Emily Hainsworth

You're set up right from the start in this slightly creepy mystery. Sonia barely escapes an attacker on the bridge in a park stretching between the family diner she calls home and the street full of posh houses where her best friend Gretchen lives. Gretchen's not as lucky that night. Her body is found floating in a pool below the falls the following morning. Brooding, artistic Marcus Perez, Gretchen's ex and the guy Sonia's secretly crushed on for a long time, is the number one suspect, but as the story unfolds, the list of possible killers grows until it includes pretty much everyone who knew Gretchen, including her younger sister, Kristen. Readers are strapped into roller coaster seats for a wild ride until the big reveal at the end, one I didn't see coming. Altogether a dandy YA whodunit.… (plus d'informations)

I zipped through this one in less than a day so I can attest to it being a bit of a page turner. That's not to say that there weren't lulls that seemed a bit interminable as I was really in this for the mystery and not about the could-be-maybe-not-but-then-again-romance storyline that involved Sonia and dead BFF's ex-boyfriend, Marcus. From the start, I thought Sonia, who had poor recall of the incident with her attacker, may be an unreliable narrator and given the very things that were excluded from the police investigation, my suspicion of the murderer turned out to be correct. I read a lot of mysteries so this may be why but as this is a YA book, this is likely a good introduction to such a character and story for teens.

The real Gretchen postumously emerges in such a cascade of secrets and double crossing of nearly everyone, that she's more spectre than ever feeling like a real person. I felt that there was piling on to such an extent that it felt as if the author were trying to coerce sympathy for whomever killed Gretchen because they liberated everyone from this teen tyrant. Still, I raced through to the end with a quirked eyebrow daring the end to let the murderer off the hook. While the end leaves their fate unwritten, it's mostly understood that the price will be meted out by the justice system.

One criticism I'll highlight here is that while I'm a total fan of making an effort to include POC characters, this one read as though it were a diversity checklist for an ABC Family show all ticked off down the line and for me, rang hollow. Given the setting, this cloistered off woodland, micro town with no discernible industry to support it, seemed to have all the racial diversity of a major North American city. It fought against the story setting's credibility. It felt like the names of characters were plugged in after the fact to make that diversity thing work or not just for the sake of having it done. I literally read and said to myself, "Well, everyone's been accounted for except our Korean Filipino or Japanese friend" and sure enough, a page later, he arrived. I wish I were exaggerating. Again, points for trying but this one misses the mark for finesse.

I would definitely recommend this to fans of Robin Wasserman's Seven Deadly Sins series as this reminded me of that as I finished.… (plus d'informations)

I'm always on the lookout for good young adult mysteries and thrillers, and Take the Fall is an excellent addition to that genre.

It's the story of Sonia, who escaped an attack in the woods that left her best friend, Gretchen, dead. As Sonia attempts to come to grips with the events of that fateful night, she tries to understand what truly happened. But as Gretchen's secrets come to light, and Gretchen's ex-boyfriend Marcus emerges as the prime suspect, Sonia is forced to wrestle with her feelings in her fight towards the truth.

What really sets Take the Fall above many other books in this genre is the ending. It's an ending that had me gasping out loud, and frantically flipping back through the previous pages to see if it all made sense in retrospect--and it did. Hainsworth pulls off a end reveal that is shocking and brilliant.… (plus d'informations)