This book had me hooked from the very first page. There was no way I was putting it down without finding out more.
Cleverly written in a way that you don't see the twists coming. This is the perfect introduction to psychological thrillers for YA audiences.
Easy to read, Going Dark feels very current, very now, and very relevent. The internet holds all of our secrets past and future.

This was a great book! I very much enjoyed it and I look forward to reading the author’s next work! Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.

This was my first and definitely won’t be my last Melissa De La Cruz read! For a YA mystery/thriller I’m very impressed. Such a fun and easy read I loved the multiple POVs! Whoever described Going Dark as having Gone Girl vibes couldn’t have been more accurate! If you’ve been looking for a good YA mystery thriller then you’ll have to add this one to your TBR.

This is a pretty decent read if you can get past the influencer/content creator storyline and see it for what it really is. The suspense is engaging and overall the plot is captivating. I definitely wanted to know what happened to Amelia Ashley.

This was a quick and fairly straightforward read. The characters seemed a bit on the older side for YA but the storyline necessitated that I guess. The plot in general was fairly predictable but with a twist that you might not see coming.

On the surface, Going Dark is an obsessive gripping mystery. It’s a story questioning everyone’s motivations, ambitions, and lies. The ways in which we all have this layer of perception. All the ways we hide in plain sight. Keep secrets from those around us. With multi-media features, Going Dark is a mystery which I read the last 30% in one sitting. de la Cruz only complicates this idea of image and truth with Amelia’s influencing. At the beginning, I was entranced with this level of performance.

I really enjoyed this one. I loved the mystery aspect and how it was told through mixed media and various POVs!

This was a great thriller! It was a little predictable, but I loved digging into all of the different layers of the story! I would classify this as new-adult rather than adult, though. I imagine older readers would have some trouble with some of the social media/influencer terminology and it might take them out of the story.

If you can't keep Holly Jackson or Karen McManuses books on the shelf, this is another twisty thriller to add to your collections. A mandatory purchase for most YA collections.

Going Dark is a gripping YA thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Melissa De La Cruz skillfully weaves a tale of mystery and suspense through social media posts and diary entries. The complex characters and their interconnected pasts add depth to the story. If you're a fan of Karen McManus and Sara Shepard, this book is a must-read.

One of my favourite authors is Melissa De La Cruz and so whenever she releases a new book, I decide to read it. Going Dark starts with the end of Josh and Amelia Ashley's trip in Europe and Josh on the plane home. Josh is confused as he hasn't seen or heard from Amelia at all and after their small fight at the cafe, he believes she has broken up with him, but he doesn't know why. When Josh arrives home, he also discovers his luggage has been lost. Amelia's friends start to get worried that something has happened to her while overseas and Josh is the main suspect in her disappearance. As Amelia is quite well-known on social media and with her social media now gone dark, the whole world is curious and the disappearance of Amelia Ashley has gone viral with the hashtag #whereisameliaashley. Amelia's friend Tori has hired Harper to try and find her friend, but when Harper starts her deep dive, she discovers that not only Amelia Ashley isn't who she says she is, neither is Josh Reuter and that in their former lives, they were connected but not in a good way. Who is Amelia Ashley and Josh Reuter and how are the current events connected to what happened years ago in a small town named Eureka? Going Dark by Melissa De La Cruz is a great YA thriller and fans of Karen McManus and Sara Shepard will enjoy it.

Dark and Twisty doesn't begin to describe this book. It is a wonderful story that leaves the reader on their toes. I can't keep it on my shelves.

Imagine you and your significant other take a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Rome, only one of you doesn't get to come home. Your s/o swears he had nothing to do with it, but he also seems perfectly content going about his daily life without you. In his defense, you were acting strangely before your disappearance, and there a couple of eye-witnesses who can attest to that.

Whose story gets told? Who's believed? And above all, what happened to Amelia Ashley?

Going Dark is pretty enthralling from the start. It kept me on my toes, there was the perfect amount of suspense and drama, and I stayed up a little too late finishing it. Not only were the characters phenomenally well-written, but this book does a great job at making readers ponder why it's only the pretty, white girls whose story gets covered in the news and on social media.

Now you may be wondering why I gave this book four stars instead of five if I enjoyed it so much. The answer is simple: while the themes were pertinent and the mystery was enthralling, it was also highly unoriginal.

This book is quite literally if Gone Girl and Promising Young Woman had a child. I felt like I've seen/read this exact novel about a hundred times. If you've read even one mystery prior to this or watched enough episodes of Criminal Minds, then you'll probably be able to figure this one out from the get-go too.

That being said, I'm rating this book purely off of enjoyment and its addressal of such important topics. Plus, it was really fun to read.

Pretty good read. I feel like I'm reading a lot of thrillers right now centered on social media influencers/creators, but this was a solid one. Very engaging suspense, and will be popular in my high school library.

This book was a wild ride, y'all.

It reminded me a lot of the Gabby Petito case a first, where a boyfriend and girlfriend go on vacation, but only one comes back. So obviously, suspicion immediately falls on the boyfriend, Joe. Is he telling the truth, or has Amelia been lying to everyone all along? It's not obvious at all what's happening up until about halfway through the book, when the pieces start to fall into place. And then things get even crazier as this thriller becomes a fast-paced, no-holds-barred roller coaster.

It was amazing.

I couldn't put this one down once I got to a certain point, just waiting to see what was going to happen next. And this one comes down to the wire - nothing is certain until the very last page.

However, looking back, this is a book that leaves its clues all throughout the book, dropping little clues like breadcrumbs so that you can look back and see the trail that you missed the first time once you know the answers. It's pretty intriguing to go back and look over what you didn't see in a new light, especially since the main character is a social media "influencer" who's life is online, therefore she leaves digital fingerprints everywhere she goes.

Overall, this is billed as a YA thriller, but I enjoyed it fine as an adult, and think it would be fine for anyone looking for a good, suspenseful mystery/thriller to enjoy for a weekend.

At least it will certainly make you think twice when you log on to your favorite "influencer's" page.

Let me start off by saying that I am a 31-year-old reviewer and the intended audience for this book is young adults. I am strongly in the camp of allowing people to read whatever they wish to read however I think my enjoyment and criticisms of this book should be viewed through the lens of someone who is much older than the intended readership. I think this is particularly significant because I was able to draw comparisons between this book and another book which I have not read but I feel like the twist of which is well-known in the present zeitgeist but also may not be the case for a younger reader.

I enjoyed this book enough to continue reading and see where the story would take me but overall it just seemed to miss the mark. I essentially felt as though I went through the whole of this book convinced that my theory was not correct as it seemed so painfully obvious and doing mental gymnastics so that it wouldn't be the case. I somewhat appreciated that the book seemed to recognise what it was doing to the extent that one of the chapters was named after the story that it reminded me of but the straightforwardness of the story as a whole just left me feeling unsatisfied.

I am unsure if the intention was for the reader to understand what had happened throughout and were just looking and waiting for the reason to be revealed. Whilst I think this would be a generous position to take, it would help to explain why it seemed so transparent. If that was the case, I think the book could have been structured better with chapters from other POVs interspersed earlier and more evenly so that hints and misdirects could have been introduced earlier.

Unfortunately I think "Chekhov's gun" was just way too obvious to me. This one detail was mentioned in the first few pages of the books so I knew that when certain events happened within the book it was linked to this and it just confirmed my suspicions.

I think there was a little logic absent in the story, especially around one character's role as they seemed to be both an integral part and a cause of unexpected changes to one of the character's plan. Also the use of obvious aliases felt like a very strange move.

I also wasn't a fan of the ending as it seemed to have some teeth but then pulled back at the last minute.

As I said at the start of my review, my enjoyment of this book was largely impacted by the fact that I recognised elements of the story as being similar to one that I felt I already knew so where the book was leaving breadcrumbs, to me it was whole loaves of bread. If I had not recognised these similarities, I can fully see how this book would have been a really interesting read and there were definitely aspects of this book where it kept itself very close to the chest until it was time to reveal. I fully believe that is a readership out there for this book, unfortunately that readership doesn't really include readers with similar tastes or past reads to me.

Popular social media influencer Amelia Ashley shares everything with her followers. She loves to share her favorite outfits, fashion tips, favorite restaurants, relationship advice and her trips around the world. So it’s no shocker that she shares her once in a lifetime European trip with her boyfriend Josh. When she leaves him after a very public fight in a cafe and doesn’t show up for the flight Josh is forced to return home alone. Soon all her followers realize she’s not posted and no one has seen or heard from her since that day. A massive investigation kicks off with Josh at the center of it. Then her blood is found on the inside of his suitcase and he goes from concerned boyfriend to possible suspect.

Y’all this book was addictive. It’s a tense ride that doesn’t really ease up until the very last page. Told in multiple povs the story is fast paced and kept me up late reading. Just when I thought I had it all figured out it takes a hard right and went a way I wasn’t expecting. I love a good thriller and I am a sucker for the girl goes missing type of thrillers so this one was right up my alley. Going Dark is a solid twisty ya mystery thriller that definitely be added to your tbr.

#WhereisAmeliaAshley ? When Josh Reuter returns from a vacation in Italy without his influencer girlfriend his friends become suspicious. Police however, do not suspect foul play. Amelia's influencer friends however, begin to rally interest and a hacker/detective gets involved.

Told via multiple points of view, flashbacks and social media posts this is a unique mystery that will keep you guess until the end. If you love thrillers, social media influencer stories or just are interested in a book that will keep you reading til the end definitely pick this one up!

I love all Melissa de la Cruz stories! This one is no exception. Characters and story line was excellent! Character, Amelia Ashley is a food/travel blogger and in a relationship with Josh Reuter. As their relationship progresses, she plans for them to visit Rome together. When it is time to return to the states Josh cannot find Amelia so he returns alone. Did he do something to her? Amelia is missing and Josh is a person of interest. The internet goes wild with suspicions of her demise. Follow along and try to figure out if Josh is guilty. The past is about to bite him in his butt. High recommended for teen reading and thriller lovers.

This was a super solid YA mystery/thriller! You follow a few POVs in this story as you try to uncover what happened to an influencer, Amelia Ashley, who never returned from her vacation with her boyfriend.

It wasn't the most original mystery/thriller I've read, and is reminiscent of some other highly popular thrillers, but this story did bring a new layer to it about the types of missing girls/women cases that get attention and highlights injustice in our system. It was executed super well and I'd highly recommend this one.

Thank you to the publisher for granting me access to an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.