Mysteries told in non-traditional ways with dual timelines, multiple POVs AND a bunch of awful characters to dislike? LOVE IT!

YA is hit or miss for me these days, but this was a definite HIT. Unapologetically 2020s, it's lovely to see a current book for current teens rather than what would have been ~hot~ 15 years ago.

While the comp titles are valid, I feel like BURYING EVA FLORES is it's own thing, and not afraid to be so.

This was such a fun, refreshing story. It was like Mean Girls with a supernatural twist. The chapters were short so the pacing was great and I enjoyed the interview format interspersed throughout. The main characters were well developed and the author did a great job of portraying teen life, revenge, social media. It was also a great reminder to never judge others because you never know what’s going on behind closed doors.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This story was presented and formatted in a very intriguing way which really helped to add to the mystery of the story. The characters were very childish and annoying at times, but that works for the overall story. The concept of people living fake lives on social media is a very prevalent topic and it was interesting to see it investigated in this book.

Review in progress and to come.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review

First of all the format of this book was perfection. I loved all the mediums used to tell this story. The tension between Sophia and Eva was palpable and you could just feel the bubbling hate rising throughout. The supernatural portions of this book added flair to the typical mystery genre. Honestly this could contend with any thriller in any category outside of YA. I didn't have very many expectations of this going in but I loved every page.

I enjoyed the fact that we got both Sophia's point of view and how others perceived the situation from the outside, but it felt a little clumsily done at time and like some parts should have been edited out.
Sophia suffers from a very very bad case of not like the other girls with a side of not as cool and tough as she thinks she is and other people's perspectives really helped be it just as a break from how insufferable she was for most of the story. At its core this is a story of personal growth with a splash of supernatural for Sophia so it makes sense for her to actually need some growing up but she was really hard to put up with for most of the story. Luckily her friends actually called her out on her BS instead of just being her ride or dies so the relationships didn't seem too fantastical.
Alsever seems to actually understand how the clock app works which was refreshing, I have read way too many authors who could not seem to muster even the most basic understanding of how social media apps work and how people behave on them.
The ending was satisfying on one front but kind of a let down on the other.
3.5 rounded up.

Intriguing, entertaining and a quick read, this is a really good ya thriller. I think it would work well for people who liked One Of Us is Lying. It has a light tone and fast pace, really good for a reader slump or if you want to finish a book in a day. When I started it I didn't realize how fast I was progressing through the story until I looked at the %, it just flyes by.

The story is told from the point of view of Sophia, a teenage girl who says she didnt kill Eva Flores, the tiktok influencer and queen bee, even though he hated her and wanted to get revenge. But we also have some police interviews with other characters, text messages and excerpts from the story Sophia was writing in a journal about Eva.

Listening to the audiobook was a whole experience, because we have a full cast of narrators that helps you get immersed in the history.

What didnt worked for me was the ending, I expected something different.

i really enjoyed this book! it different from the other ya books i have read this year and can only recommend it if you are looking for something new and fresh

Eva Flores is a High school student with a huge TikTok following, after a school camping trip she just dissapears having everyone thinking that the culprit of her murder is Sophia.

The plot is interesting, and I enjoyed the multiple POV's, however I didn't enjoy the change in format which sometimes left me confussed.

3 stars

I really loved the parts with journal entries and interviews. I dont know what it is with books that contain these things, but I can’t get enough.
That being said, the book is obviously written for a younger audience. Or I’m just getting old. It felt quite immature 🤭
It was a fun mystery, and I enjoyed the bits of modern times issues with social media. However, because I can’t relate as much to the characters, it I wasn’t totally invested.

I do however think that the teens in my life would very much enjoy this book.

Burying Eva Flores is a paranormal YA mystery, which focuses on bullying, friendship and contemporary influencer culture. There is an urban fantasy element in the form of a curse by the indigenous people of the land.

I loved the playfulness in the novel’s format. It’s a non-linear narrative, jumping between ‘then’ and ‘now’, with text messages and video interview snippets interspersed amid the prose. The non-linear narrative does a great job in creating suspense: we learn from page one that Eva Flores is missing and presumed dead and that our protagonist Sophia is suspected of killing her. The pacing was mostly good. I feel the beginning dragged a bit as it took a while for the story to get going, but from 30% onwards, the story flowed.

One great thing about the beginning, though, was that it established the stakes for our heroine. There was no doubt at all how desperate things had become for Sophia because of Eva’s actions, which helped me understand her motivation in taking revenge. Sophia became downright unpleasant while trying to get back at Eva, but it made sense because we knew how far she’d been pushed.

Eva and Sophia are characters with some complexity, but I found the secondary characters lacking in depth. Two of the antagonists, for example, are mentioned as dirty and unattractive and so on, and I thought for sure we’d have a twist where the disliked characters end up being nice after all--but no. They have absolutely zero redeeming features and their motivation in what they do isn’t quite clear.

In the process of her revenge, Sophia engages in a relationship which made me quite uncomfortable. However, it is portrayed as a disturbing thing and not cute or romanticized at all.
One last thing that bugged me was this: the author had the characters use some slang contractions while speaking, like ‘gotta’ (which we’re used to), ‘shoulda’ and some similar words (which I can accept) or ‘buncha’ (which bugged me). I can understand the idea of conveying teenage speak, but nothing else in their dialogue was written like this, so these words stood out like a sore thumb. Also, unless I’m mistaken, ‘buncha’ was also used in the speech of a lawyer, which threw me out of the narrative. It’s a small thing but it bugged me.

Finally, the ending was quite satisfactory. It played out differently than I expected, which I always appreciate. I like to be surprised.

Overall, this is a fast-paced story that flows well, has a playful format that blends prose with video transcripts and text messages, and has a strong emphasis on social media (TikTok, Instagram, etc). Recommended for teenagers who are interested in mystery and urban fantasy.

Many thanks to Netgalley and for providing the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you to both NetGalley and the publishers for giving me access to the ARC version, in exchange for an honest review.

The Tik Tok star Eva Flores disappears and the main suspect is Sophia, the stalker. The book reports the relationship between Eva and Sophia, sometimes conflicted, and left me wanting to know what had really happened. I like when there are several POVs and in this one there is also the interview of the characters to the detectives (reminding me of the book Big Little Lies, by Liane Moriarty). Do you want to know what happened to Eva? Enjoy this read!

A mystery story with different sensations, I could feel the suspense and things that made me curious, scared and goosebumps while reading it.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

I started with the audiobook but it felt all over the place so I turned it into a read-along with the eBook. So this review is of both formats.

Let's start with the good...
1. The chapters are short where needed which helped with the pace.
2. There's representation on the mentally differently abled.

This story had a lot of potential. It touched upon various themes like...
*The cruelty in the past against the indigenous/Native American people.
*Abusive households
*Pressures of social media
*Pedophilia (especially teen girls)

I wish it went deeper into at least one topic. I like that there are many themes but none were really explored beyond the surface.

Another thing that put me off is an antagonist in the end which made little sense. It seemed to have come out of nowhere. Why the rage? Why the need to hurt?

Finally, the video interview chapters. When I first heard it on radio I couldn't even follow. Each character has a different voice actor. So after mentioning the character name in the beginning of the chapter, it would have been easier to follow if the voice actor just went on with the lines.

x: Says this.
y: Says that.
x: Says this.

It was like reading...
"Say this," said x.
"Say that," said y.
"Say another thing," said x.
"Say something," said y.

One common advice we hear is that dialogue tags like this shouldn't be overused. Well, it was and it totally broke the flow.

So I turned to the eBook to make it a read-along. Turns out that the issue was not just the audio. These chapters would have been much better on screen because it was in a documentry format. X and Y are interviewed separately but these chapters are written as if someone edited the interviews ans and weaved them together.

Overall, an average read with lot of potential.

A more detailed review would be up on my blog soon.

This was an interesting YA mystery. The chapters at broken up by interviews and journal entries of a story that is vey written for a class assignment. This was a new writing style for me, I enjoyed it. The story is also being told told from multiple point of views which I normally don’t like but it works for this book. The story covers rivalries between high school students, social media influence, and family issues.

All thoughts and opinions are my own, and I have not been by anyone.

A fantastic book that had me on edge from start to finish. Getting to know Sophia and Eva and their very different lives and backgrounds really few me in. Eva started as a character whom I really disliked but, soon turned into a seemingly misunderstood individual who I felt sorry for. The transcripts of interviews and text messages broke up the text well and made for a more interesting read. The tribal curse made me wary that the 'magical' aspect may seem too farfetched, but this was definitely not the case by the end. A thoroughly enjoyable. novel!

I was expecting a YA mystery with a decent story but was faced with a magic journal and the curse which in the end didn't get any explanation or any closure.
The story is promising, but the execution is not. the pace is a bit dragged and slow. High school bullying, lies and pettiness colouring this book.
I actually felt a bit bored in the middle of reading this book which is not a good sign. It's so hard to root for one of the characters in this book because none of them is likeable.

Thank you NetGalley, the author and the Publisher for the ARC in exchange of my honest reviews

My impression of the book is that it was decent but not amazing. The interview format and the use of multiple points of view caught my interest, but I thought that the book was too lengthy and slow-paced. Some of the chapters seemed to be just filling space, which I didn't appreciate. While I was excited about the book based on the synopsis, it didn't meet my expectations. To sum up, I have mixed feelings about it.

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review.

The story was intriguing, unique and kept you drawn in. A fast paced page turner. This is a YA paranormal, mystery, thriller. I enjoyed the variation in chapter styles switching between a podcast about a missing high school girl to interviews, text messages, evidence files, journal entries and the regular story. The storyline is also told in alternating timelines from multiple POV's. The MC's are complex and well developed and very much gave "Mean Girl" vibes. The novel gave an interesting look at the effects of social media's influence on teens as influencers and those influenced. And the way people react to being in a position of power. The magical realism was a wonderful addition to the storyline. There were so many twists and the ending was insane in the best way possible. I did not expect the story to come to that conclusion at all. The characters are all kind of unlikeable throughout the story but as we get to the end the MC's have all grown. There were many elements to this story but they all went together so well.

I kept debating if I wanted to read this book or not and I'm glad I did. I'm on a young adult kick lately so I ended up going for it. This was a fun and quick read. The storyline was original. The format of intertwining text messages and interviews added some pizzaz to the story. There is a little bit of supernatural happenings, but not in the form of ghosts or spirits. I'm typically not a huge fan of supernatural storylines and that is my reason for debating on reading this, however I would categorize this as mild in that department.

Thanks to Netgalley and Books Go Social for a free digital copy.