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3.5 �� // spoilers are marked!

“Lights. Camera. Lies.��

🎬 �� the 30th by billie eilish
what if you weren’t alone?
there were kids in the car
what if you were remote?
no one knows where you are

i. opening thoughts :
�� once again, I am horribly behind on reviews so please, bear with me!! Because I lowkey forget what this book was about lmaoo <3 jkjk. This was a fun read! I can definitely see why a lot of holly jackson fans were a bit disappointed in it, because it does lack some of the suspense and action we get in agggtm and five survive. Most of the plot twists were a teensy bit obvious for me, which, again, is a little out of character for HJ, and I didn’t love most of the characters. But I still enjoyed it! It was suspenseful enough to keep me intrigued and we actually got a mostly-full closure ending.

ii. character study :

��.�� bel. okay girlie had a stick up her butthole fr�� why was she so rude to everyone?? I get that she had ,,trauma’�� with everyone always leaving (view spoiler)[not to mention she was being groomed for seventeen years straight (hide spoiler)] but that wasn’t reallyy an excuse to treat everyone like dirt on the bottom of her shoes. I didn’t hate her, and she had pretty good character development, but her attitude really irked me. Also, I couldn’t stand her treatment of rachel. I get that she was suspicious but the woman is obviously traumatized, give her a break !!

��.�� ash. tell me why he acted zesty no but he was pretty cute! He was no ravi but still a cinnamon roll. His fits were hideous though 💀 and Lord knows why he liked Bel so much when she treated them the way she did, but their relationship was cute and I feel like their personalities actually went together really well. HJ was definitely holding out on the romance though, but I loved the crumbs she gave us.

�� I can’t say much about the other characters because <3spoilers<3 but I only liked a few others (shoutout to ramsey, he was a real one). Also, the price family is freaking messed up. (view spoiler)[charlie and jeff can go die in a hole�� which they kind of did actually bahaha (hide spoiler)]

iii. plot :
�� not bad but not amazing. The book was pretty long and I feel like it could’ve been trimmed down a litttleeee more, but HJ said in the acknowledgements that she had already sizably brought the page count down so idk. It was never boring, per se, but it took a while to get moving. Like I said, the plot twists were a little predictable but there were some I truly didn’t see coming. Not really any complaints here!!

iv. overall,
�� while probably my least favorite holly jackson book so far (about tied with as good as dead actually), this was still a fun and suspenseful mystery novel! I can never rate her books 5 stars, due to the unnecessary swearing (I don’t usually mind swearing but sometimes it goes overboard) and also my personal tastes; I feel like she always portrays the police/government as entirely unhelpful and corrupt (view spoiler)[and the characters always end up commiting crimes and covering them up from the police (hide spoiler)] and everything always ends up in a super gray area. I completely understand that the government system is not perfect, but I don’t really need that in my books lol. I like a nicely wrapped up, happy ending, and HJ books are lacking those. Not trying to get too deep here, so I’ll leave it at that haha. Have a blessed thanksgiving break mls xx

“Family first. Not a threat, but a promise.��