I went in as a huge Goodman fan but unfortunately this one was a miss for her. While she is categorized as a YA author, her previous books had an older audience associated with it but this time it read really young. The characters and conflicts were really immature.I think if I was younger I would have enjoyed it a lot more. I did like the summer camp aspect and it really transported me back to my camp days.

The only thing better than a summer camp setting is said summer camp being filled with secrets, murder, and scandal.

Jessica Goodman nailed it with The Counselors and it is easily my favorite book of hers.

Goldie is a townie who took is hated by locals after a tragic accident. Her only solace is Camp Alpine Lake and spending summer as a counselor with her best friends, Ava and Imogen. This summer is off to a terrible start when the body of Goldie’s ex boyfriend is found in the lake. From there, the summer and her friendships unravel.

Wow!! This book. Omg. I seriously loved it so much and didn’t want it to end. The thing I loved most was the special bond Goldie, Ava, and Imogene had. It was so sweet and really screamed summer and best friends.

This book was also dark! I mean, obviously, there was a murder after all. But wow I just really didn’t expect it to go the way it did. I had my suspicions of a few people early on that ended up being correct, but I still flip flopped the whole time.

Seriously such a good book and the perfect summer mystery.

Having LOVED Goodman's two previous releases I knew that I had to read The Counselors. The counselor follows Goldie throughout the story while it travels between the past and present day. Goodman captures the essence of friendship so well as we see relationships form in the book and the endless support Goldie gets from her friends. While this one is a little bit predictable it definitely still delviers like only a story by Goodman can. I definitely recommend picking this up for summer if you're looking for a new thriller.

Another great book from Jessica Goodman. When friends Goldie, Ava, and Imogen met at their elite camp years ago, they knew they'd be best friends forever. Now it's the summer after senior year and they are camp counselors at their beloved summer camp, Camp Alpine Lake, where rich folks pay the big bucks to send their kids to sleepaway camp for 8 weeks each summer. But then one of the local boys ends up dead in the lake at camp and although the police deem his death an accident, Goldie isn't so sure how safe camp is. A great story full of twists and turns.

The Counselors
Jessica Goodman
Razorbill and Penguin
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Huge thank you to Penguin and Jessica Goodman for my copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
🛶🏕️ Did you do sleep away camp as a kid?

From Goodreads: "Sisters by choice.
That’s how Goldie and her best friends, Ava and Imogen, define their friendship, which formed years ago at Camp Alpine Lake.
This year, Goldie is back at camp as a counselor, desperate for summer to start and for Ava and Imo to arrive. With the dark secret Goldie’s been keeping, she’s more in need of their comfort than ever. When the boy who broke Goldie's heart, turns up dead in the lake, this last summer before college is completely upended—and Goldie learns that she’s not the only person at camp who has been lying. Asking questions offers Goldie no answers, only danger and betrayals deeper than she ever imagined."

This book was a good YA thriller, just the book for someone looking to get their feet wet. It wasn't too graphic or damaging. A great starter thriller, and I think it will be the perfect read just in time for summer. It made me nostalgic for arts and crafts and times around the campfire. For me, it felt a bit underwhelming if I'm being honest and I was able to guess "whodunit" pretty early on. Though, if camp was your thing, give this one a go, available May 31st.

#jessicagoodman #thecounselors #summerreads #camp #camplife #campcounselor #newbooks #penguinteen #lifeguard #summervibes #yathriller #yamystery

Jessica Goodman is the queen of the summer YA mysteries and she has done it again with The Counselors.

Goldie and her friends Ava and Imogen have been best friends since their first year at elite summer camp, Alpine Lakes. But unlike her very wealthy friends, Goldie is the only townie who gets to attend the camp. She’s coming in this year with so many secrets, including what really happened one night with her ex…so when he is found on camp property dead, she is determined to find out what really happened to him. What she doesn’t realize is she isn’t the only person at camp keeping secrets.

This book had me on my toes the whole time. While I had a feeling fairly early on who was behind everything, I kept questioning myself as the story unfolded. I read this book in one sitting because I wanted to know what happened and who did it. I loved the alternating timelines that slowly revealed what happened in Goldie’s life over the past year while simultaneously bringing us back to camp and the mystery she was trying to solve. Overall, I loved this one!

Thank you to Penguin Teen for the advance copy!

4 stars
This is a great summer read! The suspense is great and the story flows well. Though I am not a y/a I really enjoyed this one!

I think I may need to give up on trying to like Jessica Goodman's books.

This is my third one and while it wasn't <i>the worst</i>, it felt so very basic and paint by numbers that I found it difficult to get really invested.

The characters never feel 3-dimensional. The storyline is never overly interesting. The mystery isn't particularly compelling. The back and forth between present day and the past never really leads to anything, it's just used as a device to make you feel bad for the main character, sort of?

It's just middling overall. Easy enough to read (though, I confess I was skimming the last chapter or so), but I can't offer a hearty recommendation.

Yep. Jessica Goodman could be my new favorite ya thriller author. This was so good. I was hooked from the beginning and couldn’t flip the pages fast enough.

I really enjoyed this book. If the Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager was a YA novel it would be this one. It's the perfect read for the summer to give you some summer camp creepiness.
Thank you so much for the free ARC from NetGalley!

3.5, strong like but definitely not a love. The exploration of the friendship between the girls was nice, but the ending was anticlimactic and a little sticky.

The Counselors by Jessica Goodman was an interesting teen summer thriller. Having heard good things about Jessica Goodmans books I was as to dive into this book. Three best friend. Three girls with secrets. Three girls who always said to never keep secrets from each other. Imogen and Ava are Goldie’s best friends and come from a vastly different life of wealth and privilege. They all meet up Every year at Alpine Lake camp. Goldie goes there for free since her parents work there and she’s close with the owners of the camp so she has become inserted in this lifestyle of wealth every summer versus her townie status the rest of the year. She comes to camp this year with a huge secret which somehow gets tied to the camp that she loves so much. Can the friends be loyal to each other? Well everyone survive camp?
An easy beach read with lots of twists and turns!

The counselors

Maybe Jessica Goodman’s best yet?! Ugh I fell in love with The Counselors from the beginning. I have enjoyed all of Jessica’s books and was so excited to be given this digital ARC by penguin random house! This book comes out May 31st and I feel that is the perfect timing for this book! Set at a summer camp, it gives you all the summertime feels like campfires, s’mores, fireworks, suntans, you name it! I loved the small town aspect of the book, along with it being a thriller. Basically all of my favorite things wrapped up in one! I loved the main characters and how different, yet close they were. Their lives, backgrounds and upbringings vary so much but they have been best friends since meeting at camp many years before. But this year is different for the friends, they are counselors and coming to camp with a lot of dark secrets.

*3.5/5

Camp Alpine Lake is an elite summer camp for the 1% of the eastern seaboard, and Goldie Easton is returning as a counselor after a dark year. Burdened by a secret and hated by her town for someone else's mistake, Goldie resolves to leave her past behind her and spend her summer with her best friends Ava and Imogen. The perfect veneer of Alpine Lake starts to peel though when a body appears on its pristine shore. As Goldie is drawn into the case, she starts to believe that the death isn't an accident, and she soon learns that Alpine Lake has its secrets. After all, all that glitters isn't always gold.

This story explores some really interesting ideas about class divides, and I think the setting of a summer camp for the wealthy situated in a small town with a struggling economy is a really inspired way to emphasize them. The truth behind the death, as well as the secrets Goldie's been carrying, are really heavy topics that are written really well. The friendships between Imogen, Ava, and Goldie were really complex and nuanced, and I appreciate the time spent developing ideas about female friendships. However, I think that this novel could stay heavy for too long at times. I feel like the key to a good mystery is to punctuate the character's suffering or dark plot elements with moments of levity or emotional rewards for the reader, to motivate them to keep going, and while I think this book was written really well, it was missing some of that. I do feel like the story was really compelling though, and if you are looking for more of a thought-provoking read, you might really enjoy this book.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Penguin Teen for providing me with an advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The Counselors will be available in the United States on May 31, 2022.

Another excellent read by Goodman, The Counselors weaves a who dun it mystery with a coming of age story. I thoroughly enjoyed all the characters and felt that the story telling approach of then and now provided great context to flesh out the tale. A definite must read author for me!

It’s summer at Camp Alpine Lake, where prestigious teens are there to create new friendships and new memories… until a local boy is found dead floating in the lake just before camp officially opens for the season. Say what? What business did this townie have at camp?

Told in dual timelines, the story really worked. How things unraveled in the end. How I got to know the characters, and still wondered who was behind the murder of a townie. A townie our beloved heroine loved. I’ve read Goodman’s prior books, and this one was just on par with her writing, storytelling, and YA themes—romance intertwined with mystery, intrigue, and coming of age. A solid summer read!

This book captures the "pull" of summer camp. The ability of that special time to really impact a life. Just add a mystery and some murder and this book gets even better.

Jessica Goodman can do no wrong in my opinion. I loved her first two books, and her newest was one of my most anticipated books of 2022 — especially since it takes place at a summer camp!

THE COUNSELORS is about an elite summer camp where three best friends met. Now Goldie, Imogen, and Ava are back as counselors. Goldie has been desperate to be back at camp with her friends, and is hoping she can keep her dark secret hidden. But then Heller, the boy who shattered Goldie’s heart ends up dead in the lake at camp, and Goldie will not stop until she has answers.

I completely devoured this one. The story reminded me of so many things I loved about camp, while also having a ✨killer✨ plot. It’s fast paced with short chapters, and it alternates between past and present. It’s a fun element that the camp is elite — Goldie is the only camper/counselor from the area, while everyone else comes from rich families and goes to prep schools. While they are from different worlds, the three girls have a bond that can’t be broken. Each of them have something to hide, and the secrets kept me on the edge of my seat. I truly couldn’t put it down!

4.5/5

Okay! So! I LOVED this book.

The summer camp thriller is something I didn't know I truly needed until this book, because OH MY GOSH it's like Friday the Thirteenth but add thriller and mystery and subtract the horror. The mystery was intriguing and something I desperately was waiting to find out if I was right--and I LOVE when the mystery is played out really well, which it is here.

Another thing I loved is the casual Jewish rep. This book is FULL of it and FILLED with Jewish characters, which I loved. I also got the impression that the summer camp was based off of Jewish sleepaway camps, and I love that because it really, really was the vibe here.

This book is the perfect summer YA thriller and I can't wait for everyone else to get their hands on it.

Thank you so much to Razorbill for sending me an arc!

This book was amazing for two reasons.

1) The story and plot twist. I love a good thriller and murder mystery. I know I am gullible but I didn’t guess whodunnit and I was engaged the whole time.

2) It is clear the author went to sleep away because oh the nostalgia!!! All the details about summer camp from color war to living for those summer months to be with those friends turned family. It brought back serious memories.

This was very much a 5 star read for me and I will recommend it to all and be getting a physical copy when it publishes!