[Review] Dead Ringer - Jessie Rosen

ARC presented to me by Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

This could have been so much better!

The author has merits, she had a very entertaining idea that despite seen a lot on movies and TV series, it is not very frequent on books. And much less a plot twist - hence not saying here what it is about.


I didn't have expectations from the summary. I felt it could go so many ways I just wanted some new airs to YA's and I should say this book accomplished that much. It also falls for the same old traps the bellow-average YA's do, unfortunately.

I did enjoy the beginning, for the first 10% maybe I thought this could be really good. There was the mystery and the goosebumps from trying to imagine what the foursome could have done to Sarah, aka the dead girl. As I read on, the plot followed a more conventional path, to the point I thought the dead girl and all the secrecy were just props for a teenage love story.

This twist could have been for the win but when it happened so late in the book, I didn't feel fooled but lied to. Of course I had considered the possibility but as hints were dropped, a lot of the story denied it could happen. The taste on my mouth was that the author lied to me there and now anything was possible, for she broke the rules set for this game. I should reassure you she didn't, at least.

Bitterness subdued, I thought this could still reach 4 stars if it worked hard. But it was all a sequence of missteps, crumblings, and a free fall into a frozen river.

The characters are not well developed, aside from Laura, Sarah and Charlie. Even Amanda and Sasha who appear a lot seem too single-purposed to be round. Some characters pop up and you think they could be important because they do take a lot of space, Becca being the big example, but that's just it, they pop and fade away. And no one was likable. Nothing the author revealed really made me identify, take pity or anything. Geez, I couldn't even relate to Charlie's mother who I could have ate least come to call a poor woman. What happened to his dad anyway?

The big plan behind the story was also hard to believe. I found it already too fetched that a 14-year-old could become such a hacker but I was willing to. Now the big plan was too much. A regular fourteen-year-old couldn't go that far on her own and basically all of a sudden. Also the details with which she planned it to happen would have required a third eye at least, not just a "tipper". I didn't buy it, which made fall through the basis for everything happening,

Last, I'd have appreciated knowing this wasn't a single book. I'm glad I knew most of the story here so the cliffhanger is the only tease for you to keep reading. Nevertheless, finding out so late that it wasn't the end was infuriating. I even think the end could be edited, cutting here and there, and leaving it for the next book could make it seem more complete, like a standalone.

In sum, I would have liked if someone else had written this for the author. The idea was good, refreshing. The execution was too lacking to believe she could do better by herself.

Rate: 2 out of 5