The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I don’t know how I came to know about this story, but I immediately put a hold on it at the library and couldn’t wait to read it. I finished it in 2 days.
Truth be told, regardless of what the synopsis promised the reader, I was still expecting a tongue-in-cheek, high-school serial killer sort of story like Scream Queens, which it certainly was not.
The characters, with their secret agendas and equally suspicious motivations, were well thought out and created. The main character, with her own share of emotional turmoil and hardship, was highly intriguing to follow on her path of discovering the truth of a five-year-old murder case.
The plot was a straight forward murder mystery mostly narrated by the main character herself, a high school student. Although I had a hunch who might be have been responsible for the murders, the story kept a good pace and had me question little things constantly, in a good way.
The writing was excellent. The author did not waste any time plunging the reader right into the middle of the story, demanding attention and interest. Here and there the sentence structure seemed a bit awkward, but it wasn’t anything that took away from the overall enjoyment and entertainment of reading the story.
Overall, this story is what I have been looking for all summer: contemporary murder mystery that didn’t belong in the cozy mystery genre. I kept looking at adult contemporary murder mysteries, but ultimately was disappointed every time. I would highly recommend The Cheerleaders and I am definitely going to check out the author’s other works.
