My students are always looking for a good mystery, and The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson will definitely not disappoint! The story is told from two different points of view, with the popular girl (Iris) and outcast (Alice), joining forces to solve a murder of their classmate.

Not only is the story full of suspense and action, but it also dives into the struggles of high school, fitting in and the feelings of being ostracized, and finding friendship in the most unlikely way.

I will definitely be recommending this book to my students and plan to purchase copies for my classroom library.

A huge thanks to NetGalley and Delacorte for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The Agathas

I was able to read and listen to this book thanks to @NetGalley @penguinteen & @prhaudio

All thoughts are my own!

Alice Oglivie is finally back at school after being on house arrest. Alice went missing and suddenly reappeared five days later with no explanation. When the disappearance happened, all eyes were on Steve, Alice’s boyfriend, who dumped her for her best friend Brooke. Alice feels now that she’s back in the mix, her friends will accept her with open arms. Boy was she wrong.

Iris Adams has been assigned to tutor Alice since she’s fallen a bit behind. Iris and Alice couldn’t be any more different-or so they think! The sudden disappearance of Brooke, Alice’s former best friend, brings the girls together in search of answers!!

The Agatha’s was a really great read/listen!! Lately I’ve found YA books to be a little too full of drama and angst, but this one was a balanced amount!! The narrators did a great job with the audiobook and if that’s your thing, definitely listen!! The Agatha Christie vibes were well executed without being too redundant. I really enjoyed Iris and Alice’s banter and relationship. To top it off, I was not able to figure out the twist in this one!! Overall a really good YA suspense/thriller read!! 4.25 stars from me!!

The Agathas was a cute YA mystery that mimicked a much darker Nancy Drew and of course, young Agatha Christie.

I loved the trope of two girls who are completely different becoming friends. I really appreciated the fact that it didn’t focus a lot on romance either but more on the theme of friendship. There are crushes but they don’t overshadow the plot of the book.

I did feel like there were a lot of plot holes near the end but it was obviously opening up to a sequel which I would definitely read.

4 stars.

This was a decent story. People have been comparing it to AGGGTM and Truly Devious but the only similarity I saw was the teen detectives thing. This book had a lot of nasty cliques/rich kids and a lot of drama which isn't a problem but its definitely not my favorite thing to read about. Other than that, the teen detectives angle was very good and I liked how everyone came together to solve the crime.

Modern day YA Agatha Christie detectives try to solve the mystery of who killed Brooke Donovan. The Agathas, Alice and Iris, are on a mission to figure it out, with the help of the Zoners. Told from dual perspectives of Iris and Alice, this story keeps you guessing. Did Coach kill his own daughter? Was it someone unknown? Was it her boyfriend Steve? With hints & “rules” from the mistress of mystery, Agatha Christie, the girls do a deep dive of all possible suspects, with fingers pointing at the most obvious, but is it? Definitely a story for those wanna be detectives!

A fun and camp mystery romp perfect for Gen Z. This book blends mystery, wit, with a strong narrative tone that makes it accessible for readers of all ages

The Agathas was a good book, but not a great one. If you like YA mysteries, you may enjoy this book, but there are parts of this book that just dragged for me.

Alice Ogilvie is a poor little rich girl - her parents travel all of the time, so while she lives in huge mansion, her closest companion is her nanny, Brenda. She has "friends" who party together, but spend most of their time sniping at and backstabbing each other.

Several months ago, Alice's boyfriend, Steve, and her best friend, Brooke, fell in love and she felt betrayed, so she disappeared for several days. Like her hero Agatha Christie, Alice left a couple of signs of struggle, and abandoned her car on a road out of town. When she came back, she was in a lot of trouble, her friends all hate her, and she's fallen behind at school. The school counselor assigns Iris Adams to tutor her.

Iris is smart and driven. She wants to escape Castle Cove with her mom, and go somewhere else where the Thing can't get to her and her mom. She is definitely not part of Alice's crowd, and doesn't really want to tutor someone who she thinks is a spoiled brat, but the $3000 Alice's family is offering her to tutor her will help them escape quicker.

Alice goes to the annual Halloween party her friends throw, thinking maybe she can get back into their good graces, but they want nothing to do with her. They throw her out, after a confrontation with Brooke and Steve. Iris happens to be in the area shortly afterwards, and sees Brooke and Steve get into a fight. Steve seems really wasted, and pushes Brooke. She runs away, right past where Iris is, and disappears.

The next day, Brooke is missing, but her stepfather, Coach Donavan, doesn't seem too worried. He figures she's just pulling an "Ogilvie" and disappearing for a few days after the fight with her boyfriend. But Alice knows her former best friend, and knows she'd never do that, and Iris is haunted by the fact that she didn't try harder to follow Brooke and make sure she was okay (and the reward money offered by Brooke's grandmother is a huge bonus, too).

When they find Brooke's body a few days later, Steve is arrested. Iris and Alice realize the police are focusing on convicting him, and are ignoring the fact that there were other people who could have committed the crime. So they decide to run their own investigation.

I did enjoy this book, and there were some great twists. But the story stagnated a few times, and the way everyone treated Alice didn't really ring true to me. Even if she had worried everyone and acted like a spoiled brat when she disappeared, the reaction was very severe. She had to be home schooled? All of her friends decided to never forgive her?

But the ending of the book was very satisfactory, and it set up the possibility of a sequel. I would give the authors another chance and read another book about Iris and Alice!

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy of this book!

WOW. I loved this book and completely devoured it in a few days. As someone who is a huge Agatha Christie fan, I just knew that I would love to see an amateur sleuth utilizing the detective skills of the queen of mystery herself. I truly hope that this is a series as I would love to read more!

A YA mystery that expertly weaves Agatha Christie quotes throughout. Finding inspiration and guidance from Hercule Poirot, the two unlikely and polar opposite young heroines take it upon themselves to investigate a murder (a la Nancy Drew). This mystery explores family, friendship, belonging and the complex lives of high schoolers.

**I received an electronic ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review of this book.

This was a nice blend of murder mystery and comic relief. Not too creepy. Solid pacing. Fairly deep dive into the main characters, Alice and Iris. Secondary characters were well drawn. A sequel would be welcome!

This mystery has so much heart! There is nothing like a small town mystery to get your imagination going! Even though Alice and Iris get themselves into a lot of trouble in the meantime, they have the purest and best intentions to solve this mystery! They were a joy to read about and I can’t wait for more books in this series!

The Agathas is a great intro into Agatha Christie's mysteries for YA readers! This book caught me by surprise and I really enjoyed the mysterious intrigue, the dual narration, and all the twists and turns.

I could see this story being made into a TV show, shot similarly to the show "Cruel Summer" in that there are distinctly two perspectives but instead of the characters pitted against one another like the show, they'd be working together to solve the mystery of their classmate's disappearance.

This book had me hooked! Thank you NetGalley and Delacorte Press for the advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed this book. Alice and Iris are quite the partners in (solving) crime, and very easy to like. The plot was believable enough, the pacing quick, and the overall atmosphere mysterious enough to keep my attention. I had suspicions about the guilt party early on, but it wasn’t a total giveaway, with enough plausible suspects to keep me thinking it through. I found the side characters to be well fleshed out and mostly enjoyable as well. What I liked most was the Agatha Christie connections, especially the quotes at the beginning of each chapter. While I went into this thinking it was a standalone story, I believe the door was left open enough for a follow-up, which is definitely read as well. Solid read!

There’s a lot more to Alice Ogilvie and Iris Adams than meets the eye. When Alice’s former best friend, and boyfriend stealer, Brooke Donovan disappears, Alice is determined to get to the bottom of it. While they may seem like an unconventional pairing, Alice and Iris soon discover they may need each other more than either realizes if they hope to unravel this mystery…and survive. A story revolving around mystery, money, and an unlikely friendship, have Alice and Iris bitten off more than they can chew?

Inspired by the Queen of Mystery Agatha Christie, Glasgow and Lawson have written a teen detective novel full of twists and turns, bordering on slightly past believable at times, that also addresses real struggles young people are facing today.

As someone who hasn’t picked up a YA book in over a decade, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed The Agathas. If you’ve ever wondered who can solve a mystery better than the local police department, the answer is two seventeen year old girls. I can’t wait to see what Alice and Iris get up to next.

4.5 stars.

I love Agatha Christie novels and YA mysteries. This was a delightful YA hat tip to the wonderful world of Agatha Christie novels, and I enjoyed the story so, so, so much.

The Agathas is a dual-narration mystery about the murder of a wealthy teen, Brooke, living in the wealthy Pacific Coast cliff-adjacent town of Castle Cove. Our two narrators, Alice and Iris, have been thrown together when Iris is hired to tutor Alice. Alice is a wealthy member of the "Mains," the clique of the popular kids who host large parties in their ocean-view mansions. Alice has been ostracized by the group for disappearing for five days the year before and she's lonely spending her days alone in her mansion with just her caretaker while her parents jetset across the country for important business endeavors. Iris dreams of escaping Castle Cove, where she lives with her mom in a one bedroom apartment in constant fear of the return of her abusive father.

Iris is thrilled for the fat paycheck in exchange for getting Alice's grades up to snuff, but Alice quickly needs Iris's help for a different kind of project -- solving her ex-BFF, Brooke's, murder. Brooke was last seen fighting with her boyfriend and running away from a party, and her body is found several days later washing up on the rocks of the cliffs below the town. Since Alice grew up reading Agatha Christie novels, she and Iris begin investigate with combination of sneaky snooping, secret informants, and a crew of fun characters from the Forensics Club.

It's important to understand going into this book that it is the first in a series! If this had been a standalone, I might have been expecting a different type of book -- more thriller, more twisty. But the series is setting Alice and Iris up to solve several murders (a few of which are mentioned in this book!) in the subsequent stories. The story is a good old-fashioned mystery story, complete with secret clues, red herrings, and hidden pasts come to light. Very Agatha Christie!

Readers who love A Good Girl's Guide To Murder, One of Us Is Lying, and A Study in Charlotte will love this book. The focus is on the mystery elements within the politics of this particular town and the story content is very solidly YA (with minimal romance/sex and even minimal violence, despite the murder-y themes). You can see the longer plot arcs of the series being developed here, too, and I'm so excited for the series to continue!

After her ex boyfriend falls in love with her best friend, Alice turns to Agatha Christie to cope. When, 6 months later, that best friend goes missing, Alice teams up with her tutor, Iris, to become Hercule Poirot/Miss Marple.

This book is a lot of fun, but it does have some unnecessary tropes-- I was just waiting for the inevitable fight between the two girls, and the privileged vs unprivileged theme was definitely skated over.

However, this book is entertaining, and if it introduces young readers to Agatha Christie, then I'm on board.

I am OBSESSED!! I think I'm just generally a sucker for a good YA mystery, and I cannot wait to buy this for my library and force it into the hands of my students (who are all big A GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER and Agatha Christie/classics fans). The epilogue makes it seem like this is being set up to be a series, and I cannot wait.

Also, since this is a murder mystery, I feel like I need to say that I had so many guesses, and none of them were right.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Lovers of all the best teen thrillers and mysteries are going to love this. The classic twists and turns are there along with things you didn't see coming. This book was a thrill to read.

The Agathas took me completely by surprise. I love to read YA murder mystery/thrillers and am open-minded about clichés in this genre.
To my surprise I found these expected clichés really well integrated with new twists and they even seemed kinda fresher to me.
Rich girl.
Poor girl.
Typical high school cliques.
Prejudices.
This could have gone wrong quickly and seemed like it had been read a hundred times.
But it didn't - on the contrary.
The typical tropes got a lot more depth, the characters developed and friendships were formed. I especially liked the characters themselves, their motives were understandable and they all had their secrets and chips on their shoulders.
The writing style itself was extremely enjoyable, partly funny, often suspenseful and somehow also cozy throughout the book.
All the references to Agatha Christie were really fun and made me smile a lot. I also enjoyed the murder mystery itself. It had an exciting build up, was great to puzzle along with, and there were some twists and turns I really enjoyed.
Overall, it's definitely a very good YA Murder Mystery book that plays with clichés, has a well thought out mystery and yet is also cozy.
But you might want to read the trigger/help sites at the end of the book, because besides all the coziness, we get some pretty heavy topics like: domestic violence

The Agathas is the perfect YA mystery for fans of Agatha Christie. It is fun and filled with twists galore, secrets, red herrings, and fun nods to the master herself throughout. When two girls come together to try to find a missing girl and prove the police's main suspect's innocence, they use Agatha Christie's complete collection to teach them how to solve a mystery. Boy, this really was such a fun time! The mystery is extremely solid. The story is incredibly fast-paced and addictive. Glasgow and Lawson's writing blended flawlessly. I truly cannot rave enough about this fresh new mystery. Highly recommend you check out The Agathas today!