Thursday, October 8, 2015

My Secret to Tell by Natalie D. Richards

Emmie has been in love with her best friend's (Chelsea's) brother Deacon for a long, long time.  Everyone knows it, but no one talks about it.  Then Deacon turns up in Emmie's room covered in blood.  Due to a childhood trauma, when Deacon sees blood, he goes into a state of shock.  She knows this looks bad because Deacon's dad was violently attacked and is fighting for his life.  The police are well aware of Deacon's bad boy reputation and zero-in on him quick.  Emmie doesn't want to believe Deacon could do it, even if his own sister does.  And she's going to prove it to everyone... even herself.












I've been searching for great YA Mysteries and Thrillers for a while now.  I have found a few (Dangerous Girls, All Unquiet Things, The Night She Disappeared), but unfortunately this didn't turn out to be one of them.  Now just because I say it wasn't great, doesn't mean it wasn't perfectly okay, because it was.  It was an okay, average, decently written YA mystery.  It wasn't anything special though.  It didn't go that extra-mile and it didn't do anything different from many other YA Mysteries that I've read.  There was also an issue with me liking the characters.

I wanted to like Emmie, and at times I did, but other times I found her just ehh.  She was portrayed as OCD, but it wasn't really something that was ever dealt with beyond "she likes things clean".  She was painfully in love with Deacon and only after he's about to go to jail for the rest of his life does he want to acknowledge her feelings and return them.  BLAH!  I also didn't care for Deacon being the resort-town man-whore.... and Emmie is miss perfectly pure in every way.  The relationship between Emmie and Chelsea left me feeling sad.  I know there were extreme circumstances going on, but I don't really want to read about another YA girl friendship that sucks.  I want to see girl relationships where we treat each other better.

I did like Emmie's family backstory, and because of the fact that her brother went rogue she had all these expectations on her.  It did make me understand and like her a little bit better.

So should you read this??  I don't know!  I mean, if you like the same old, same old, I say yes.  It's perfectly nice, but it's nothing special.  I also knew who the baddie was.... so that was disappointing.

OVERALL: An okay book.  Nothing special or new, which is what I was hoping for.  I didn't care for the characters, and found the mystery really predictable.  I'd recommend it for younger readers.

This Book Contains:
  • Mystery
  • Boats
  • A South Carolina resort town
  • Romance
  • Biking
  • A motorcycle
  • Bad boy/good girl
  • Some violent descriptions
  • Over-protective parents


My Rating: 2/4







Date Published: 10/6/2015
How I got this book: Thanks to my Secret Sister from the 2nd round!
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire


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5 comments:

  1. It always frustrating when characters are given qualities (like OCD) without actually expanding on it. I do typically like a bad boy versus good girl romance, but this one seems to be a little iffy for me. The whole mention of him only showing his feelings before going to jail seems too easy of a setup. Urgh. I'm not super familiar with YA mysteries. The only one I can think of that I enjoyed is Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver. I'll have to check out the three you listed at the top :).

    Sarah @ The Reading Petal

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    1. I am SO excited to read Vanishing Girsl!! I LOVE Lauren Oliver!

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  2. YA Mystery is so very hard to get right. I have yet to find an amazing one well, I read one this year that was great. This one sounds like yet another disappointment.

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    1. Yeah it's something I'm always on the lookout for, but rarely ever find! If you find one, let me know :)

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  3. I read one book by this author and loved it then the next two books just didn't seem to the the same kind of reviews. like they lost their umph. I still want to try them though.

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