Suicide Notes From Beautiful Girls by Lynn Weingarten

3 Stars

 

“Pitched as Gone Girl meets Thirteen Reasons Why”

Suicide Notes From Beautiful Girls was one of the pop-up recommendations on my library homepage. I had heard zilch about this book before requesting it and only did so because I liked the title. (Deep, I know.) Then I saw that sales pitch contained in the blurb and had the following reaction . . .



However, since I have no ability to not read a book once it is downloaded, I had no choice but to grin and bear it. And you know what? This was kinda like Gone Girl. Now if I were Jay Asher I’d probably want to kick someone’s ass for trivializing my suicide book (as contrived as I found it to be), but if you’re looking for YA with some mindf*&^ery this one might be a winner.

“Having secrets together makes you real friends. Secrets tie you together.”

Delia had plenty of secrets. Secrets about her boyfriend and her stepfather and her best friend June and maybe even June’s boyfriend. But all of those secrets died along with Delia . . .



Or did they?

June and Delia had drifted apart, as friends sometimes do. When June hears that Delia committed suicide she feels guilty for not answering Delia’s call. Guilt soon morphs into suspicion when she listens to the voice mail left by Delia right before her death and after she meets Delia’s ex-boyfriend. Did Delia really kill herself or was she murdered?

I was a little concerned when I guessed a potential major plot point at the 5% mark and then had it confirmed by 20% . . .



I also figured something more than that had to be up because there was too much book left and since I had read . . . . some another book (not Gone Girl) which shall remain nameless in order to avoid spoilage . . . . it was pretty easy to figure out the second twist in the story as well. Buuuuuuuuut, even though I saw most of the things coming, I didn’t see them all . . .



and I never wanted to stop turning pages. I would obviously ruin the fun if I told anything about the twists and turns the story took. All I’ll say is (a) I read a poopton of mystery/thrillers so when it comes to guessing what’s going to happen next I’m fairly good at it and (b) a lot can be forgiven if the author sticks the landing ending. I seriously dug the end of this one.

“Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for a person is to shield them from that which will not help them. Make the decision and then carry the burden yourself, bear that weight so that they don’t have to.”