I found the way that this book was written was clever - it is told through interviews, and yet still manages to feel very clear and easy to visualize. It was predictable, but that didn't stop it from being an enjoyable read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the chance to read this book!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC - I am leaving this review voluntarily.
First of all, I did enjoy that this book was quite easy to read, personally i think an interview format makes that really easy to digest and wrap your head around.
The book had fairly ok descriptions, I could picture where the characters were.

Unfortunately, that’s all the positives that I can really say about this book. The characters were bland and uninteresting, and especially Nolan was an exceptional pain in the ass.

I just found the plot very boring and was expecting the last quarter of the book to answer questions and make you have a ‘woah wtf that actually happened?’ moment, but it never did happen. The ending was so disappointing and anti-climactic and I felt so annoyed that I had read almost 400 pages of this ‘mystery/thriller’ when it really didn’t meet either expectation.

Salvation Creek. It has been the source of stories and speculations about missing persons, specifically young women, for decades. It would not be my first choice of where to go camping, but for five friends it sounded like the perfect place to get away, make out, swap secrets, and escape their parents.

You know the drill...5 went into the woods.... only 4 made it out!


What is unique about this book is that it is told through interview/police interview format. Readers do not see the interviewers’ questions but the teens being interviewed give their responses. This worked very well. We get to know each teen through their interviews which show each's recollections of what happened, their thoughts about each other, even their suspicions.

Big kudos for such a unique way of telling the story. I found this to be very well done. This was a fun and entertaining YA mystery.

DNF at 73% I received this book as an eARC via NetGalley and want to thank Sourcebook Fire and Chelsea Sedoti for the opportunity to read and review this book. I unfortunately just didn’t feel any attachment to the characters or story by over 70% in. I liked the interesting style of having each of the characters tell the story via interrogation, bouncing back and forth between their answers. I also think that style makes the book fly by quickly. If you’re looking for a mystery book that is fast-paced, this may be up your alley. The premise is interesting and again I enjoyed the style. I just didn’t feel a connection to the characters or the plot that would make me want to continue on.

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the advanced reader copy. TELL ME WHAT REALLY HAPPENED by Chelsea Sedoti tells the story of a group of teenage friends on a camping trip when one goes missing. Each chapter is told through police interviews as well as the four characters found alive at the scene. Chelsea Sedoti does a great job of creating distinct voices for each of the characters.

I would recommend this book to those who enjoy authors Holly Jackson or Karen McManus.

I enjoyed this book and the way that it was set up. The various points of view added some more mystery and suspense because you had the inside thoughts of each character, but had to determine who was telling the truth and who was twisting the story. I did not fully expect the ending, but I do like how it ended. All in all, I would recommend this book to my middle grade students who are interested in the true-crime genre even though this is a fictional story.

Told entirely through police interviews, four teens tell conflicting accounts of the night their friend went missing in the woods. This book includes many of my favorite YA mystery/thriller cliches: a secluded campground, mean teenage girls, and a suspicious boyfriend.
My favorite part about this book was the interview format. The short, faced-past chapters, each with a police officer's question to focus it, end in cliffhangers that keep you turning the pages. Despite the unconventional format, I could still get a vivid image of the characters and the setting.
I also enjoyed the slight inconsistencies in each character's recollection of the same events. This was a really smart way to characterize everyone!
The plot is a bit predictable, especially if you're an avid mystery/thriller reader. However, I don't need to be shocked by plot twists in order to enjoy a story. So while this isn't the most memorable or unique book, it's a very enjoyable and well-crafted one. I'd definitely recommend this book for fans of Holly Jackson and Jessica Goodman!

The format of this book took some getting used to, but once you do it's a fun read. You have to keep reading because you have to know what happened on that camping trip

Tell Me What Really Happened is a fast-paced, YA thriller/mystery. Because it’s all told in the first person, I’m sure some people didn’t like it. But I found the way the information was handed out to be more that compelling enough to keep reading. In fact, I read this book in one sitting.

Did the teens in this story make a bunch of mistakes? Hell yes. But did they do anything that a teenager wouldn’t truly do? Aside from one particular plot line, no, their reactions seemed pretty spot on. It also added a nice extra touch (and built in a bit of comedic humor) that one of the characters was so into Bigfoot.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

Tell Me What Really Happened by Chelsea Sedoti, 416 pages. Sourcebooks Fire, 2023. $20. lgbtqia
Language: R (74 swears, 21 “f”); Mature Content: PG13; Violence: PG13
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: HIGH
Five high schoolers go on a camping trip, each with their own agenda. But something goes terribly wrong. Only four get to the police department to report what happened, and none of them want to admit the whole truth.
Sedoti tells the story after the fact as each of the characters are being questioned by the police. Readers, in the position of the police, get the story piece by piece from four different perspectives. The story is suspenseful and engaging, and I was surprised that the piecemeal development of the story didn’t feel choppy—it felt right. This is one of those books that you finish and wish you could read again for the first time.
John is Black, and it is implied that Maylee, Petra, Nolan, and Abigail are White because of how John is treated. The mature content rating is for underage drinking, innuendo, and mentions of drugs, rape, sex, and partial nudity. The violence rating is for blood, gun use, and mentions of murder.
Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire and Netgalley for this ARC!

I'm a big fan for unusual story telling choices, so a book written trough a police interviews hooked me right in. We have 4 characters that are all telling their story what happened on a camping trip and to their fifth friend. One of the most interesting things for me was to see how the people saw the same events from different perspectives. This gave an additional edge to discover who was lying and who was just misremembering details. The plot was really fast paced and most of the chapters were quite short, which kept me reading for hours and I actually finished the book in one sitting. I also enjoyed the characters that were flawed, but also sympathetic. The only down side was that guessed the plot twists quite fast. Still I kept reading, just to see if I was right.

This is a great book for mistery lovers that like interesting story telling mediums with developed characters! 4.5/5

This was a really fun YA Mystery that I read in a day! Maylee has gone missing while on a camping trip with 4 friends. The book is told via the friends’ responses to police interviews. I thought that was going to be confusing at first, but as the book went along it wasn’t hard to follow and I really got the sense of what each characters’ personality was. No two teens have the same story of what happened, and the story unfolds in a really interesting way!

I was skeptical of the interview set-up with four different POVs but I actually really liked it. It was interesting to see how the narrative of a situation can change based on who told the story and their own preconceived notions and biases. In this book, it is very evident that there are always different sides to the truth: what they think, what you think, and what actually happened. I thought all of the characters were enjoyable to read about, but I did take off one star because I wish they would have been more fleshed out. it seemed like each of them were defined by one major characteristic of their personality. Petra was a control freak. Nolan was obsessed with conspiracy lore and Bigfoot. Abigail was a country girl with a conservative family, and John was a guy with a somewhat shady past that we didn’t get the truth of until the end. However, the ultimate main character, Maylee, was complex and interesting and seeing how all four of these characters perceived her very differently was cool to see. It made me think of how various people, who know us in different contexts, do not think of us the same as others. Overall, the mystery aspect was there and enjoyable. The story definitely picked up about halfway through and I couldn’t put it down. I am not sure that I was completely satisfied by the ending, but I think it was realistic and drove home the themes of the book.

I actually really liked this book! At first I wasn't sure it was going to work for me - the question and answer format, speaking only, no description, etc - but once I got used to it, I found I really liked it. I didn't have to deal with "he said/she said/he yelled/she sighed/he expounded," etc - that can get overwhelming, exhausting, and sometimes even ridiculous (someone, probably more than one someones, has used the word "ejaculated" instead of "said," which - no. Just - NO). I did like that pretty much all the characters had their own - not voice, but worries, I guess? They all spoke similarly, but they all also had their own set of worries/problems/way of viewing Maylee, so after a few chapters it was pretty easy to keep everyone straight. And it was easy for me to get a pretty clear image of Maylee too, even though you get PLENTY of conflicting perspectives - but I think that's the luxury of adulthood; I think a teen reading this wouldn't be as jaded. All in all, I really did enjoy this book and I'll definitely read more by this author. 4 stars.

Tell Me What Really Happened by Chelsea Sedoti is an unusual book told through a series of police interviews with the friends of a teenage girl who disappeared while they were camping. Who took her? Was it Bigfoot? The person whose mysterious cabin they found earlier in the day? One of her friends? Only time will tell ….

I’m going to try to be as honest as possible in this review. thank you to net galley for letting me read an arc copy of this. This is absolutely no hate to the author I’m just trying to write an wholeheartedly honest review…

I liked the sound of the blurb and the idea of writing via detective interviews. however I didn’t enjoy it being written like that, too many characters POV in one chapter felt like loads was being jumbled into one rather than spacing out the story. I also didn’t like that at the beginning of the chapter there was only one question from the detective and you couldn’t see what they were saying throughout, it just put the word pause instead.

the characters were okay, I didn’t feel I related to any of them so it was hard to establish a connection. Nolan really aggravated me talking about Bigfoot all the time, I understand it was his coping mechanism and something he was interested in but you’d think with everything going on he’d snap back to reality a little bit.

the plot was a good idea, I won’t spoil it for you. I do feel like the ending was a tad unsatisfactory for me unfortunately. I hoped for a more twisty, dark ending but that’s just me.

considering it was a short read it took me over a week to finish. I am not wishing I didn’t read it and would never recommend anyone not too. It’s short, faced paced and a murder mystery so everyone likes those. Not to mention just because I didn’t like the writing doesn’t mean you won’t😊

I enjoyed the comical banter between the characters. Each character had their own unique voice and all had opinions of each other. This was an enjoyable mystery with a twist at the end that is very in line with today's society.
I received this galley from NetGalley.

OKAY, I was blown away by this book! I wasn't sure about the format at first - all told through first-person police interviews - but I ended up loving it and it honestly kept me on the edge of my seat throughout each chapter. The pace and the way Sedoti disclosed the story through each character kept me guessing until close to the end of the book. I really, really enjoyed this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for an electronic ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I found this to be a very solid YA mystery novel. On the mystery side of it, this was a quick, straightforward book (I read it easily in one night). I loved the structure of it being told in police interview format without it being too scripted. I enjoyed the varied POVs and how everyone was constantly holding something back. And I liked that the ending didn’t come out of left field - the reader had all the information to solve it if they wanted to, which made the resolution feel realistic.

As for the YA part, I appreciated that there was enough to be relatable to a current younger audience without completely dating the book by using references that would be stale in a few months. And, while I know others complained about this, I didn’t mind all the Bigfoot stuff. It’s a unique angle on the traditional “young girl goes missing in the woods” story. Plus, everyone knew that one kid in high school who believed in something completely bonkers, so this made the story more believable to me.

Overall, this was a simple but ultimately satisfying story!

Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire and Netgalley for this ARC!

4/5

This book was told in a really creative format that flowed well. Four teens are in interrogation rooms with the police talking about a camping trip that ended with a fifth girl going missing. The book is told from eh perspectives of the four teens, but it’s their answers to the police told in conversation stream. I figured out the twists, but still enjoyed reading them. The characters were all kind of horrible people (well John wasn’t horrible and Abigail tried not to be but overall I didn’t care what happened to this group truth be told), but it worked for the story that was being told. I liked that the book didn’t shy away from big issues, like of course the missing girl’s Black boyfriend is the first to be separated and clearly the police’s prime suspect. The style really made this a fast read that was really engrossing.