Let me start by saying, this book was made for me! One of the main plot points of the book (which I will not spoil) is an area of interest for me, and I had no idea that this was a main plot point to the story, which made me love it even more!

The story revolves around a group of teenagers going on a weekend camping trip organized by one of the most popular girls at school. She brought her boyfriend, her bestie, her bestie’s brother, and her ex. Quite an eclectic bunch! Now add in the multiple reports of young girls disappearing at this camp ground, alcohol, and a whole lot of mystery, and you get a fun, mysterious camping trip!

By the time I finished this book, I was pleasantly surprised! It incorporated some of my favorite things about YA mysteries and thrillers—multiple POVs, surprising twists, and solid character development. Super fun read, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun read!

Thank you to NetGalley, Sourcebooksfire and Chelsea Sedoti for this eARC copy!

I am an avid fan of mystery thrillers and this ya book did not disappoint. Clearly written for middle and high school, this book delivered on an engaging mystery built into the separate conversations of a group of teens returning from a horrifying camping nightmare. I was left guessing until the end. I really enjoyed the opportunity to read this book and suggest any mystery loving teen to read it also.

Tell Me What Really Happened is a YA mystery/thriller by Chelsea Sedoti that follows five teens on a camping trip that only four return from. The interesting thing? This book is told entirely in interview format in which each chapter starts with a police question and the rest is just the four teens recounting the events of the trip.

To be honest, I’ve outgrown most teen thrillers because most of them are just predictable to an adult reader but this one had an interesting premise so I decided to try it out and I’m glad I did! I found this author’s way of making all four narrators semi-unreliable because the whole book revolves around the way they perceived the events that happened and not necessarily what actually happened. Each of the four voices is unique and there is surprising amount of character development considering the format of the book.

Something I think people will dislike about this book is a lot of it can be extremely repetitive because we are getting the story from four points of view. Most of the characters are not very likable. But I love a good character you can dislike and the repetition didn’t bother me. The only thing that really bogged this down for me is just the pacing at the beginning. It takes so long for this book to really hit its stride and a lot of that is the format. While it is a super interesting way to do things and I enjoyed seeing something unique, it did take me about 30 percent of this book before I got invested.

That being said, I think this would make an excellent full cast audiobook. I almost wish I would not have gotten the eArc and I could have listened to it for the first time. Much like Daisy Jones and the Six and Sadie, some books just read like they would be fantastic as audiobooks.

I would recommend this to anyone who doesn’t want anything to gruesome or otherwise “adult” in a mystery/thriller!

I banged through this in one sitting, a really clever YA novel that speaks to the unreliability of eye witnesses and indeed to our own memories.

I had literally no idea what the resolution would be and when it came it was perfect.

The way the story is told works so well, both the characters and the story making you change your mind all the time.

I loves Nolan as a character but they were all highly intriguing and utterly compelling.

Quite creepy in places too. I'm certainly not going camping anytime soon.

Very much recommended.

I think my students will love this book! The idea of a camping trip going wrong and the gradual reveal of information from the interrogations will be very popular.

3.75 ⭐️ rounding up to 4.

This is a missing person/murder mystery story that follows a group of teenagers and is told interview style from the survivors’ perspectives.

I liked the format and the distinct different voices. While none of the characters were particularly likable, I found John to be the only tolerable person. I *really* disliked the whole obsession with Bigfoot thing going on with Nolan. Not that I don’t understand some people can really go down a cryptid rabbit hole and have obsessions that I don’t understand, I just didn’t enjoy it.

While there were definitely distinct voices for each of the characters and were more or less how a teen might *write* a story, it didn’t seem like things a teenager would actually say out loud in a police interview. However, I do understand the author wanted to paint a clearer picture of the story.

Overall it was a quick read and I felt entertained reading it.

Excellent YA thriller! I absolutely love unreliable narrators and who can be more unreliable than a group of teenagers trying to hide something? Maylee, Nolan, Abagail, John and Petra are all keeping secrets, but don’t worry, they will soon come out.

Easy to read and relatable, you won’t be disappointed when you pick this book up!

Wow! This book kept me on my toes the entire time. Every few pages my theory would change until the final pages! I really enjoyed the format of writing, from the police interviews. I’ve never read a book like this so it was very interesting, and I am anxious to read more in this format now! It really made me feel as if I was there in the interrogation room, rather than just reading the story after the fact.

Tell Me What Really Happened was such a good book and incredibly hard to put down. The whole story is told in first person narrative in the form of a police interview, which was a really fun concept. Each chapter heading acts as the prompt given by the detective and the body of the chapter is each character’s response. You get the feeling of being involved in the story as if you are the detective and you are the one trying to figure out who did what. Each character is so different that you feel as if you are moving room to room as you read each character’s account of the night Maylee goes missing. I loved the multi povs and the strong personalities making it very easy to switch between characters multiple times in a chapter.

The book reads like an episode of the First 48 or a Dateline story. As a true crime fan, I loved the feel and pace of the book. The ending took me by surprise and had me do a double take as the investigation came to an end. My heart broke for the friend group as the truth comes out and the reality of what happened comes to light. The concept for this book was very well thought out and executed. The themes and details stray on the safer side as this is a YA novel, but I would still recommend if you are in the mood for a quick true crime fiction read. Go grab it when it releases April 4, 2023!

This was a really fun read and just what I like in a thriller. The format of just getting each characters responses to interview questions took some getting used to at first, but I think overall it worked once the book progressed into longer narratives. I stayed up pretty late reading this one, though admittedly Nolan's testimony and all the late night running through the woods started making me nervous and I had to set it down and wait for daylight to continue. I think Nolan was an especially well-written character and very convincing about his beliefs. The wrap up to all the testimony was very satisfying, though the epilogue kind of fell flat and seemed just a little too brisk. Overall I really enjoyed the story.

I don't really understand why the cover has a seismometer on it, though.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I liked the story for the most part. I really liked how it was written. It was interesting to get everyone’s point of view. The interactions between the characters was done well.

I think Nolan’s obsession over big foot and people disappearing was a bit too much.

Maylee was annoying, entitled, rude character. She was my least favorite person in the book.

Overall it was an okay read.

Excellent storytelling and kept me on the edge of my seat!

I love the format of multiple POVs during their police interviews. The characters were well developed and interesting. The bigfoot theories added mystery and kept me questioning if it really could have been an unknown beast.

3.5 stars. Five teens go camping at a site with a dubious history and only four leave. This is a very quick, fast paced read. Told entirely in the format of police interrogation with the four teens that are left, it has multiple POV and does a great job at making each of the four voices unique. For such a fast paced read, the character development really stands out. It’s got some twists I didn’t see coming and the tension builds nicely, but the end was a little anti-climactic and somewhat “after school special”.

Thank you NetGalley for a digital copy and the chance to read this early. All opinions are my own.

What make this book unique is the fact that it is told entirely through police interviews, with the first person prospective of each of the characters answering the questions. The idea that everyone’s truths are different is really portrayed in this book as each person experiences the night differently. This was easy to read, kept my interest, and really does keep the mystery until the end! This is a YA book, but really enjoyable for any age. Sedoti did a great job with making each other characters distinct and realistic. It was easy to dislike certain characters, like others, and maybe even connect to one that is like yourself. I would recommend this book for anyone that enjoys a really well done whodunit!

Solid, suspenseful momentum utterly tarnished by a boring, anti-climactic ending.

Up until the last 50 pages, there's a lot to recommend about "Tell Me What Really Happened." The characters are realistic (even a little cartoon-ish), the setting is suitably creepy, the Bigfoot stuff is fun, and there are enough red herrings to keep you guessing.

The first-person, interrogation-style formatting is great for readers who struggle to get into books; the lack of depth in setting descriptions and other writing techniques help maintain reader interest, while also keeping the story moving.

However, the ending was such a let-down. Literally ruined the rest of the book for me. All that build-up, all that suspense, all that tension- and for that? Sure, we got hints about this ending throughout the book, but it was so boring and plain that I thought the author wouldn't go there. But she did; she went with the boring ending. Sure, maybe that's part of the book's themes (don't believe everything you read/see, etc), but I'm not reading thrillers to be reminded of real life.

Five friends go camping. One goes missing. The one thing the police want to know? What really happened?

When Maylee goes missing during an overnight camping trip, the police interrogate the four others that were there: Maylee’s type-A, rule following best friend Petra, Petra’s nerdy Bigfoot obsessed brother Nolan, Maylee’s boyfriend John, and Abigail, who she’d fallen out of touch with.

The story is told with each chapter being a question the police are asking the four… friends? Witnesses? Accomplices? Liars?

I really liked the premise of this book. The setup was really interesting. I liked how the reader can get every view of each character’s point of view. It was a really different way of telling the story of a thriller that I thought was really fun. The plot twist was a little easy to guess for me but I still enjoyed it. A very fast read, I finished it in under 24 hours.

Thank you to the publisher, Sourcebooks Fire and NetGalley for the eARC!

Spoiler-free review

Tell Me What Really Happened follows the story of five high-school friends entering the woods on a camping trip in Salvation Creek and only four coming out. This is a YA thriller murder mystery told uniquely by first-person police interviews. Each chapter in this book proposed a question that told the story of this camping trip to get to the bottom of what truly happened to Maylee. Everyone has their secrets and burning questions. No one really knows what happened. Or do they? Control freak Petra, her Bigfoot-believer stepbrother Nolan, Abigail (the victims ex), and lastly the victims boyfriend John all accompanied Maylee on this camping trip. I loved the story-telling and plot of this book. This is a perfect read for someone looking to get out of a reading slump like I did.

Do I think you should read Tell Me What Really Happened? If you're looking for a new YA murder mystery to keep you up at night go for it!

e-ARC provided by NetGalley and publisher (Thank you!)
I requested and received an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
All thoughts and opinions are mine.
EXPECTED RELEASE DATE: April 4th, 2023
REVIEWED: 2/26/2023

A thrilling book that keeps you turning the pages until the shocking ending. Full of twists and turns and shocks. Brilliant!’ I rate this book four out of five stars.

Although this is a YA book it was fun for the most part. The plot was interesting, distinctive characters, I liked the mystery, and the format helped get through the book quicker. I liked trying to guess what happened. Though I got a part of it early on, there were things I didn't expect. I also liked the feeling of isolation in the forest, it set an unsettling atmosphere that kept me on the edge of my seat. Really fun book! I love when the narrative of a book is presented in a unique way. In Tell Me What Really Happened, we are introduced to a group of 4 very different high school students who are responding to interview questions presented in a police station. Before long we learn that a 5th member of a camping trip has been reported missing the police is questioning the friends about what transpired.

I loved everything about this book. Written in a unique way as an interrogation.
5 teens go on a camping trip at Salvation Creek that soon goes wrong. They find themselves at the police station being questioned after reporting their 5th friend missing from the woods.
I don't want to say much more in fear of giving away spoilers, but this book definitely deserves some hype.