Really good book . Mac is trying to find out who the killer is . But will the killer get him before he finds out the truth . Plenty in this story to keep you guessing who the killer is . A must read book

An interesting read with a lot of great twists and turns. As Mac begins to get closer and closer to discovering the truth about the Catalog Killer, will he become the next victim? It kept me guessing until the very end.

There is something about a murder mystery that just ticks all the boxes for me in a book.
Especially if you throw in some romance. And when its a YA and written really well, well just blow me over from happiness!

This one grabbed me from the start.
I'm kinda mad at myself for falling asleep last night and not finishing it.
I'm usually all pumped up hoping that I get the whodunit, and I was with this book, but I also just let the words take me there without the whole jumping, the book did that all on its own.
I think I was just as confused as Mac who honestly was such a cute MC.

All in all a wonderful book that I am so happy I got to read early!

Mare~Slitsread

DNF @ 14%. This one just wasn’t for me; I couldn’t connect with the characters and found the pacing to slow for my liking. Highly recommend others read for themselves and take my thoughts with a grain of salt!

You know a book is good when you finish it and try get your thoughts together and all you have is oh fuck. That’s me with this one. Even after I went away and slept on it (I stayed up late reading this, another sign how good it is).

Keep This to Yourself is set a year after a series of murders in a small town, one of which was Mac’s best friend, Connor. Mac and Connor made up two of a group of five friends, all living on the same street, who have now all drifted apart following Connor’s deaths. But Mac can’t get over it, and when he finds a note left for him by Connor, he decides to investigate, sure that Connor stumbled across something the police missed.

There’s not really a lot more I can say about the plot without verging into spoilery territory, to be honest (you definitely want to go spoiler free into this one. You want to go completely blind to anything in terms of the plot, trust me). But it’s a really good thriller, so tense and creepy at points (I definitely regretted reading it so late at night and freaking myself out). And I really did not see the end coming. It’s one of those ones where you might think you have it all sorted out but you actually don’t. Whatever you think is probably wrong. So yeah. It was so so good, and I couldn’t put it down. Every time I reached the end of a chapter I thought to myself I could go to bed or I could carry on reading, and guess which won out. Every time.

It’s not just the plot that’s great, the characters are too. I loved Mac and Quill and everyone else, and if once or twice I might have wanted a little more depth to something, the plot made up for it. I mean, ultimately, yeah, I did occasionally want a little more dwelling on particular things maybe. Like someone said something, Mac felt hurt, next thing he’s almost brushed it aside. But maybe that was more to do with him not wanting to hear particular things (and also to say he brushed it aside is kind of harsh. It wasn’t like that, it was more like he compartmentalised maybe? I don’t know, but my point was I wanted more characters-thinking-about-things at times).

Probably the only real thing I had a kind of sticking point on was the romance. It’s cute and all, but it’s pretty rushed. Not in the instalove way. There are no confessions or anything, but the way they get together felt pretty quick. They meet once, then meet again and at this point Quill makes some comment about feeling better since he met Mac. But they only met once before. I don’t know I feel like they could have hung out more before that part, but that’s just me. Always wanting a slower burn.

And then the end happened. And all I had was a load of expletives and a ceiling to stare at in shock.

I enjoy these type of thriller books, but they rarely take me by surprise. I almost always figure out the big twist or who the bad guy is. This book is extremely unique for me because it caught me completely off guard. I thought I was figuring everything out like always, but then the twist happened and blindsided me. I LOVED that. It doesn't happen nearly enough.

Keep This to Yourself is set in a coastal town in Oregon, which was honestly the perfect setting.

I loved the characters a lot. Mac, the main character, has lost his best friend a year before the story starts and you can still see how he's grieving and having a hard time moving on. I also like how Mac is gay, which I enjoyed because there's so few thriller books with a gay protagonist. Now if I could find one with a lesbian protagonist, we'd be set.

I thought that Mac and Quill's relationship was cute, though I wish we would have gotten to see more of it after Conner's murder was resolved. I feel like their relationship was based on their mutual interest in investigating Conner's murder and I wonder if they have anything in common other than that.

The only thing I didn't super love was the very ending. It was not believable at all and requires a suspension of disbelief that I just couldn't handle. I can do that with fantasy type novels, but with novels like this that are set in the 'actual' world, it's hard.

I really enjoyed Keep This to Yourself, even if the ending wasn't completely satisfactory.

Thank you a million times over to NetGalley for this book that has just about taken over my life the past few days! It was so incredibly hard to put down, and I was never bored or felt like things were dragging on. It was like a rollercoaster made only of loops and drops; every twist and turn took my stomach and my heart with it as I desperately tried to piece together this series of crimes with our protagonist, Mac. Never in a million years would I have guessed the ending, which really lends itself to how realistic this narrative is. It seems that we lean toward the easy answers; not wanting to open up wounds or dig under that fine layer of rock before it gives way to soft, loamy soil. That is, those of us not driven by one of the most powerful forces there is; guilt. There are survivors to every tragedy, and this one is no exception. When Mac discovers a note from his late best friend Connor, he is driven to the point of no return as he struggles to reconcile the thought in his head that he may have been able to prevent the murder, and the only thing he can think of to do is to solve it himself as the local police have let a year pass by with no concrete answers. Through this search we are introduced to a myriad of characters, all of whom as rich and leap off of the page with life. Whether it’s the rest of Mac’s friend group or the others touched by the tragedy in this small coastal town; everyone is dealing with their grief in their own way, and keeping secrets that have hindered not only their lives, but the investigation itself. This world that we are thrust into is buzzing with deceit, yes, but also with the beating hearts of those left behind. It is alive, and can feel it long after the last lines have come and gone. I can’t wait to share this with my friends!

This is going to fly off my library shelves. A sweet gay romance paired with a twisted serial killer mystery? It is the peanut butter and chocolate of the things that are hot right now, and it's executed very well. I debated about my small quibbles -- there's a smattering of implausibility here and there, and one stretch where things dragged a little -- but they're too small to keep me from rating this mystery very highly.

Definitely one of the books I will be waiting to acquire so I can hand it to students!

I chose to read this because I was in search of a book with a gay male lead, and this particular plot sounded appealing. I was expecting to be disappointed, but I actually thoroughly enjoyed this book, so much so that I finished it in four days so I could find out whodunit.

The mystery aspect of the book definitely left me wanting to read on, and despite all the clues, I still wasn't able to correctly guess the ending. There are lots of twists that keep you on your toes.

I loved reading about the setting of a small coastal town on the beach, and how gossip can travel quickly in those types of places. The book also delves into how people react to tragedy, and touches on characters with mild PTSD.

The m|m couple seemed a little forced, like it came on very suddenly, but it also didn’t overpower the plot, and was subtle and cute to read about. And it being a YA book, it wasn’t too explicit that younger readers couldn’t enjoy it but would still know what was going on despite the toned down writing.

There could have been a bit more diversity (two LGBT characters, one POC), but some is better than none, I guess.

One complaint I have is that because this is a YA book, 99% of the sleuthing is being done by people just out of high school, which is hard to wrap your head around.

My other minor complaint with the book was the names of the teens, in that they don’t really fit the time period (present) or are just strange. For a bunch of 18 year olds, they all seem to have names befitting their parents, not themselves. This isn’t enough to downgrade my rating, but just irked me every time I happened upon one of the aforementioned names.

I really enjoyed this YA mystery/thriller! It was a fun read with a solid, mostly believable story line, intriguing plot twists, and interesting characters. It kept drawing me in, over and over, until I was done and I would give it a solid 4.5 stars!

I found this book to be quite enjoyable. It wasn't to dark which was a surprise considering the content of the story. I found the characters to be very well written and very likable. I loved the plot because it was something that I don't read about to often. The story is all about our main character Mac who is trying to solve the mystery of his friends murder. This has a very contemporary feel to it which is nice and I liked how it wasn't at all confusing in how the story played out, which sometimes happens in mystery novels. The best part about this book was how fast it moved, it didn't linger on things that weren't important at all and it got straight into the plot and solving it.
There were no filler words or pages thrown it to get a better word count just a pure and unaltered plot.Great read if you like mysteries you won't be disappointed. This was my first book that I've read by Tom Ryan but it definitely won't be my last that's for sure.

I really wanted to enjoy this one, but it really just didn't hit the mark for me. It seemed promising in the beginning. We follow Mac and his group of friends a year after a mysterious Catalogue Killer sweeps through their town, leaving four people dead in their wake. Plagued by suppressed grief, Mac begins to investigate the murder of his friend Connor after finding an ambiguous note he left behind. After a few chapters in, though, most of the scenes felt rather choppy and Mac's motives felt forced, as he really never had a direct reason for investigating besides the note, which didn't tell us much.

Most, if not all, of the characters were flat and didn't really bring much to the story besides anger toward Mac for resurfacing the memories of the serial killer. The romance felt insta-lovey and pretty cringey at times, and I had trouble really feeling anything toward it because of how underdeveloped it was.

In all, I was very underwhelmed.

A powerful, moving read. I loved the depth Ryan gave his protagonist, and the emotional journey he embarks on. Much better than I anticipated!

This book had me hooked from the start, i loved it!

First i want to say that i really liked the characters in this. They were varied and felt real, and i especially loved Mac. The way these characters acted and the way they spoke just made scenes flow, and it was so easy to imagine what was happening and how it could look.

Secondly, i loved the story. There were moments where i kept wondering who the culprit would really be, and i loved that i had my doubts and was kept in suspense until the reveal. Plus i was genuinely chilled by some of the things revealed at the end, but i can't delve into that in case of spoilers.

My only criticism is that this book felt a little short, perhaps one or two moments could have been a little more scary or intense feeling, but i still loved the writing style. overall i thought this was a great book and i would absolutely recommend.

I was given a free copy of this book via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Take a true crime book, turn it into fiction, set it by the ocean, add a bunch of teenagers having authentic end of HS feelings and you get this book which I loved. What makes it shine is the relationships between the teens as they leave high school--and the feelings the main character has as he reflects back on his relationship with one of the teens who was murdered.

The mystery unfolds in a super satisfying way. You'll make a lot of guesses and you'll probably be wrong at least some of the time because there are enough twists and turns to really make it fun. Or terrifying, you pick.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. It's one of those thrillers you hardly can't put away once you start reading it. A great story of how a serial killer's murders were uncovered. I highly recommend it.

**I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

I don't think that this book was for me, but I DO think that others will like it. I didn't connect to any of the characters; it could have been because the main was male and usually in my YA reading the leads are female.

That is probably why I found myself wanting to know more about things from Doris' and Carrie's POV. Especially Doris, of course. Or Ben, even: would've liked to know more about his problems.

I was very surprised at the twist ending and felt satisfied with how things turned out. If it had gone the Mr. Anderson route I was prepared to be even MORE surprised but upon reflection that probably would've come out of left field.

This really has no bearing on the book itself, exactly, but I think I am sick of teen amateur investigators discovering things the cops all missed...yes, let's just forget their years of training and experience and bring in some kid who pokes around in the grass for 5 minutes and discovers a clue. COME ON. Although I did feel like the part with the watch was more realistic and I felt better about that. I read a LOT of books where the teens one up the cops and solve it all so I think I'm just over that trope. I really felt sympathy for the Detective Parnatsky. I liked her.

I feel like I would've liked the WHY to be explained a little more, but I can't be more clear than that without spoilers. But WHY? Just because of nature? The signs that were supposed to point to the character's future actions were just thrown in at the end; we hadn't really LIVED the evidence. For example:

"Oh, she liked to collect birds."

"Well that explains why the world's rarest bird went missing at the zoo."

Instead of:

"As I searched her room, I noticed pictures of birds everywhere. Magazine pages, hand-drawings, even a few from coloring books. I had never realized before that she had been interested in birds. Or maybe obsessed was more like it. Could SHE be connected to the missing bird from the zoo?"

So in my lame example, I feel like the information is just handed to us and in the second try, the character is collecting information about another character through evidence. Or maybe it only makes sense in my head. Anyway.

Maybe I missed the reason why the victims had to die, as well. Sorry it's so vague I'm trying to go without spoilers.

Maybe it was just me, but I didn't like the romance - it was too instantaneous for it to be believable. Again, I do read a lot of YA where this happens but I don't always buy it.

I did think that Mac was a well-fleshed-out character. He had issues, he had backstory (his parents showed up like, what, one time in the book? Meh), and he had complicated relationships.

The beginning of this book read like The Sacrifice Box but it definitely is not. All in all, I don't feel like I wasted my time reading this (the ending really made it worthwhile) but it just wasn't for me. I'm pretty sure I would pick up another book of Tom Ryan's.

Also loved the cover and title!!

I enjoyed going on this journey with Mac. The mystery is what initially drew me in, but I also can't resist an exploration of questioning past feelings for a lost friend. The story morphed into something that exceeded my expectations.

Wow, wow, wow. Amazing novel. Great plot, awesome love story, terrific characters and a fantastic twist at the end. I cannot think of enough superlatives to properly hype Keep This To Yourself, but you should definitely put this on your TBR list.

From a teacher's perspective this book is a great offering for an independent read. The fact that the book is a mystery that features a young gay man as its protagonist, but doesn't spend time addressing his coming out will help young queer students feel represented in what is otherwise a normal mystery. It also doesn't completely ignore the adversity experienced by gay people and shows how one character deals with minor acts of homophobia with confidence. Finally, the novel provides an opportunity for character study, and could spark class discussion on how people can perceive the same person in different ways. To the teachers out there, I definitely recommend this mystery for your shelves.