I love an good mystery- but this was different from what I usually read. How and why the murder happened- vexed me. I found it hard to believe that these teens could pull off this "Game". It was an hazing ritual I felt like... and I guess it made me dislike the characters, so it was hard to really connect to this book.

This is the kind of book I expect from Lucy Christoper. A great, quick read that is easy to recommend and interest readers.

I loved Lucy Christopher's Stolen, and was very eager to read another of her books. This one really disappointed me, though, and I ended up not finishing it. I did not appreciate all the foul language. Obviously this is a personal preference, and I can see many teens enjoying the story and not being bothered by the language. The premise is very exciting, and the story is quite creepy and everything so many readers love about YA mysteries.

My feelings are pretty mixed on this book. I have had a copy of this book in my review pile for a very long time so I am thrilled to be able to scratch it from my to be read list but I do wish it had worked a little better for me. I felt like this book was really slow at times and I found it rather easy to set aside. There were parts of the book that I did enjoy but I had quite a few issues with it as well.

I did think that the book started out really strong. Emily's dad brings home a girl that Emily knows from school, Ashlee. Ashlee is dead and Emily's father can't remember what happened so he is charged with the crime. Emily knows her dad and does not think that he is capable of the crime that he has been accused of committing since he has always been a very gentle man.

Damon was Ashlee's boyfriend. He was with her in the woods on the night that she died but he doesn't remember what happened either. Damon, Ashlee, and their friends had been doing drugs that night and Damon's memories from the night don't explain everything that happened. He has a lot of questions about the night and wants to remember how things happened.

I found this book to be pretty predictable. I thought it was pretty obvious from the beginning that someone else was responsible for what had happened to Ashlee. There were long sections of the book where I felt like nothing was really happening and they were no closer to finding out what had happened to Ashlee than they were at the start of the book.

I also found this book to be somewhat confusing. There is a lot of talk regarding the game that Ashlee, Damon, and their friends were playing on the night in question. I tried to understand this game but I was just as confused about the game at the end of the book as I was at the beginning. This game was talked about so many times during the book but I can't figure out what the goal was or how it could be any fun to play. Another confusing thing that happened in the book is that Damon is in a position to give a punishment to Emily at school despite the fact that they are roughly the same age which didn't make any sense to me.

I did like both of the narrators. Fiona Hardingham and Shaun Grindell both did a great job with this book. I thought that they both brought a lot of emotion to the story and made things a lot more exciting at times. I thought that their voices fit the characters of Emily and Damon really well and were very pleasant to listen to. I think that I probably liked this book a bit more because I decided to listen to the audiobook and I would not hesitate to listen to either narrator again in the future.

This wasn't really a book for me but I do think that others might enjoy the story a lot more than I did. I would suggest giving it a try if you think that it sounds like something you might enjoy.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Scholastic - Chicken House via NetGalley and borrowed a copy of the audiobook from the library via Hoopla.