I knew this would be the perfect read for me. While it did take me a while to pick up I am so happy I did. Somewhere Around the 60% mark I stopped liking this book and started loving it! I am really upset with myself for putting it off.

This one started out strong for me and then I lost some interest toward the end, It had an interesting premise and drew me in from the beginning. I wasn't as connected to the characters to make me feel more invested in the story as it continued on. It's definitely a good thriller and worth the read.

Meme started out strong murder and a pack to keep a secret between friends. Plot and take action. The plot of the book was interesting but as I got halfway through the book I had to step away and wonder why I was losing interest. Some parts didn't make sense I thought somethings didn't need to be added. And then the ending through me off a little bit because it felt rushed. Like bam! the end. And bam this review is short and quick. Oh but don't get me wrong I would totally read another book by this author. 

Thank you to PenguinTeen for the egalley in exchange for an honest review.

(thank you to penguinteen & netgalley for this arc)

'Meme' by Aaron Starmer follows a group of four close highschool friends who have one secret they'll take to their graves: they murdered who used to be the unwanted fifth member, Cole. His abusive tendencies towards his girlfriend, Meeka and fellow group member, and threats of violence led to his death at the hands of the teens he called friends. To make sure if one of them went down for murder, they all did, they bury their phones together and never speak about it again. That is, until a meme using a picture of them at the time of the murder goes viral.

Overall thoughts: I'm giving this book 3.0 stars for it's potential, but 'Meme' fell flat for me. The writing was interesting, and I enjoyed how Starmer was able to write from various perspective, but the book's namesake was extremely weak. In reality, that meme used in the book would not have been popular on any platform, less gone as viral as it had in the book. At times the plot was ambiguous, and the storytelling felt detached at times, so I probably would not recommend this to anyone who enjoys witty or lyrical writing.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Teen for my gifted eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Meme follows the current-day story of four teenagers brought together by murder, a murder they accomplished together. Each character had a connection to a "super-bully" of sorts, who made them feel threatened for theirs, and each others' lives. The book begins with their initial panic over what they had done, and flashes back to more back story, and them navigating how to move on from their crime.

The premise is fascinating, and I loved the incorporation of modern day elements (IE high school bullying through online bullies, in the form of memes, etc.). As enjoyable as drama was at times, I also found it lacking a little pizzaz. Perhaps since we already knew most of the "who-dunnit" and why, it just wasn't as enticing? I had high hopes for it to pick back up, or surprise me in some way, but I found the end fairly predictable and slow paced.

Still a fun read overall, but wouldn't be a book I'd purchase for my shelves, but would grab if the library had in stock!

For me, MEME started super strong with an interesting enough premise; I was curious enough to keep going because I was invested in the story. Even though the characters were flawed and a bit irritating sometimes, I still found myself rooting for them, and I also liked the rotation of perspective. What I didn't enjoy was the ending. It all felt a bit lackluster.  I think the concept of using memes is fascinating, but the lifespan some have and certain language that gets popular in social media don't have the shelf life for it to be still relevant by the time a book is released. I enjoyed it as a fun Sunday read, but I don't think I would read it if I were a serious mystery fan.

I wanted to like this book as I LOVED Starmer's Spontaneous. But this thriller about four students who feel that their friend deserves to die? Not for me. First of all, these are horrible kids who commit murder. Second of all, the reason for the killing wasn't reason enough for anyone to die. I didn't care if they got away with it. I didn't want them to get away with it. This is not the kind of a message I want to share with my teen students. This is a big no. for me.

Cole Weston was making Meeka, Logan Grayson, and Holly's lives miserable. He threatened them, and they didn't know what he was capable of. So they killed him, buried him in Meeka's backyard with four of their cellphones that have their confessions on them in case the body is ever found. 
The plan seems foolproof until a meme starts circulating around school. What's on the meme? It's photos of the four; photos from their confession. 

Everyone loves a good mystery/thriller. At least, I know I do. It took me a little bit to get into Meme. I think that's because the beginning is a little confusing; there is a lot of back and forth. Yet after the first quarter, I couldn't put the book down. It held my attention longer than most books have lately. 

I really enjoyed the multiple perspectives, though I'm not sure how I feel about the characters. They're really spoiled and super privileged. The book shows them all slowly spiraling into madness, especially Logan. I couldn't really connect with any of them, but the plot was just too interesting. 

This was almost a five-star book for me. But then there was the ending. I'm not a fan of cliffhangers in general, but especially not for standalones. Some people might like the constant wondering, "what actually happened?" I'm not that person. I like to know exactly what happened, and that's that. 

Should you read Meme? Absolutely, especially if you like memes, mysteries, thrillers, and multiple perspectives. Just be prepared for the ending, because you may not be happy with it.

When Cole Weston, the school's erratic and violet bad boy threatens a group of friends, they decide they have no choice but to stop him. They think their plan is foolproof--until a still of the foursome confessing--a fail safe they were going to hide with Cole’s body as collateral against incriminating each other--is turned into a meme and goes viral.

The book shifts between the perspectives of the four friends, Grayson, Meeka, Holly, and Logan, as their perfect plan comes apart. Rather than work together to determine the origin of the meme, the teenagers devolve into paranoia and suspicion, starting their own inquiries, reneging on agreements, forming dubious external alliances, and blaming each other for the breach in security.

Meme is action-packed and fast-paced, and an entertaining look at the dissolution of trust and loyalty. I liked having alternating points of view; however, I thought the characters were a bit stereotypical and underdeveloped, and I wish each character had a more distinct voice. Through the example of a famous meme, Boyatee, that Cole was obsessed with, Starmer also explores the impact, often negative, of internet fame. While I was in general intrigued by the last chapter, I did want more closure to the ending.

Try if you liked One of Us Is Lying.

Unlikeable kids. Logan, Grayson, Holly, and Meeka murder their "friend" Cole and video record their confessions on their phones. They bury all evidence in a hole on Meeka's family property.
Then a meme starts spreading of them from a screenshot of their video. They start to wonder who saw what they did and how?

I was invested through most of this but the ending had me wtf... It doesn't tidy everything up.
The kids aren't great kids at all. The meme isn't that horrible, just kids being cruel and making up rude sayings to go along. 

Also, who has a freaking "hack club" in their high school? Why would you teach teenagers how to hack computers.... Not a good idea at all!

I thought this book started out great and I was initially every excited and felt hooked from the very beginning. Unfortunately, the book failed to keep me as engrossed throughout as it did in the beginning. The characters felt flat and their relationships felt a bit "meh" to me. I also thought the pacing was inconsistent. It was a fast read, so I finished it, hoping it would pick back up eventually. It never really picked back up and I felt the ending was abrupt and just didn't feel finished. The first part of the book was great though, and it had potential to be a great thriller, sadly it did not live up to this in the rest of the book. I'd probably give this one a 2.5, but I'm rounding up.

Meme is a contemporary thriller that follows four teenagers in small-town New England, Logan, Meeka, Holly, and Grayson, following their murder of their former friend Cole, allegedly in self-defense. I often wonder if the reason why I’m helplessly drawn to YA thrillers is because they serve for me as a reminder that my bad social experiences in high school could have been so much worse, and this is one such story. Starmer describes Cole as exactly the kind of teenager that makes me fear for generation Z–a loaner who runs with the wrong internet crowd. In fact, it’s the dark web that threatens to incriminate Logan, Meeka, Holly, and Grayson: a picture of them saved along with their confession on the phone that they buried with Cole seemingly resurrects as a meme.

Meme alternates between the first-person points of view of all four teenagers, which could certainly be confusing for some people, but I think that it helps to round out the story and explain Logan’s , Meeka’s, Holly’s, and Grayson’s unique motives for wanting to murder Cole. I especially liked the inclusion of Meeka’s perspective because she is Cole’s ex-girlfriend and is forced to reckon with the not-so-great person that she became. With its social media and dark web elements, Meme is truly a thriller for the modern age, but it’s more psychological in nature so it won’t necessarily keep you up at night. If you’re looking for a unique thriller that isn’t too scary, I definitely recommend Meme.

I really tried to get into this book and maybe I'll go back to it again and give it another try but I couldn't connect to anything about it.  The characters felt really flat and the writing just wasn't my style at all.

This book felt pretty dark to me. I thought maybe it would be like Pretty Little Liars or One of Us is Lying but it just felt disturbing. Overall there was no remorse and the characters were very unlikable.  I only occasionally read thrillers so someone who reads more may enjoy this one more than I did.

Thanks to Netgalley & Penguin Teen for allowing me to read this book.
3 stars

Meme by Aaron Stramer sounded like my kind of book. YA thriller/murder mystery, I mean that’s one of my favorite kinds of reads! 

And while the start of the book was great, the concept of the story was very interesting. The whole meme aspect was exciting. But I sorta lost interest in the middle of the book. I had high hopes that the story would pick back up by the end, but I just didn’t care for the characters or the story.

This had so much potential to be a great thriller but the characters were just so unlikeable. And while I don’t like to spoil things, I will say the ending was unsatisfying in so many ways.

***I was granted ARC of this via Netgalley from the publisher.***

Meme by Aaron Starmer is a story about a group of teens: Logan, Holly, Grayson, and Meeka who kill Meeka's boyfriend, Cole after he threatened their lives. After killing, him they bury a recording of their confession with the body and think that the matter is over. However, when a meme is made of a screenshot from their confession video the group races to find out who is responsible and confront the possibility that Cole may still be alive. The plot of the story wasn't bad and the mystery keeps you interested as the story unfolds. I liked Holly and Grayson's characters though I wasn't impressed by Logan's. What really sold me on the story was the way in which the author told the story and used it as a way to highlight the reason the person responsible for the situation did what they did. All around not a bad story and a good read for its target audience.

Rating: 4/5 stars. Would recommend to a friend.

The book starts the day after four friends murder a former friend who was threatening them. They record videos on cell phones where they confess what they did and bury the phones with the body. If any one of them betrays the others, the videos will be used to bring down all of them. At first it appears they got away with murder. Then a meme with a still from the video of their confession goes viral.

This book was plotted to keep amping up the tension. I lost sleep because I could not put this book down. I had to find out how it ended. I was so on edge over the predicament these characters got themselves into. However there weirdly wasn’t much that surprised me until the very end. It was just watching Holly, Logan, Grayson, and Meeka wind themselves up tighter and tighter over the events that were happening. 

This book only really surprised me at the very end. But the level of tension the author was able to produce did keep me coming back. Otherwise, it didn’t really stand out compared to other books I have read in the same genre. 

Overall 3/5

2.5/5

thank you to Penguin Teen and Netgallery for the arc! :)

four friends, bound together by a secret. murder. the murder they committed together. everything seems to be going according to plan. they’ve covered their tracks. they’re safe. until suddenly, they aren’t anymore. a picture, alas, a MEME, is leaked in which can easily bust each and every one of them. 

sounds so good, right? i thought so too😭
here’s the thing. it was a fantastic idea. really, genius. but the execution was..... not the greatest.

first of all, if you’re going to write a book on memes, you should have some kind of idea of the station of current memes. now, it can get tricky considering they change so often, but i think we can all agree there are some memes we just can’t, and will never want to let, die. as soon as i saw the word “dank” in this book, i heaved to myself the greatest sigh i have ever heaved and knew it was all over. 
this book could have had such potential. us teens love our pop culture references! if the author would have thrown a reference to a vine or something simple, like he literally could have put the words “two(four) bros chilling in a hot tub” over the meme and i would have been like yes!!! I UNDERSTOOD THAT REFERENCE!!! 

it started out strong. i was hooked. i was hanging off the edge of my seat, as they say. but then..... there was a twist. kind of? i don’t know. an idea was brought up about halfway through the book and that was where it started to go downhill.

in a mystery book such as this one, i find that it’s important to have shock factor. you’re patiently waiting for that jaw-dropping finale. you’re sweating in anticipation. you’re just DYING to get to those last pages. it’s fun sometimes when you can figure out the ending before it happens. that means the author has conviently and expertly laid little hints and clues for you to pick up on. i don’t mind this. but when the ending is spelled out for you and has been since the beginning of the book... that’s just not fun.

there were times i was rushing through this. there were times i was pinning my eyeballs open to try to get through the next few pages. this book was all over the place. it certainly doesn’t get points for character development, and it definitely doesn’t get any points for diversity. every character in this book is straight and white unless i somehow missed something. 

overall, good idea but cringe execution. i want my “two bros chilling in a hot tub five feet apart cuz they’re not gay” reference next time, thank you very much.

Uff... I really, REALLY wanted to like this one but unfortunately it fell very short for me.  As a meme lover, I couldn't help but be drawn in to with the title and the synopsis.  And for some reason I thought this was horror but turns out it's actually a thriller ... and not very thrilling at that. 

The book opens up nicely with the gang burying their "friend", Cole.  The timeline alternates here and there and goes through each of their POVs so you get a full rounded picture of what was going on within this crew of characters.  Honestly, I LOVE to hate on characters but they need to be complex and interesting and I just didn't find any of these teens intriguing.  

What I did like about this book is how social media/memes, etc. can become extremely hurtful and how teenagers actually will react to being publicly shamed with these.  Unfortunately this is an all too real problem in society.  However, the reasoning behind the initial murder didn't hold water and the ending was just no..... it felt like someone doing a voice over and while I don't mind ambiguous endings at times, the openness of this one failed to impress.

Meme reminded me of a 2020 version of Pretty Little Liars. We have a murdered “friend” of a group of high schoolers that may or may not be dead, a meme that implicates them ALL and a pretty decent ending to the whole ordeal.

However, the further I got into the story I had to keep reminding myself that the characters were teenagers and not psychotic adult serial killers. Only one of the kids actually felt remorse/guilt participating in the murder. The others were going on as if killing someone was normal. Talk about disturbing. It fed right into the disconnected/distracted stereotype of the younger generation. (After millennials of course)!

I needed a book like this to balance out my nonfiction reads. If you want a quick story with a decent plot then pick up Meme. On sale: September 8, 2020

Thanks @PenguinTeen #partner for sending me over an eARC to read/review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.