All Unquiet Things

Carly: She was sweet. Smart. Self-destructive. She knew the secrets of Brighton Day School’s most privileged students. Secrets that got her killed.

Neily: Dumped by Carly for a notorious bad boy, Neily didn’t answer the phone call she made before she died. If he had, maybe he could have helped her. Now he can’t get the image of her lifeless body out of his mind.

Audrey: She’s the reason Carly got tangled up with Brighton’s fast crowd in the first place, and now she regrets it—especially since she’s convinced the police have put the wrong person in jail. Audrey thinks the murderer is someone at Brighton, and she wants Neily to help her find out who it is.

As reluctant allies Neily and Audrey dig into their shared past with Carly, her involvement with Brighton’s dark goings-on comes to light. But figuring out how Carly and her killer fit into the twisted drama will force Audrey and Neily to face hard truths about themselves and the girl they couldn’t save.

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Beth says 4 Stars...
This book was surprisingly good. I initially thought that it would be an angst-fest, and it was at times. However, it managed to be really intriguing and had a fantastic mystery aspect. I will say that I didn't predict the end of the book, but I'm also really terrible at figuring that sort of thing out. The plot moved forward at a lovely pace after the beginning. It took a little bit of time to really get into it. There was a lot of information that just had to be given, and so it wasn't immediately attention grabbing. That didn't last too long, though, so it isn't a huge knock on the book. The setting was fairly well done, but it felt tiredly familiar. It's as though I've read different books set in the same place before, and I feel like I have.

The characters were fairly well done overall. The only one I had an issue with was Neily, and that stems from his involvement as a narrator. His voice seemed slightly inauthentic. I could feel that it was a woman writing, and not a teenage boy. I know that it's hard to write authentically in the voice of the opposite gender, but it still wasn't what I wished for. It was what I think I guy would say, which is definitely not reality. The rest of them were well done, but fairly stereotypical. It felt a bit like a Gossip Girl mystery novel, but much better written and well done overall.

I really did like this book. It's a promising debut, and I got so sucked in to it. It was a little unoriginal, but overall well done. I look forward to what Jarzab will do in the future. Grab this one for a little upper crust kids gone bad.

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