Meme is a YA psychological thriller which opens with four teenagers just straight up murdering one of their friends for what seems like some rather vague reasons but amounts to them saying “he threatened them” (with some very vague threats about he’s going to “take them down” or something because he’s angry and upset about his girlfriend—one of the four—recently breaking up with him). So, yeah, they just actually kill the guy and bury him in the one girl’s backyard. This isn’t a spoiler, it’s the opening scene of the book.

Problem is, in true Pretty Little Liars fashion, technology gets involved. After the murder, they record a confession and bury it with the body, because in their minds this somehow keeps them honest and true—if one of them ever digs him up, their confession will be there with him? The phones will still work and not be damaged at all, no matter how long its been? I don’t know, it’s the logic of a bunch of kids who think problems are solved by killing people I guess, so. There’s that.

Anyway, shortly after murdering and burying their once-friend, a meme surfaces. A meme that happens to be a screen grab from their confession recording that they buried with Cole. And it becomes a viral sensation. And they’re completely freaking out. And then they begin getting messages and communications from their should-be/would-be dead friend. So obviously they are completely freaking out, and mental terror ensues.
This…is once again one of those things that on paper sounds exactly like the type of thing I would like but in execution was just…eh. I mean it was okay. I’m not saying it was bad, I just didn’t have a lot of fun reading this one. A lot of it didn’t make any sense (I mean it was like half the time these teenagers were trying to figure out the Internet, I just…?), obviously none of the characters are likable, and the characters are even difficult to distinguish from one another. Like they each have little things about them that are supposed to make them different, but they’re more surface-level things, and at their core, they’re all just kind of these same basic upper middle class non-descript kids who legit MURDERED A GUY for pissing them off. The POVs change with each chapter, but the voices were barely distinguishable from one another in my opinion. I was interested in some of the corners of the Internet where Cole used to lurk and the characters trying to unravel some aspects of the mystery, but overall it wasn’t that captivating, and as many other reviewers have said, the ending was just really anticlimactic and disappointing.

The other thing that bothered me about this book
were just some of the random little comments on certain subjects that were shoehorned in for no apparent reason and passed off as being part of the “character building” but were assigned to multiple characters. For example, one of the smaller side characters lives in a townhome, and we have TWO separate characters talk shit on him for it and make little comments like “I mean that’s okay I guess, but I wouldn’t really consider it a HOME” or act horrified that he has to “share walls with other people”. ???? This is what I mean when I say you can’t even distinguish them from each other. These two characters who are supposed to be two totally different people with different personalities both talk shit on this one person in the exact same way. What’s with the weird opinion on town homes? And why did we need to shoehorn it into a YA novel? Perhaps I’m reading too much into this and it’s just two upper middle class teenage characters who look down on others in the exact same way, but it was weird and really off-putting. (I’d hate to be a young person living in an apartment or townhome and read this and just have multiple characters make me feel awful for having to share a wall with someone, as if that makes me a lesser human somehow.)

I don’t know, maybe I’m nitpicking…maybe no one else even noticed this. Maybe it was a trait the author meant to assign to one character and then decided to change it and it got missed in editing. Either way, it was just another thing that detracted from a fairly interesting concept for me.

All in all, I didn’t hate it, I didn’t love it. I’ve read worse things, but I couldn’t see myself being eager to read anything else by this author. As teen thrillers go, there are better options out there. (Check out There’s Someone Inside Your House, also from Penguin Teen and written by Stephanie Perkins, or even The Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, in which the MC also employs Internet research and modern tech to solve mysteries, but in a much less clunky and much more effective manner.)

I know people love star ratings, so I’d say I’d give this one like a 2.5/5 or a 3. It wasn’t for me, but if you decide to give it a look, it comes out next Tuesday, September 8th. Good for fans of tech-y psychological thrillers, or if you’re looking for a light read that will have you guessing for the first 2/3rds.

Meme started out incredibly strong and with a murder. Four very close knit friends decide to murder someone who was once close to them. They all make a confession on their old phones, and then put the phones with the dead body. It was a whirlwind of a beginning and we are getting perspectives of each of the four friends.

Slowly though, I lost interest in this book. A meme of them making their confession gets leaked, so they know someone was there that night watching them. They all start to unravel and you don't know who to trust. I just felt like these were all very flat and bland characters. They have all done some messed up things, but I didn't care. I mean all it took was one meme and they all basically hate each other, which if you were such good friends to murder someone you would think they would stay together through this hiccup.

Another thing, was this book was all over the place and some things that happened were not even important in the book, but yet we spent a lot of time on them. The ending felt like a cop out and when I finished I kept going, is my book missing pages? Am I missing a chapter or two? It ends very abruptly and I did not like it, nor is it believable at all. Not a single thing was wrapped up in the end, which I don't know if that means this is going to be a series or what.

I think this had potential to be a great thriller, but the characters needed more depth. I needed to be more invested with each character to care about what was happening. Don't let my opinion dissuade you from reading this, I think it's a good thriller, just not up their with the best books.

This book was exactly what i needed to help me get out of this reading slump.

Thrillers are usually a hit or miss for me and usually predictable but this one was a page turner from the very beginning and I couldn’t put it down until I could figure out the ending - sadly my prediction was off but that means this story wasn’t easily predictable (well for me anyways).

I am a sucker for books with a group of friends who kill one of their friends, its the biggest dark academia trope and although this isn’t considered dark academia, it can easily fit in that category.

This book is read through different point of views of the friends who killed their friend and you can see them slowly unraveling, some not handling it as well especially when a meme of all four of them from a screen capture of when they were saying their confession of killing their friend is trending all over their school.

From then on you are trying to figure out who knows, and how did they find out if the phones where they took their confessions is buried with their friend Cole.

The ending really threw me off guard and a part of me wanted to be mad but more so because i was completely wrong. Over all, i enjoyed this thriller and I am not mad at the ending.

Thank you Netgalley and Dutton Books for the e-arc

Meme by Aaron Starmer started out so strong but it became progressively weaker as the pages turned. I loved the idea of a random meme popping up featuring the four murderers on the night in question. It is literally catnip to my mystery loving heart! The four people in the meme didn’t find it so coincidental since the meme photo was taken from a screenshot of their combined confession and buried with their phones with the body! Here’s where things fell apart a bit for me; for a group of friends that are so tight that they would murder someone to protect one of their own only to fall apart via a lack of communication and paranoia was just a bit too much for me to swallow. There just wasn’t enough core content and character development for me to feel like the characters were even that good of friends, which made it hard for me to empathize with any of the characters, outside of Gus.

What I did like was the beginning to the meme mystery. The sense of who-dun-it was thrilling but then the narrators came in and I felt like they were all living on different planets. I liked the in-depth look at how a meme can destroy someone’s life and have an impact years later. I liked the writing style and the creepy atmosphere that hung over like a cloud and this brings me to the ending! I did not like the ending! Seriously? You leave me with an ending like this and I’ll be thinking of what may have happened for weeks, possibly months! Ugh, I don’t like interpretive endings!

This is a good YA thriller/mystery but I think it could have been stellar if there was better character development and a little more to the ending.

I. Am. Sooo. ANGRY!

First of all, the writing in this book was fantastic. The chapters alternate between 3 out of 4 of the main characters, creating 3 well written unreliable narrators. The story was intriguing and I was hooked from the very beginning. The meme mystery was enthralling and felt very relevant in this digital age and the psychological aspect that the characters dealt with was really fascinating to watch unfold, so most of the time I just couldn’t put it down! I don’t read many mysteries/thrillers, so to be completely captivated by the story from the very beginning was awesome; when I was reading I was on the edge of my seat, and when I wasn’t reading, I was wanting to because I GOTSTA KNOW WHAT HAPPENS AND HOW IT ENDS!

And this feeling continued until the very last chapter when, sadly, the ending ruined it all for me. I won’t say why because of spoilers, but one piece of the final chapter left me so angry so I had to set my kindle down carefully to avoid throwing it. I’ve never read a thriller with this kind of ending, so I’m just feeling very conflicted about it. The way it ended feels simultaneously like an act of evil genius and utter laziness. It all comes down to feeling like I don’t have the closure I desperately need! A part of me thinks giving it 2 stars seems a little too harsh considering how captivated I was by the majority of the book, but I can’t stop this feeling of being let down.

I don’t want to deter anyone from giving this book a try because the writing was fantastic and the characters made me root for them despite all the bad things they’d done, but that ending just ruined my feeling for this story. I truly hope others enjoy it more than I did.

For starters, I loved the way we're brought into this book. The alternating days leading up to, during, and after Cole's murder was a great way to not only introduce the reader to what's happening, but build the suspense and paranoia surrounding these characters. Honestly, after that introduction, I was prepped to sit down and binge the entire book. I only ended up reading about 15% the first go around, but the next day I had some spare time and decided to knock out the other 85% in one go.

I think that's the best way to read this book.

This is a binge worthy book as you're swung from point of view to point of view, each person experiencing different feelings and thoughts on this murder. And as we lead up to the end, even I didn't see it coming. One thing I did have an issue with is the ending was al little too open for me. I wanted clarity on one aspect and we don't get it. We're just meant to interpret that idea for ourselves, which could have gone one of two ways as I see it. Either way, I loved this book and I could reread it again. Look between the lines we're given to see if I could have figured it out sooner.

If you're looking for an intense murder/thriller, you've found your next favorite book! This is definitely one of mine now.

Meme was such a suspenseful, creepy, edge of your seat thriller that i couldn't put down!
I found myself intensely turning every page. Thank you so much for this arc. I loved every word!

Meeka had a terrible boyfriend who threatened her. Cole did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and didn’t care what anyone thought about him. When he threatened her friends Holly, Logan and Grayson they made a plan to kill him. It was very straightforward, though Grayson wanted something with a little more blood and guts. Afterwards Cole was buried in Meeka’s back yard with their old cell phones where they each recorded a confession, admitting to the murder.

They knew no one would talk because then they’d all be incriminated. They thought it would be easy to walk away and forget. They thought they’d done society a favor. They didn’t know a meme would pop up on social media with an image of all of them recording their confessions. They didn’t know the meme would spread to all of their classmates before they could do anything about it. They didn’t know the meme would make them start to fall apart. They didn’t know the meme would make suspicion raise its ugly head. They. Just. Didn’t. Know, but someone knew…

This book was suspenseful, creepy, and so GOOD that I couldn’t stop reading! There is one thing I didn’t like but, since it’s a spoiler, I’ll have to put it way at the end of this review. Other than that one thing it was a great book.

Recommended for ages 16 and older.

I received a digital advance reading copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

*****SPOILER ALERT ******SPOILER ALERT********SPOILER ALERT******

I will give a little spoiler alert to say I DID NOT like the ending. If I wasn’t reading on a Kindle I would have flung it across the room in frustration. Is that REALLY the only way this could have ended? REALLY??!!!

Four friends decide that the fifth - who was dating one of them and was becoming more erratic and dangerous - had to go. So they did away with him and buried the evidence, along with evidence revealing who did it.
This mystery is sure to be popular with young adult mystery lovers. Relationships gone bad, trust breaking down, technology allowing information to slip through the cracks - it's all here.

This was a very creepy and very thrilling book! The way things moved towards coming together made me want to keep reading and try to keep figuring out what was going on. My heart was pounding during multiple moments during this books. Overall, it was a pretty enjoyable read.