Eh, this was fine, but it didn't stand out in terms of its mystery or its characters. Also, for me some of the writing was a bit clunky and stereotypically YA, but I'm not in the supposed target audience, so what do I really know? Hopefully this finds its audience of those who haven't already read a fair dozen YA mysteries. Then it might seem fresh and fun.

The blurb was was promising at first but I struggled to connect to the main characters. Savannah came off as annoying and obnoxious, and made some pretty problematic decisions. I really, really wanted to enjoy this book but....didn't.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an ARC.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

The premise of the book was promising but ultimately I feel like it was lacking.

We see the attempted suicide of her sister through Savannah. When small clues begin to pop up that maybe it wasn’t a suicide but rather a murder, Savannah is determined to find the killer ultimately to spare her of her guilt.

The pacing in this book was off for me. For the first 45% you have the occasional suspect and is ruled out for some reason or another. The second half is a rollercoaster. The main suspect changes every 2 pages and of course they are all ruled out eventually. I will say the ending is not what I thought it would be. That being said, I didn’t particularly enjoy the ending.

Overall, it was less of a mystery novel and more of a cat and mouse game.

Thank you to NetGalley to providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The book as a bit too over the place for me and while some readers may like it, it just confused me. None of the characters were particularly likeable and so I wasn't really rooting for anyone. The plot twist was also a bit expectable. While it was a quick read, it wasn't what I was expecting.

Piper, a junior in high school, is stuck in a coma after an "accidental" fall from a cliff. There is little doubt in people's minds about what happened to Piper on that cliff considering its notoriety for people going to jump from there, although her fall has been deemed accidental. However, when Piper's sister Savannah finds a mysterious note marked with the date of her sisters accident she begins to realize that maybe things aren't as simple as they seem and someone else might have been with her sister on that fateful day.

I found this book to be a very interesting yet fast paced mystery, I honestly quite enjoyed that while the main character seemed to have some flaws, and wasn't necessarily likable, they did sort of redeem themselves in the end. Another aspect I really liked was the fact that it did keep my guessing and theorizing about what happed to Piper and even with all the wild theories I was still wrong, and I enjoyed that the answer was actually much simpler than I thought but still very surprising. Overall, I found Dead Girls Can't Tell Secrets to be a pretty solid paced book that kept it short and to the point while also keeping me flipping the pages to unravel the mystery.

I’m sad to say this one did not correspond to my expectations. The cover, the title and the description made me think the book was going to be incredible and unfortunately it was not. It was confusing and all over the place and i feel it could have been way better if well executed. There were some funny parts and some readers may enjoy it so you should still give it a try.

Dead Girls Can’t Tell Secrets is a good, fast paced book. It's the perfect solution to a reading slump as it moves along quickly. The mysterious feeling is immediately captured from the first paragraph.

I found the actual plot to be a little messy. Savannah was determined to keep her intentions a secret, yet told practically all of her suspects that she suspected them? I don't think that's the way anyone would act around a suspected murderer. I think the messiness was intended to be a reflection of Savannah's theories and thought process, but it was just confusing. There were too many potential 'killers', each being investigated for a brief amount of time before being discarded and then gone back to later. It was a little too haphazard for my liking as I prefer a cleaner investigation process in this kind of book.

That aside, the rest of the book was captivating. I found myself on the edge of my seat for a lot of the book, eager to find out what would happen next. I liked the pace, which saved the book for me.

Overall, a nice, easy and quick read if you're not looking for something with too much depth. It was a fun book that kept me entertained over the period of time that I was reading it.

Thank you to #NetGalley and SourceBooks Fire for allowing me the opportunity to read a digital ARC of Dead Girls Can't Tell Secrets by Chelsea Ichaso. This YA mystery thriller will be published April 5, 2022. All opinions are my own.

Piper Sullivan is in a coma following a hiking accident. Her older sister, Savannah, doesn't think it was an accident though. After finding a mysterious note in Piper's locker and calls from a contact she doesn't recognize on Piper's phone, Savannah believes that something more sinister may have happened and sets out to prove it.

I enjoyed Dead Girls Can't Tell Secrets. It is full of twists, turns, drama, and suspense. It's well paced and clues and red herrings are well placed. I enjoyed that the main narrator is Savannah. She's unreliable and hiding her own secrets which are slowly revealed throughout the story which intensifies the suspense. She's not the most likable of characters, but I think that added to the plot and the strain between her and Piper and Piper's friends. The majority of the story takes place over a single weekend, so events move fairly quickly and it's a pretty fast read. Dead Girls Can't Tell Secrets is a solid YA mystery thriller and a great choice if you're looking for a quick weekend read.

✨ BOOK REVIEW ✨
Dead Girls Can’t Tell Secrets by @chelseaichaso

My thoughts: This is one fast paced book! Between all the secrets, lies, and threats, throwing a group of teenagers into the wilderness does not add up to a good time! Everyone has motive and I couldn’t have figured out the ending to this for the life of me, so many unexpected twists and turns!

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A special thank you to @netgalley, @sourcebooksfire, and the author for granting me this opportunity to read this novel before it’s release date on April 5th (Canadian release date)

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC for an honest review.

I was expecting a little more out of this one based on the description. This is a story of two sister, Piper and Savannah. Piper is in a coma as a result of what appears to be a suicide attempt, but everything is not as it seems. Savannah, who has a strained relationship with her sister, decides to get to the bottom of what happened after she finds a mysterious note in Piper's locker.

The story mostly takes place over one weekend so this made for a quick read, but I think I was just looking for more. Savannah wasn't the most likable character and while there was an attempt at building tension to drive the story, it was not executed well and I ended up beginning to skim towards the end just to get to the payoff.

What an amazing read. Just one plot twist after the other. I need this physical book on my shelves. I absolutely loved, it had everything you can possibly want. Also the ending made me want to cry it was so well written. 5 star read or more if possible

Piper and Savannah are sisters and opposite in every way. Piper is great at everything she does. She gets good grades, is involved in many activities and in AP classes. Savannah is more average and into sports. Savannah feels like she lives in Piper's shadow despite being older. The story opens up with Piper being in a coma because she fell off a cliff and many think it was a suicide attempt. Savannah doesn't believe that to be true and decides to investigate on her own. She finds clues along the way.

This is the perfect young adult whodunit book with short chapters and lots of mystery surrounding what happened. Most of the novel is told from Savannah's POV but once you get about halfway there are a few chapters told from Piper's with a past timeline. I liked this because Piper's chapters gave you just enough to want to keep reading. I found the characters to be a bit immature but they are high school students so that makes sense. Parts and pieces of this story kind of remind me of "A Good Girl's Guide to Murder" with having a high school student investigating a suspicious event. It wasn't the best story ever but I did like it and it kept me entertained.

Dead girls can’t tell secrets was incredible I couldn’t put it down ! Kept me guessing till the very end ! Would love to re read this book again and again !

Okay. So, hear me out. This book is, like, bad. But it’s also just really stupid and fun. And you should totally read it. It’s like a goddamn tubi tv original movie, and really, that’s the best descriptor I can give you.

ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Savannah Sullivan (yes. yes, motherfucker, we are doing alliteration) is your average blond haired, blue eyed, beautiful, popular small town girl (in a loooonely woooorld)(okay i am sorry) whose sister, Piper, was involved in an accident a few months prior to the beginning of this story. She’s currently in a coma at the hospital, and Savannah feels a lot of guilt surrounding the accident because of a fight that she had with her sister just before the accident. Oh, also! Her sister’s case is not investigated because she falls off a cliff, and it is considered a deliberate suicide attempt after a customary look into all her known friends and acquaintances by the police. And we all know how useless the police are, especially in thrillers like this.

Anyway, Savannah discovers a note in Piper’s locker asking her to be present at the scene of the accident. It has something to do with a club that she takes part in at school. Seeing the note shocks her. Wracked with guilt as she is, she sets out to find out who was the one who was responsible for her sister’s accident, and thus begins this wild, ridiculous and campy ride.

As I said right off the bat, this book is just a very ridiculous and campy ride, and I would not go in expecting a whole lot of, you know, serious thriller-y stuff. The story is mostly from Savannah’s perspective, interspersed with flashbacks to the day of the accidents from Piper’s perspective – which, these don’t exactly serve a proper purpose, imo. Like, it’s nice to see her side of the story, for sure, but the way that the information comes to light does not add much to the story in the way exposition like this often does. There was definitely an intent that was obvious behind these flashbacks, but the execution was kind of not all that.

The cast of characters that we get to meet in this book is a pretty solid bunch. But, the way we learn more about them is just so insane, I’m obsessed with it. The story goes about dismantling these people’s motivations and their movements one by one, and once you clear someone, they’re just done and they’re the good guy now. It’s absolutely batshit and hilarious! And the main character suspects EVERYONE! It takes very little to convince Savannah of each person’s guilt, and she just jumps on them with baseless allegations and goes to the extreme in her confrontations. She’s very stupid about it, which, you know, not off-brand for a teenager, but it’s still just this side of unbelievable that it veers off into funny. I do think that this mode of understanding the characters can work in a thriller, but it’s usually thrillers that double as investigative efforts from a removed third party observer after the fact and not thrillers that have the protagonist interacting with these people on an everyday basis and having a personal relationship with them.

The writing is pretty snappy and contemporary-esque, so we don’t really get a lot of atmosphere either. It’s definitely very easy to fall out of the book because of this. The characters spend a majority of time on a camping trip, and there was definitely an opportunity to lean into the isolation and eeriness of a setting like that, but that didn’t happen. The climax of the book suited the writing style more because of the high-energy action filled nature of it, but the rest of it just felt unpolished.

There’s also this whole thing with the teacher that was just so freaking crazy. Like everything we learn about the people on this camping trip is just crazy. Very Euphoria-esque. But what makes it all so unbelievable is that Savannah is not a character who is an outcast in any way. She’s kind of smart and popular, and she’s involved in the sports teams and all that. So it’s just bizarre to me that she’d be oblivious to this degree! Also, her relationship with her sister is just, not really well done, imo. Her parents favour Piper, and it does fuck with your head when there’s that level of imbalance in your home life, but something about the portrayal was just a tad bit off. It all felt very disingenuous. Not enough emotional weight in these scenes and this story to really sell it to the reader. And that’s kind of what makes it..bad.

Also, the culprit and his entire thing is just….bro. Come on.

Overall, again, I won’t say I didn’t enjoy this book, because I did. It’s ridiculous and probably, objectively bad, but my love for bad media made reading this a really funny and fun experience. That being said, I wouldn’t really recommend this as such. You should totally read it if you like bad media and have a couple of hours to spare - because it’s super short-, but if you’re not into that kind of stuff, you’ll definitely hate this. Unless you're, like, really young. In which case, you might not hate it. I read Chelsea Ichaso’s debut as well, and tbh, I much prefer that to this. Still, I am kind of curious about what this author does next!

The concept was better than the execution but I am also not a young adult. The build ups seem anticlimactic and the way the main character went about things was kinda dumb. And I didnt end up caring about any characters..the sister seemed the most interesting and we didn't get any real time with her. It was mediocre overall. No relationships or care built with any character, writing style was over all quite good and easy to read but the pacing wasn't. Anticlimactic ending too. But I think it'll be a good book for the audience it's meant for and something to ease into this type of genre

Savannah's younger sister is nearly perfect. She's a great student, has friends, and is the golden child. This leads to the biggest question of the book... Why is Piper in a coma?

Savannah joins an outdoor club to try to learn the answer and has twists along the way. Savannah is quick to doubt and blame before getting the facts which is very much like a senior in high-school but becomes a bit of an unlikable character trait. The ending was unexpected and left open which was enjoyable.

A fast-paced mystery which follows the main character, Savannah, through a series of events as she tries to find out the truth behind her sister's fall off of a mountain cliff. Piper, the genius prodigy and younger sister, lies in the hospital in a coma. The authorities have ruled it a suicide attempt but Savannah finds notes and messages in her sister's personal items that lead her to believe her sister was pushed off the cliff. The last communication her sister received was from someone in the school's wilderness survival club.

Hoping to learn more, Savannah decides to join the school club for a weekend hike. As events unfold, it's clear that more than one person, including Savannah, have been lying about their communications and relationship with Piper. Although the characters and plot are not as developed as I like in a mystery novel, I did find the story fast-paced and engaging enough to finish. A recommended read for YA fans of twisty plots and suspense.

Thank you to Chelsea Ichaso, NetGalley, and Sourcebooks Fire for an advanced eBook in exchange for my honest review.

Not my favorite book, but I am also wondering if maybe I am starting to get too old for young adult mysteries lol. Reminding me a bit of a good girls guide to murder. The characters weren't very likable and I found the book a bit all over the place. Wasn't invested in the storyline. Thank you netgallery and Chelsea Ichaso for the ARC of this book!

As soon as I began this book it reminded me of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. Immediately it sucked me in and had me wanting to know what really happened to Piper. The characters in this book were all a little morally grey in their own ways. I found myself thinking I had it figured out and it shifting from chapter to chapter. Even though this book kept me hooked, I felt it was more so due to the plot than the writing. If you are looking for an easy and fast-paced read this would be perfect for you! It would also be a great one to pick up if you are in a reading slump and need something to capture your attention right away.

I gave Dead Girls Can’t Tell Secrets 3.5/5 stars on Goodreads.

For my full review, see the link below