Paperbacks and Planners

Title: All Your Twisted Secrets
Author: Diana Urban
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery/Thriller
Edition/Pages: Audiobook, 9 Hours 31 Minutes
Goodreads page

I received an ARC copy of this from HarperTeen via Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review

Summary

Six teens are invited to scholarship ceremony. When they arrive the doors lock behind them trapping them inside. They find a syringe poison and note telling them they are trapped until they choose one person to die. 

Or else they all die when the bomb timer runs out.

Overview

➸ POV: 1st Person from Amber’s POV, alternating between the past and present day

➸ Amber Prescott: “Scholarship winner”, 17, Musician, Wants to conduct original score for college application, Stuck in banquet room with her boyfriend, new crush, school drug dealer, popular girl, and ex-best friend.

➸ Content Warnings: On page suicide, Extreme bullying, Graphic violence, Gun violence, Abuse, Drug abuse/addiction, Homophobia

My Thoughts

I’m going to keep this one short because overall I thought this book was a complete mess… 

First of all, I thought this was a really interesting premise. I was immediately intrigued and wanted to pick it up. However, the concept was significantly better than the execution. This book felt completely unbelievable, juvenile, and problematic. 

Every character in here was flat and wholly unlikeable. They all had a role to fill and never deterred from that box. I understand wanting to address certain archetypes but these character fit them so exact that they felt completely unrealistic. And their choices were so bizarre, asinine, utterly ridiculous that I wanted to scream near the end. While I understand this was an exaggeration of reality to prove a point, this went so far over the line that I stopped caring or hearing the message. 

This book was also overly graphic and violent. It felt like things were thrown in simply for shock factor and I wasn’t a fan. There is a lot of descriptive on page violence as well as suicide so please tread carefully before going into this one. I could see this book being insanely triggering for some readers! 

Overall I did not enjoy this book at all. I didn’t find this book thrilling or mysterious. It was simply a violent teenage drama….

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