GIven I'm not a YA, I'm not really the target audience for this book but it was an OK read - although murders involved was very a gentle mystery and not so suspenseful..characters ok but I'd have liked to have learnt more about them

Oh man, I had such high hopes for this one. In my teens, I grew up on a steady diet of R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike. In my 20s, I had a brief flirtation with Pretty Little Liars. So when I heard about this book, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. I had such high hopes for the story, but was so distracted by the characters. Addison and Maya are so painfully awkward and immature that I had to check and make sure this wasn't a story about 12 year olds. The "romance" was uncomfortable and forced and cringeworthy and the story itself didn't have much suspense or excitement. But it was a quick read and I really like Hannah Jayne's other books, so I'll definitely give her another chance.

The book was ok. I liked the suspense but the characters were unbelievable. Also the ending was horrible. You read through the whole book to know who's the killer is and then it was like , ok I'm done bye. No it needed more details or at least one more chapter.

I really enjoyed this book! I loved the mystery that was taken out of the pages of a book, playing out in real life. I wouldn't want to be in it, but to read it, yeah, is really awesome! These characters, Addison, Maya, Spencer, Colton, they were all really great!

Addison's site sounds a lot more in depth then the blogging that I do. But it's pretty awesome when an author contacts you, and I can totally remember feeling/doing the same when it's happened to me, though not quite in the same way, especially not with murder following!

One line in a dream sequence that kinda pokes at mystery novels like this book is, which is pay attention to when a character shows up where they're unexpected. And that's pretty good advice, because there's a few scenes where this plays out. Loved that!

In the end, I have two complaints. One, that the information about the Gap Lake books-and the teasers that R.J. Rosen is sending-it feels like a lot is missing, and what's left is a bit disjointed.Two, that the ending was a bit short, like the reason why he was doing this to Addison specifically, there wasn't backstory there. There were so many things that I wanted clarification on, like was the bad guy who sent her the teasers the real author or not, and if not, why didn't the real one make contact with the police or something? The solution I wish for is that we could've had things more expanded. Bonus, then we would've had more book!

This book was really great, and I really enjoyed it!

In a book that had a lot of similarities to my own involvement with blogging and the literary world I was eager to see what sort of mystery was in store but instead I got a bit of a mess.

“Copycat” tells the story of Addie, a book blogger and aspiring writer who dedicates her time to the mystery/thriller Gap Lake series is given the opportunity to share snippets for the upcoming novel from the author himself but when a classmate is murdered and the crime scene is eerily similar to what happens in the book, Addie discovers that sometimes life really does imitate art.

Let’s start with the positives, as someone who has a book blog and a few interactions with authors myself every reaction Addie had to that experience was very similar to my own, including the lack of enthusiasm by everyone who happen to not be as invested as you so it was easy to connect with her in the beginning but then things sort of went off the rails.

It’s a bit clunky and repetitive in the beginning as it sets up a duel narrative with reality paralleling the fictional world of Gap Lake so when the murder takes place as a reader you can follow along with the similarities to the book within the book. In a sort of ‘Pretty Little Liars” scenario things go wrong pretty quickly and there’s more than a few moments where you are left sitting there scratching your head because things aren’t adding up.

The motivation and the murderer itself was a huge let down I actually thought it was going to be someone else so when the reveal happened it was almost too obvious and sort of lazy and the entire reasoning for why made sense somewhat but for the whole other part later it comes out of left field to the point that I didn’t even care anymore because it was so ridiculous, not to mention that we spend a good amount of time trying to solve this mystery just for it to wrap up with a nice bow and all other plot points join in that picture perfect resolution in a matter of maybe 3 pages.

I can see how some people might like this, especially if you are a fan of the PLL type villain behind a screen but for me this was a disappointment.

**thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**