’t intend to (riiiiight) and it was all an accident.
It’s definitely a good read, and a quick read. The feral cats are creepy as hell, which adds to the mystery of the story.
4 out 5 stars!
librarianmtom 