I really wanted to like this one but unfortunately it was not for me. The writing style got repetitive pretty quickly and some of the sentences read oddly and I had to go back and reread because of the wording. I wish the book had started in a different place in the story as well so we had gotten to know Jessica and root for her before she went on the show. This book definitely read to me as on the younger side of YA and unfortunately ended up not being particularly memorable.

This was a good YA thriller / murder mystery. The premise of the murderer was freaky, and I think this would make a solid horror movie. The character depth was pretty limited, but for a YA book, I felt that the characters were decently believable. The impact of social media on this story is a chilling reality of the world we live in. I would like to believe that the police are better at solving mysteries than the officers in this book, which I felt was a disappointing angle. The book was a quick read, and I think reading it over a short period made it seem more real and scary.
Thanks to SourceBooks and Vincent Ralph for the #netgalley arc in exchange for an honest review.

"We put our lives out there in all sorts of ways - on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat - but it's always edited. We handpick our best moments and hope the world gives a shit."

Ten years ago Jess's mother was murdered. She became the first victim of a serial killer, dubbed The Magpie Man by Jess's father. Jess's mother's death has broken her family. Her father now just a shell of his former self. But Jess has a plan to catch The Magpie Killer before he kills again. She is taking part in a YouTube reality series to spread the word that The Magpie Killer is still out there and needs to be caught.

This is a smart, modern YA thriller.

While the world watches Jess search for the killer, the killer is also watching Jess and he is playing with her. Murder number 14 happens ahead of The Magpie Man's regular schedule and he taunts Jess with clues he leaves on the body. But every time Jess wants to quit, the grief of 14 families and her own determination keep her going.

With red herrings, and a twisty plot, this is a thriller that will keep you guessing until the end.

A recommended read for fans of edge of your seat murder mysteries of any age.

Thanks to Netgalley and SourceBooks Fire for the eArc for review.

We live in an age where social media can skyrocket someone to fame, or absolutely rip them to shreds, and that theme is played on in this book. 14 Ways to Die by Ralph Vincent is about 17 year old Jessica, and her quest to find the serial killer responsible for her mother's murder. Jess's mom was only the first victim of the Magpie Man, but there have been many more since, and not a single clue ever left behind. Now Jess sees her chance to finally drag this monster from the shadows, using a YouTube show where her life will be livestreamed every Monday, along with a group of other kids. The other kids may be in this for their 15 minutes of fame, but for Jessica, the subject matter couldn't be more serious, and maybe even deadly.

I had a few issues with this book. I wasn't really into any of the characters except Jess's dad, and there was no development for him. Jessica had one personality trait: my mother was murdered, and I cannot function until I, alone catch her killer. I had hoped that we would get a sharper look into the dangers of ubiquitous social media and what it can do to someone, especially someone who is vulnerable. That's not what I took away. There was tension and action in the final 30% of the book, but we spent a long time getting there, and I think some of that could have been trimmed. 14 Ways to Die is sure to be a hit with the younger YA readers, and there's plenty of gasps and guesses for everyone else, if you're patient. I'm giving this one 2.75 stars rounded up to 3. Thank you to SOURCEBOOKS FIRE and Netgalley for the chance to review this advance copy.

I enjoyed this book! I totally agree that it was perfect for fans of a good girls guide to murder and Karen McManus. It also dove into grief and I thought that was a very powerful and necessary mental health representation.

My only issue with this book was the word “Magpie”. I looked it up, so I know what it meant, but to this American reader, that word sounded kinda cute. It had the word pie in it! This cute connotation took away some of the creepiness from the serial killer, but the creepiness was regained in other aspects.

Overall, I would def recommend this book to students!

thank you so much sourcebooks fire for this arc!

3.5/5 stars for me!!

this book will definitely have you at the edge of your seat.. in the last 20% of the book. the book starts off slow and at time i felt i was forcing myself to get through it but i’m glad i did! i think this book handles grief very well, and shows the different affects it has on people! the concept of the youtube show to catch a killer is brilliant, but the main character, jessica, isn’t someone that’s very cultivating i felt often i didn’t resonate with her character. but i will say you won’t know who the magpie man is off rip! it’s not a predictable ending, but i did have an inkling or two towards the end of the book! this book definitely mimics a good girls guide to murder more so than one of us is lying. either way, it was an enjoyable read!

This is a very well written YA book! It grabs your attention and you cannot put it down! It is a crime thriller with a twist and I was hooked very early on.
Great how they incorporate social media! The tone and pace reminded me of Small Spaces by Epstein.

ARC provided from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

This book was so slow to start and didn't really pick up fast enough to hook me in entirely. The story was unique--a murder mystery with a social media twist and I enjoyed that. The shortness of the chapters didn't really appeal to me much and I actually got a little distracted by it and was tempted to put it down on multiple occasions. I persevered however, and got into the story more as it progressed. As a thriller/horror fan, I wasn't too impressed with the story but it wasn't awful. I did enjoy the several points in the story that were "red herrings" intended to guide the audience away from the identity of the real killer.

14 Ways to Die by Ralph Vincent is the story of Jess and her hunt for the Magpie Man, the man who killed her mother 10 years ago. This is a crazy book but I know if someone harmed/killed someone I love I would stop at nothing to make sure justice was served.

Jess was seven when her mother was brutally murdered in the alley right next to her house. Her mother became the first victim of a serial killer her father would later name the Magpie Man. Being a seven-year-old, there wasn’t much Jess could do in the ways of seeking justice but now that she is seventeen and is offered a chance to become a YouTube reality star she will stop at nothing to make sure this horrible monster is caught and that no other family has to suffer the way she and her father have.

There are a lot of character building moments throughout the book. Jess grows from a girl who has a one-track mind to a girl who starts to see the bigger picture and realizes that she and her dad aren’t the only ones who have been torn apart by this tragedy. Jess also comes to realize that she has been very selfish in thinking that her dead mother trumped everyone else’s problems.

The beginning of the book is a tad boring as it is setting up everything and giving us the backstory but once I got to about the halfway point I flew through the rest book in about an hour.

In the end, this was a fun and twisty book and I’m so glad I got the opportunity to read this early from Sourcebooks Fire.

Overall, I gave the book 4/5 stars.

My review will be up on my blog and Instagram closer to the release date

"Mom was thirty-two when she died, the first victim of a man they still haven’t caught. Number one on a list that now stretches to thirteen.
So if you ask why I want to be one of the five people to star in a new online show about them and only them, it’s pretty simple.
I want to catch the Magpie Man, and this is how I’m going to do it."


What a ride! Honestly, I LOVED the blurb of this on NetGalley, and only realized when I saw the other additions of the novel on Goodreads that I've actually had this on my TBR since last year, when it was called Are You Watching?. Clearly I didn't feel to motivated to read it then. What a difference a trendy cover and new title can make!

This was a fun take on a YA thriller. I loved the incorporation of social media and online sensationalism to catch a killer. I wouldn't be surprised if something like this actually happened (or has already happened!)

There were a lot of red herrings. Every time a new character was introduced, especially a male one, I found myself suspicious. It was really fun trying to parse out the real clues from the trolls, the set-ups, and the anonymous tips. I thought Jessica was a great protagonist; a girl defined by her mother's murder, who essentially also lost her dad when he lost his wife, a girl determined to solve the crime no matter what. She toed the line between brave and reckless perfectly.

Was this the perfect mystery? No. I found the final clue that set off the final chain of events to be a bit flimsy, some of the red herrings weren't explained the best, and I didn't feel much of a payoff when things finally come together (except for the very end. iykyk!) Nonetheless, it was a fun read!

To be honest, I am quite surprised this got published. Frankly, I thought it was trash. I was promised that 14 Ways To Die was ‘perfect for fans of A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder and One Of Us Is Lying’ and that it was a girl trying to avenge her mother’s death by finding the killer through her YouTube channel. Instead it was a bratty teenager manipulating her dad into letting her go onto this reality TV show, a fake mystery, and then her not solving the mystery anyway. It just went on and on and on until her friend’s mum spilled the truth (the mum didn’t do it, but she knew who it was and basically explained)
Jess, as a main character, is so bratty. I wanted to slap her. Her mum was murdered when she was seven, and she uses that as an excuse to tell everyone that their emotional pain and home situations aren’t valid because their mums weren’t murdered when they were seven. She does this to an ex-friend of hers, and the ex-friend literally tries to kill herself her home situation is so bad. Jess is self-centred and doesn’t care about anyone else.
I have no clue where this author is from, but I’m willing to bet it isn’t the UK. I feel that if you’re going to set a book in a real-world place, at least do the research on the place. Make sure it makes sense. Alice Oseman’s books all make sense because the author actually knows about how British Secondary Schools work. (She attended one herself, but it’s not hard to find out). 14 Ways To Die was so chaotic with its setting, I couldn’t tell where Jess was. The author kept mentioning places in the UK but in the end the whole thing just felt vaguely Australian.
Also, the dynamics between characters. Jess and her friends are Year 11s. Or 10s. I couldn’t tell. No matter where they are from (whether this is based off of his impression of girls this age from where he is from), I have never seen a Year 11 friend group act like this. It was like three nine year olds, with too much freedom. Jess was a bad friend, and they just took it. (Again with the invalidating other people’s problems! We get it! Your mum was murdered! But the rest of us also have problems! You are not the first person to ever suffer!)
I had to consider my rating of this book for ages, and in the end I’ve settled on one star, because I am struggling to find anything that I liked. Also, I felt that there was subtle racism in that Hanna’s name is spelt Hanna as opposed to Hannah and that we’re told it’s because they can’t spell, because they aren’t English.
I know that this is just my opinion, and that I’m just one person, but I cannot emphasize how disappointed I was by this book. It really didn’t live up to the expectations I was set up with. I read this in one sitting, and the amount of times I was tempted to just give up and tell the publishers who sent it to me that I couldn’t get through it, and that I was sorry were astronomical. There aren’t many books that I’ve disliked as much as this one. I definitely won’t be interested in buying it when it comes out. I know it’s hard to write a mystery, but there’s a difference between writing a mystery and being too lazy to have your main character work it out themselves.

<i>"We keep what we want to remember. We hoard what we can't live without."</i>

This was fun, y'all! I'm always worried it'll be too angsty with a YA book, but this heroine was a little ball of determination. It's got an 'everyone's starting to look a little suspicious' feel. Kind of like an Agatha Christie novel set on Youtube? Yeah.

I really enjoyed the fresh perspective genre-wise. I didn't think I would, but I was intrigued and it paid off. The characters were interesting and as I said, tension was high. The ending didn't feel rushed or abupt; I'm feeling pretty satiated. I s'pose that's a recommendation.

Wow! This was a great read and I know a TON of my students would buy into it. Ralph did a great job meeting the reader where they are at and tieing in social media. In a world where we are so engaged with the media, we need to find a common ground with the readers, he did a great job. Something that I thought was also interesting was the very short chapters- this made it such a fast-paced read and would be very encouraging for all readers.

The book was about a girl who has the opportunity to star in a live Youtube channel every Monday. She uses the platform to remind the world about her mom who was murdered by a monster she calls the "Magpie Man". Through the live show, she intends to find this man. You follow her through her journey!

Overall, I have the book 4 stars because there were some repetitive elements to it. However, I felt the plot was very well developed and Ralph did a great job. 4/5 stars!

This one was binge worthy for sure. A solid debut in the YA thriller world.

3 things I loved about this book:
The short chapters. Made it super readable.
It kept me guessing up til the big reveal!
The very realistic portrayal of grief.

2 things I didn't love:
The main character, Jessica, bothered me. She was impulsive and pushy and thought only of herself.
The lack of parental guidance. This is a typical trope in YA, and it bothers me often. The kids run around with seemingly no adults involved, and things get messy because of it.

If you liked A Good Girls Guide to Murder, you will like this one!

I have mixed feelings on this one. First, it was incredibly entertaining. I read it extremely fast and found myself engaged in the story. The language was simple and easy to understand. I guessed early on a good chunk of the twist/conclusion. The chapters were really short which I actually enjoyed because it gave me that "one more chapter" feeling. The only complaint I have is that some chapters could've been combined or taken out all together. All in all, I'm not mad that I read it. I enjoyed it, and would recommend to those who like mystery/thriller books.

Thank you NetGalley for an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

10 years ago, Jess’s mother became the first victim of the serial killer who would become known as the Magpie Man. The Magpie Man now has 13 victims and has yet to be caught. But Jess has a plan. She will become one of the stars of a new online reality TV series and remind people that this monster is still on the loose. And if she can also draw the killer out of hiding to come after her, that’s even better. Whatever it takes to catch the man who destroyed her life.

The blurb of this book had me immediately. I loved the idea of using social media to bring attention to a case and potentially find new clues. But oh my goodness. I just did not like this book.

One issue I had was with the format itself. There were 144 chapters in this book. A majority of the chapters were one page (maybe two) long. It might be better in a print copy rather than an e-reader, but it was slightly jarring to read.

It’s hard to discuss much without giving anything away but it just felt very disjointed. As you’re reading, it feels like there are so many unrelated threads. By the end, they seem to magically intertwine, but it just didn’t work for me. It felt like there was too much time spent jumping around that it wasn’t enjoyable to read. Instead of tying things up in a neat little bow, this book was tied up in a huge knot.

I like when twist endings catch me by surprise and this book did. But I also like when they actually make sense and there have been hints leading up. I feel like this book just threw in an ending out of nowhere. And some of the characters’ motivations just do not make sense.

I also felt like there were some harmful portrayals of mental health, but I can’t get into that here because spoilers.

Overall, this book was a miss for me. I would have just done a DNF, but I rage finished it so I could write this review.

**Disclaimer: I received a free early access copy of 14 Ways to Die by Vincent Ralph through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this opportunity.

14 Ways to Die by Vincent Ralph is a young adult mystery thriller.  It revolved around a girl named Jess who signs up for a reality television show where she will livestream her life in order to solve the mystery of who murdered her father.  It is set to publish on June 1st, 2021.  I rated it 4 stars on Goodreads.


Here's the summary from Goodreads:

A page-turning new YA thriller for the social media age, perfect for fans of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder and One Of Us Is Lying.
Ten years ago, Jess's mother was murdered by the Magpie Man.
She was the first of his victims but not the last.
Now Jess is the star of a YouTube reality series and she's using it to catch the killer once and for all.
The whole world is watching her every move.
And so is the Magpie Man.

This story definitely had an intriguing premise.  I liked the idea of a girl sacrificing her privacy to find out what happened to her mom.  I've read lots of YA mysteries, but I haven't quite encountered a story like that before.  It's definitely really interesting.

I really enjoyed this story.  Jess is a really interesting character.  She's not a traditionally likeable character but she is a sympathetic one.  She pushes boundaries but her motive is admirable.  It's easy to understand why exactly she wants to give up so much to find out the answers to something that changed the entire course of her life.  It's easy to understand why she does the things that she does.

I enjoyed the short chapters in this book.  It makes for a quick and easy read.  The story was well paced.  There was good tension and just enough to keep me guessing as the story continued.  I enjoyed the suspense.  The arc of the story was well done.  I really liked the way that there were a lot of red herrings along the way making me think that something had happened that wasn't actually the case.  I genuinely had no idea who the bad guy was going to turn out to be, but I was pleased with how it turned out.

The depiction of grief was really interesting in this book.  It felt realistic and showed the lingering after effects of a sudden horrible loss.  Jess and her father had two really interesting sides of that.  I really enjoyed that aspect.

The side characters were well ranged and interesting.

If you're at all intrigued by the premise, I definitely recommend that you check this book out.

I did like this book, I just didn't love it like I thought I would. But I still thought it was a good read. As someone who watches True Crime YouTubers quite often, I really liked the concept of this book. I thought it was an interesting use of using social media to catch a killer. I'm not a fan of really short chapters though, and that was one of the first things I didn't like about this book. I also felt like it dragged at some parts, and I found some things to be a little unrealistic. But despite that, I did find it was a good read that kept you guessing and then second guessing throughout the book which I liked. Overall, it was a gripping story that did keep me interested from start to finish.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.

The premise of this book is interesting, and one I think will resonate with teens who love YouTube and suspense novels.

The plot is intricately planned, with hints along the way, that astute readers will pick up on.

I found that I didn’t particularly care about the main character. So much of her characterization is one dimensional and through the lens of her mother’s murder. If she put herself in danger, I didn’t care if she was safe or not, I just wanted to get to the conclusion.

That said, I think others may have a different view, and I did like the premise and conclusion. This is a “middle of the road” book for me - I liked it, and I definitely will recommend it to my teen patrons, but it didn’t fall into the “couldn’t put down” category for me.

When I saw the chapter count in the table of contents, I was a bit intimidated. I wasn't sure how I'd like the pacing of the book, but the short chapters really kept the story moving for me. The mystery definitely grabbed my attention and I didn't figure it out until the very end. Overall, I thought it was a really intriguing story and discussed the complexity of grief in a very touching way. However, it was still a bit heavier than I expected — I actually forgot this was a YA book until I was reading the author's notes at the end.