I’ve never read a book that I honestly hated, but I stuck it out with this book because I kept hoping that it would get better and that if the end was ok I could at least give this 2 stars and call it a day, but this book never got any better and I am here to tell you why.

Different POV’s but same exact story:

There was so many pov’s in this story and they all recalled the exact same night and most of the time in the exact same way with a lot of the exact same word for word conversations. By the time you get to the end you want to scream enough already because you’ve heard the same thing too many times to count just from a slightly different perspective.

Every character is toxic:

There is not one good character in this novel and no one had any redeeming qualities and while it’s ok to have all characters be imperfect there has to be something there to make the reader care about who they are reading about and in this book there was nothing good about anyone.

The narrative itself and the way characters see certain things is toxic:

The whole time I was reading it there were so many instances where I was dumbfounded by how weird/backwards the logic was. Some of the things characters say and think in this book just made me cringe and I truly believe that this is a bad representation of not just lesbians, but people in general.

The diversity in this book was severally negatively represented:

At one point one of the characters says that they could frame one of the other characters who is African American because they would be “Just another Black who went crazy and shot people.” Then the way they kept talking about lesbians being butch and the way the lesbian relationship was portrayed was awful. There were so many red flags in this department and it just made me feel completely uncomfortable.

The outlook on cheating:

The characters cheated in this book an cheated proudly. It was actually shocking how much everyone was always using each other with no repercussions for anyone at any point. All of the going behind each other’s backs was left to be a’okay in the end and I was not ok with that.

The biggest red flag of them all:

*trigger for sexual assault*

At one point there was a girl was drunk and asleep in the bathroom and part of her dress was down and one of the characters molests her and takes pictures all while she is sleeping. While the characters at the end do say this was not ok, the fact that there was no repercussions for that either in the end made me so angry. The characters all stay friends and are all forgiving about everything when something like that should have been handled very differently.

Overall this was an interesting premise with a really bad execution and this book is definitely one I would not recommend in the future. This book is extremely problematic and I am sad that a book I had such high hopes for ended up being as bad as it was.

This book was told from 6 different perspectives. I found it to be confusing at times unfortunately. Also, I really just didn't connect with the characters. I found it hard to get invested in them. In the end, this felt more like a mystery. I found it just to be an okay read.

This was...disappointing. The premise was really enticing and I really hoped that this book would be <i>Pretty Little Liars</i> meets <i>One of Us is Lying</i>. Unfortunately, <i>The Girl Who Wasn't Dead</i> just didn't deliver in a lot of ways.

* I guessed the ending about a third of the way in.
* The POV changes but the voice doesn't so it's often easy to forget who is actually speaking.
* The repetition is infuriating. Word-for-word repetition had me skimming through chapters.
* Despite centrally featuring three lesbian characters, there was an undercurrent of homophobia and a lot of fat-shaming going on...
* None of the characters actually felt real - they were all just caricatures of a stereotypical 'cast of high school drama'.
* The dialogue felt off (I can't really put my finger on why...)

This book had so much potential that it just didn't live up to.

Jenny Lewis had the worst prom night ever, especially since it ended with someone trying to kill her. Months later, while everyone still thinks she’s dead, she meets them all in a cabin so that she can figure out what really happened that night.

The story was told under Jenny’s point of view but also the points of view of all the other people in the cabin.
The characters weren’t loveable. They drove me crazy, I could not relate to them. Even the main character, who I was supposed to feel sorry for was awful. She nicknamed someone who used to be her friend “Chubby Ally”. She also cheated and cared more about her image than anything else. And she was like the second most likeable character out of the six main ones.
More than that, some dudes sexually assaulted a passed out women and were never held responsable, one of them was even written as a good dude by the end because he used to have “a drug problem” but he’s clean now so he’s a different person. Right.
I guess I liked the way it was told though. The whole prom night is told by everyone, according to their points of view, so we can reform the whole night piece by piece. It kind of reminded of a Veronica Mars episode: A Trip to the Dentist (1x21). Except the characters here were assholes and Veronica is everything.
Also, there was a huge twist towards the end that I didn’t see coming at all and I did enjoy being surprised.
However, they were too many things that upsetted me for me to enjoy it...

2/5 stars

Okay, let me start off by saying that the writing itself was fine! no problem at all with the writing style .
The book is about this girl Jenny who was almost killed on her prom night, she ends up obviously not dying. after 5 months or so of everyone thinking she is dead she sends text messages to 4 of her friends to meet her at a cabin, she wants to find out who tried to kill her and why.

This book, was so extremely predictable, as soon as Jenny started telling her part of the prom night I immediately knew who the "killer" was. The fact that Jenny didn't go to the police after she was almost MURDERED blows my mind, even if you have a run in with the police and don't trust them, if someone tries to kill you GO TO THE POLICE. Don't go running off into hiding with someone and try to play detective, that just doesn't work out. Haven't you seen Pretty Little Liars? So Stupid.

There was no character development in the story, its just a recount of what happened to six different people over prom night. it got really repetitive which obviously it would if you're telling the same story from six different pints of views, I feel like this story has been done a 1000 times over and it's never good, no matter who is telling it. I have nothing against Samantha Boyette's writing or story telling, I just feel like she could have done more with the story or have written something different.

I wish I would have enjoyed it but it just wasn't for me.

This book wasn’t really my cup of tea. I found it rather predictable. To be fair this is probably aimed at a younger audience than myself (in my forties) but I’ve enjoyed many other teenaged character novels. It just didn’t quite click with me. On a positive note the story is well written and the author is obviously a talented writer.

To me, this book was okay. I didn't feel attached to any of the characters, and the main character had a lack of agency. But I did like the amount of suspense, and the author managed to show the same narrative from different perspectives while giving new details each time. That's impressive.

The best thing about this book was the summary. It pretty much went downhill from there.

As soon as I started reading, I knew who our would-be murderer was. Actually, I pretty much figured out exactly what was going to happen before I was even 20 pages in and if you read other reviews of this book, I wasn't the only one. It seems our author watched a few too many episodes of Pretty Little Liars and tried to immolate that... without much success.

Everything in this book screams high school cliché. There's the popular jock who is a habitual drug and alcohol abuser. The popular mean girl. The quiet, morally good girl. The best friend in love with the good girl... and is clueless that she doesn't like guys. The popular girl who isn't really mean, she's just trying to survive. And the fat girl who is picked on but miraculously loses weight after she save our Popular Not Mean Girl from a dangerous situation. Seriously, that screams Mona and Ali from PLL.

This book was so gross and terrible. Take away how cliché it is and you're left with an abusive boyfriend, two boys taking advantage of a drunk girl (they pulled her top down and took pictures of her exposed breasts), and our weed smoking "angry Black boy". Combined with the terrible writing, this was a book I couldn't wait to finish. Thank God it was short.

I would not recommend this book in any capacity. Mark this as a "do not touch with a 10 foot pole".

I'm just going to dive right in here, this book was tough for me to get through and finish. There were a few times that I was ready to throw in the towel and just not finish it, but I ain't no quitter! I soldiered on really hoping the book would redeem itself...Unfortunately, it did not.

The Girl Who Wasn't Dead oozes with potential. The premise immediately grabbed me and the simplicity of the cover is so inviting and is so fitting to the story. What I struggled with most was the writing style, or more so, the delivery. It is very...juvenile for lack of a better word. It read more like a middle grade novel but talked about drugs, booze and sex all the time and the characters just fell flat. It was your typical clique and each character just treated one another so terribly. If these were my friends, I would have throat-punched them and dropped all of them.

I also felt the book was taking on a "Pretty Little Liars" theme. I don't know if that was intentional but it felt like the book was trying to appeal to that crowd but the storyline didn't stand strong enough to achieve that.

The Girl Who Wasn't Dead just wasn't my cuppa tea.

This review was originally posted on The Crazy Bookworm: http://www.crazy-bookworm.com/2017/09/the-girl-who-wasnt-dead-samantha-boyette.html

Honestly I think this book would make a better movie than the book that it is. In a movie, the amount of characters switching back and forth, telling the same story over and over again doesn't get as confusing. The book, especially the beginning part when you're just learning who the characters are, gets pretty confusing. I kept forgetting which one of them was the one that "died". Maybe others won't have that problem, but I did until about half way through.

It's definetly more of a mystery book than anything else. The way the author pieced together different & the same events was well done. The characters weren't hugely in-depth, but for the most part they each had very distinct personalities that set them apart from each other.

Overall I'd give it 3 1/2 stars. Again, would make a great movie!

The Girl Who Wasn’t Dead was told from 6 different perspectives.The main characters were requested to gather at a cabin in the woods to reminisce about prom night and ultimately what led to the near death of one of their friends, Jenny. One by one the characters told what they remembered in an attempt to figure out who was responsible for trying to kill Jenny. The premise was good, but the execution in terms of the overall writing process could have been better. It was a bit confusing at times, especially when the perspectives shifted between first/third when told from a main character’s viewpoint. I also didn’t understand the emotions or lack of emotions when a violent death occurred near the end.
There were several themes throughout the story such as: bullying, drug and alcohol abuse, the popular cliques vs the outcasts, homophobia, and fat shaming. The author did demonstrate that people are ultimately responsible for their actions and people can change…for the better.

Thank you, NetGalley, for allowing me to read a copy of this book.

But unfortunately, I couldn't finish it.

It has an interesting premise, but the writing is very immature. It's simple and does more telling rather than showing.

Which, in this case, is a good thing. There is explicit sexual assault thats laughed about and brushed off with "why did I date you again?" The representation for lesbians, POC, and minorities is awful as well.

There seemed to be little progress with the book, as a whole, and it fell flat.

I'm sorry, but I do not believe that I would give the author a second chance after how this book is written.

I struggled with what to say about this book. the storyline was good but i had a strange deja vu feeling about it all, Which im sure anyone else who watched pretty little liars would agree. While not the same story it is very similar.
We have Jenny who goes into hiding when someone tries to kill her. Believing it was one of her friends she lets them all believe that she is dead. Theres Ally who found her on the side of the road and took her to a motel and hid her until they could get somewhere else safe. Shes always either wanted to be Jenny or be with her. Theres Jennys boyfriend Gabe and best friend marrisa who are sleeping together and kyla who Jenny is secretly seeing behind everyones back. Then Liam whos dragged into everything cause he cares about kyla.
The story becomes a little repetitive while reliving prom night through everyones eyes but it kept up pace by switching between memory and present to keep from getting boring.
Even though the story was quite similar to to another i did enjoy the book and would recommend it to anyone who loves pretty little liars but doesn't want the commitment of a long series

(I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.)

The premise of this book is so interesting, and the blurb made me want to read more right away. The actual book, however, did not fulfill these expectations.

I was expecting a POV-shifting book with a cast of characters revealing their stories in a way that built suspense and developed tension. This story, however, fell way short. The writing just didn't carry me through. The dialogue felt cardboardy and the plot was predictable. I was surprised to see the "dead girl" have a POV chapter so early in the novel - I think that could have been reserved to build more mystery.

I always like diverse characters, so that was a plus for me, but this isn't something I could recommend to students. I don't think there's enough mystery and intrigue to keep them reading.

"I received an ARC from Netgalley and the Publisher in exchange for an honest review"

This book is a piece of art! The story is about one night- Prom night- and what happened to Jenny. The five main characters have different Social standings in the school- some are popular some are considered "losers? It is amazing how Mrs. Boyette brings all the viewpoints together to the same scene. It was very interesting to see how the different characters, popular, unpopular etc. go through the same night and, how they end up at a conversation or doing something and to see the same scene through different eyes. They explain the same night but had very different experiences and different steps that lead them to the same scene. Because of that some conversations and scenes are repeated word by word but to me it made the story as good as it is. It is a complete different style but one I enjoyed a great deal. It was pure, raw and real and the different viewpoints were authentic to who told their version of the night. It is not just a book, but a piece of Art in my opinion - to change the way of writing and wordchoice to make each characters voice unique.
On an other note, the message of the book was a vey important one as well! It showed how dangerous Bulling is and what it can do to a person- how far it can push a person. Bulling is a very delicate topic and hard to capture in the right way but the approach that was taken here worked out beautifully. It also captured friendship in a nice way and how friendship can be very superficial and be used to climb the social ladder. The story has important points written in an unconventional style.
Most books I read and I'm engrossed in them but once it is over l can move on to a new one easily- this one made it hard to move on and I can't recommend this book enough.

Not the worst YA almost-murder mystery I've ever read. This book was borderline 'okay' and I guessed who the killer was from very early on. Fairly well written and in an interesting style as there was a lot of jumping back and forth in time, which, surprisingly, wasn't confusing. Overall nothing special but an easy read.

It was a quick read, but oh so repetitive. Would have been more interesting to actually see the prom night events from 6 different perspectives, but this book simply repeats the same story 5 times. That's right, one of the stories does vary. The end is kind of predictable (easy to guess who did it a couple of chapters into the book).

I want to preface this review by saying that including diverse characters does not redeem a poorly written story but my 2 star rather than 1 star rating was because there were diverse characters, although as I'm going to discuss, they were victim to some harmful tropes.

I went into this book with only the idea that this was about Jenny, a girl who someone tried to kill but didn't succeed and so she sets out to figure out who killed her. That synopsis grabbed my attention and sounds like something which could make for a really interested and well thought out mystery and includes a main character who is a girl who likes girls; a recipe for a great book right? Well sadly, not at all.

The writing is one of the first let downs of this book, the story follows the split perspectives of a number of characters but while it does this, the perspective within those accounts is constantly changing, from first person to third person with no real clear reason. Following on from this, the style of writing was very simplistic, it stated points and that was that, no real depth or detail to draw you in; instead it relied solely on the plot to do so but as I've suggested, it didn't hold up so well in that department either.

The characters within this book are very diverse, both in ethnicity and in sexuality, something which I'm pleased to see in YA but unfortunately they were portrayed in a very negative and at times harmful way; the portrayal of lesbians as being "crazy" and cheating, how characters brushed off racism and normalised it and similarly homophobic comments, the constant comments about weight and fat-shaming of a character, jokes about sexual assault and rape not being treated seriously in the narrative all made this very unpleasant to read; especially for readers who have experienced any of those things.

The storyline itself I was expecting more from, more of an investigation into what had happened to the main character and her figuring it out but instead we are left with her "suspects" in a room together repeating the same events over and over from each of their perspectives, small details added in each time, it felt very repetitive to read. The final outcome was a slightly twist but the way the ending played out also felt unnecessarily violent and extreme particularly for a YA book which means this is being marketed towards teens as young as 12; this is also why the harmful comments and jokes throughout the book concern me, with no resolution of how negatively characters were treated or addressing of jokes as being harmful.

Perhaps the only positive was right at the end with how the relationships turned out but even with that, this book left an unpleasant feeling for me.

I haven't read a book like this before. It was a good book, but parts of the book seemed repetitive. This book was mysterious, I didn't expect the ending.

2 1/2 Stars. This was a fair YA/NA read. I'm leaning more to New Adult than Young Adult because of some of the content, but I can never tell for sure which is which. Also, while this is by Bold Strokes Books, I would not classify this as lesfic. There are 6 characters that you head hop around in. One is a lesbian, another I think is a lesbian but could be bi, and another female that I just could not tell, I'm guessing bi. Than you had two straight guys and another straight woman. I would classify this more as a book with LGBT characters than actually lesfic.

The premise of this book sounded really interesting to me. After senior prom, someone attempts to murder Jenny. Their attempt fails, and now presumed dead, Jenny is left wondering who tried to kill her. Five months later, she gets all the suspects together, to find the would be murderer. I love mysteries, and thought this sounded like a great twist, unfortunately the execution didn't really come together.

It hard to write a book with a large cast of characters. You have 6 POV's and the book jumps in and out of 1st and 3rd person. In this case, a lot of the characters sounded to similar to me. They didn't have their own unique voice enough. And to be honest, most of the characters are pretty shitty. Besides two of them, and they have their own faults, the rest were pretty awful. It was hard to like anybody and impossible to connect with them. I know this book takes place in high school and the start of college, and we are all stupid during this time, but these characters seem like total stereotypes, not actual people.

When it came to the mystery, the attempted killer is really obvious. I did absolutely keep reading to see if I was right or wrong. I was hoping I was actually wrong and there would be more of a twist at the end, unfortunately not. Boyette, needs to throw more suspicion on others in a mystery.

All and all, the book did not really work for me. I didn't hate it. It kept me reading and I finished it in one sitting, so I have to give it props for keeping my attention. It just had such a promising premise, I'm disappointed it didn't work out. I'm always happy to read something different, but the characters really needed some work. I can't recommend this, but I won't say stay away either. Just if you read it, prepare for not being wowed and possibly disappointed.

An ARC was given to me by BSB, for a honest review.