Reckless Girls was a really fun beach read. I really liked the locked room feel on a deserted island setting. I liked it up until the end which didn’t make sense and just wasn’t believable or satisfying. Overall I enjoyed it and would recommend for fans of The Wife Upstairs or We Were Never Here.

I was really excited for this one. The hype was REALLY in effect and I may have fallen victim to overhype. The book was okay, it felt like a slow go for me and I was not sucked into the plot. I love a tight thriller and this one felt like it just kinda lagged to me. I finished it, but didn't love my time spent. I have some of the author's other books on my TBR so I'm still excited to read them, this was just not the thriller for me.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this book!

I always love good adult mysteries that i can recommend to my HS students, and this one fits that bill. The plot is intriguing, the pacing flows wonderfully, and the characters are really well-developed. AND. That ending was beyond satisfying! Would also make a good book club pick!

Gorgeous gorgeous girls go on reckless, wild adventures. Forgive me, I couldn't help myself.

Reckless Girls was the "locked room"-esque novel I needed to knock me out of my reading slump. It consumed me for a day, drawing me in with an intriguing main character and a plot that held all sorts of threat. I read it knowing something bad was going to happen, I just didn't know what, and that feeling of unease festered in me, pushing me to continue turning the pages.

Lux follows along, she thinks what her boyfriend wants is what she wants, that adventure is for her, but when the first big opportunity for adventure comes for them she shies away. They're in Hawaii, they sleep on a friend's floor, and their boat isn't operational, so this should be the chance of a lifetime. Only, who accepts money from strangers to take them to a deserted island? Lux and her boyfriend do, that's who. What begins as an expedition filled with blossoming friendships and alcohol soon turns scary. Four friends becomes six friends and then a seventh arrives and it all comes crashing down.

What Reckless Girls lacks in what we normally expect in a thriller, it makes up for with atmosphere. It features a gorgeous island far from civilization with a dark history and six strangers holding tightly to their secrets. There's a sense of unease throughout the whole novel, with the twists and reveals not occurring until well after the 50% mark. You root for listless Lux, you see this trip bring her back to life and out of her stupor, but what she does with that life is so unexpected.

Reckless Girls was an absolute winner for me. A suspense about twenty-somethings that will hook you and pull you in.

Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins begins with introducing us to two of the six characters that will wind up on an isolated island together. Lux is my favorite character as I think she resembles that lost child, that lost girl that many of us can relate to especially when we were young adults. She does not always make the best decisions, but she is trying to have connections and build a life. Nico, Brittany and Amma seem like they have some dark layers underneath all those natural vibes. Later on the island we meet Liza and Jake, two more people to add to the mix.

What I liked most about Reckless Girls was that it was action packed with many secrets and plot twists. I also liked that the flashbacks revealed a lot more about the character so that the reader has a closer look at the secrets and stories for each character.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this review copy of Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins. As always, my opinions are my own and my review is voluntary.

This book was such a fun ride! I received this arc a few months ago on NetGalley and also ordered it in my BOTM box because LOOK AT THIS COVER 😍

This was a fast paced island mystery, set on a mysterious island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The way Rachel Hawkins described everything in this book, it was so vivid I could picture it all in my head as if I was there and could easily see this being made into a movie! I could not put this one down!

What an interesting voyage this book was 🤪
I loved the escape to warm climates while it is snowing and freezing in my reality.

Lux follows her boyfriend Nico to Hawaii with the promise of adventures at sea aboard his boat. Brittany and Amma are looking for someone to take them to a remote island. The pairs link up for the trip and meet Jake and Eliza on the island. Is what happened on this remote island because of its past, or is it the people on the island who bring the darkness.

Normally jumping around a ton isn’t my favorite way to read. But in this book I enjoyed the past and present as well as different story lines with each character. The suspense building lead me to believe everyone’s motive was the winning one.

I loved the ending of this book!! The twists were amazing! I 100% recommend this book!! It is worth the read or listen!!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for an eARC for me to read and review!

Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to read this one because I changed my kindle email address and forgot to update it on Netgalley, so it never arrived to my device. *facepalm*

I loved Hawkin's first book and was so excited to read this one.

It was kind of slow at some points. The ending was a surprise, though. It was definitely a unique concept, but it just couldn’t keep my attention for very long.

This was just pure entertainment and I liked the slow pace it took to have the story unfold. I didn’t particularly like any of the characters but I liked going along for the ride. I did have to look up and double check I understood the ending, but overall Rachel Hawkins is an author I feel I can depend on to deliver the kind of mystery/thriller I like.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the eArc in exchange for an honest review.

Started out very slow and took me a while to get into this book. I almost abandoned it, but decided to stick with it and I'm glad I did. It had some good twists towards the end.

This book was definitely not what I was expecting. I read the author’s previous book The wife upstairs and I have to say I really liked that one and came with expectations to this one that unfortunately for me were not met.
The premise is very promising, a boat trip to a deserted island had me excited, but then nothing I read makes sense, I don't buy that there are certain things on an island that is impossible that they want me to believe. I was about to leave it halfway but I continued until the end, that at least has surprised me, but it can't be that everything closes it all in 40 or 50 pages.
Anyway, I hope I like the author's next book better, but this is just my personal opinion.

Thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC on exchange of my honest review.

Wow this story, was not what I expected when I started reading this book. I don’t know if anyone remembers the movie The Beach with Leonardo DeCaprio, but this book totally had that same vibe. It honestly read like I was watching a movie, I was so engrossed in what was going to happen that when the craziness started I was, “what?!??”. 😂 I honestly liked all the characters, even though they were all fake and it was meant to be like that. The story though does go slow at first, but it works because it lulls you into a false sense of security, and then bang it goes downhill fast after that. 😂

Overall I really liked it and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was made into a movie one day, because I sure as heck was craving popcorn while I read it.

Review will be posted on 2/8/2022

Lux has been living a depressing life since she left college to help take care of her sick mother. After her mother's death, Lux tries to pick up her life again. She is working as a waitress in San Diego, and while at the restaurant, she meets Nico Johannsen. They hit it off and he asks her to come along with him on his boat, the Susannah, as he is going to take an epic trip. She agrees, because what else does she have going on? Nothing. She meets him out in Hawaii to set sail, but the Susannah needs some major repairs before they can go. Lux is cleaning hotel rooms to make some money, but all this changes when Nico comes across Brittany and Amma who offer Nico a ton of cash to sail they to Meroe Island in the Pacific. They pay to fix the boat and now they can all go out to the uninhabited island together for two weeks. Quite an adventure, right? Although the voyage over wasn't easy, once they get to Meroe, they are in awe of its beauty. Jake and Eliza, are also docked at the island, and initially, the whole group gets along. However, as the characters get to know one another, secrets are slowly revealed and alliances are questioned. Perhaps life on this desolate tropical island isn't paradise after all, not to mention the island's creepy history. Lux is in over her head at this point in the suspenseful thriller, Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins.

While I didn't always agree with Lux's decisions in Reckless Girls, I felt badly for her as she is definitely on a different path than she imagined she would be. When she meets Nico, unfortunately she latches onto him and I wish she would have been more hesitant, but she is all in for this adventure. She has nothing waiting for her at home anymore, but she decides to go. I couldn't help but think would someone really do this? Does she even know Brittany and Amma well enough to spend two weeks with them on a remote island? How Brittany and Amma they get their money? Also, Nico gave me bad vibes from the start. He comes from a wealthy family, but is estranged from them, so he has to make his own way in the world. I didn't trust him and felt like he wasn't sharing the entire truth with Lux. Hawkins provides readers with flashbacks, so they can get to know the characters before this trip and let's just say, most of the characters are withholding secrets.

The setting of Meroe Island in the Pacific was extremely well done by Hawkins. It definitely had Gilligan's Island vibes, but with a layer of horror in that the history of the island is beyond eerie. I was worried about what might be in the jungle and on top of the character's unpredictable and hedonistic behavior, it was stressing me out. Also, while I thought the setting of Meroe Island was beyond creepy and felt like a prison at times, I didn't think it was entirely a "Gothic suspense" as was indicated in the synopsis. Gothic suspense novels, at least in my mind, are more like Jane Eyre--- a protagonist in a crumbling castle or gloomy mansion that has supernatural elements. While Reckless Girls fit some of those characteristics, it felt too soapy to me to be entirely Gothic.

Hawkins includes a lot of plot twists and some that worked for me in Reckless Girls; however, there were other events that I felt were just too unbelievable. That was my only issue with Reckless Girls--at times I really didn't buy into what was happening. It just seemed extremely unlikely. Nonetheless, it made for an interesting story and one that I was addicted to.

So, if you are looking for a thriller that's filled with drama, secrets, and a creepy setting to boot, give Reckless Girls a try this winter. Have you read it? Are you a fan of Rachel Hawkins? Let me know in the comments below.

I read "The Wife Upstairs" and loved it. Couldn't wait to read 'Reckless Girls" and I adored it! Generally this type of plot seems to involve being stranded on a skip trip, but Rachel Hawkins takes these 6 twentysomethings and plants them on a tropical island with a rich history of disaster.

Of course, something goes wrong - one ends up missing and another dead. Is it the curse of this island or is there something else going on? I'll be honest, I would totally love to go on a vacation to a destination with a cryptic history like this one! I was a tad bored in the beginning, but the story picked up. Toward the end, it was a wild ride and I couldn't put the book down.

I hope you'll have the same results. I'm pretty confident Rachel Hawkins is on my auto-buy list from here out...

The opening scene of Reckless Girls, in which plucky mid-twenties narrator Lux McAllister cracks jokes and narrates from her hospitality job in an upscale Hawaiian resort, hooked me with its easy dialogue and preview of the adventurous, if somewhat shoestring budget, life led by Lux and her boyfriend, Nico. Not long after the opening, we learn that Nico has been hired by young twenty-somethings to captain a 2-week trip to the mysterious, deserted, and erstwhile haunted Meroe Island in the Pacific. Lux, having overcome her share of personal tragedies and craving adventure, joins Nico and the girls on Nico's own small boat, The cabin is cramped, they nearly capsize in typhoon like conditions, but eventually make it to the idyllic isle reminiscent of Gilligan's Island or for readers, Alex Garland's "The Beach".

Two glamorous strangers are already camped out at what would have been their deserted island but Lux, Nico, and their two passengers, Brittany and Amma, make fast friends with the Aussie, Jake, and his girlfriend, Eliza. Over the course of the next few days, the story unfolds like a dream, with the crew drinking, laughing, and lazing day and night. Early warning signs of trouble - Lux's suspicion that Amma and Nico, both trust fund kids, look like they belong together, is plainly foreshadowed. Brittany is earnest and a fast friend to Lux, while Amma is mysterious, cold...and a bit crazy. When an unwelcome third party, a single, skinny, pervy guys shows up and literally crashes the party, things go south quickly.

The story was relayed via multiple narrators and perspectives, with flashbacks to everyone's lives interspersed. Some readers found this confusing, but I thought it added complexity and interest to the story. I second-guessed the intentions and the reliability of nearly every narrator. While there was a twist at the end that I worked out a few chapters before, it was only just before the conclusion that it became evident to me, so for most of the book, the author kept me in the dark.

This was, in essence, a popcorn thriller and psychological drama. It was a page-turner, which I craved to kick off the year, and I enjoyed it. The book will appeal to fans of "We were never here", or any story about female travelers finding their adventures going off the rails.

Thank you to #NetGalley, Rachel Hawkins, and St. Martin's Press for the Advanced Readers' Copy in exchange for an honest review.

A wonderful ride of “what’s going to happen next.” The way the story is weaved makes for a remarkable story that had be wondering the whole way through

Unfortunately I was not able to review this title within the set time frame. I am looking forward to reading it soon and would like to thank the publisher for the opportunity.

Lux McAllister and her boyfriend Nico are hired to take two young women on their small sailing boat to the uninhabited island of Meroe in the South Pacific. The island has a mysterious history with lots of strange rumors. There they meet Jake and Eliza, a rich couple who have docked there too. Things seem to go quite well for a few days as the six have a great time partying and getting to know each other. However, they soon realize how cut off they are from civilization when another boat arrives and some mysterious things begin to happen - someone disappears, someone ends up dead.
This was 3.5 stars for me. Seems like a great beach read!

I liked this book a lot more than I thought I would! It wasn’t the usual suspenseful book I’m into, but the characters and story made it so that I couldn’t put it down! Story is Lux follows her boyfriend Nico to Hawaii where they are struggling with money. One day Nico meets two girls who offer him a lot of cash to take them to a hidden deserted island for some adventure. When they arrive they see another boat is already there, a rich couple who quickly gets along with them. Before long, the six of them are exploring the island and it’s hidden secrets. But the island isn’t the only one with secrets. The book goes back and forth in time telling how everyone came together. It was an interesting read and so unique! I really enjoyed it and will definitely read more from this author.