Thank you so much for an advanced copy of this book.

Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️
Genre: YA Thriller
Pub Date: October 4, 2022

I wanted to like this book so much, but the writing was soooo juvenile. I expected "young" writing in a YA book, but this was more on the really juvenile end of YA (maybe, honestly, some of the writing was more in line with middle grade honestly).

I could not stand the protagonist in this, and once I made that leap, there was no going back for me. I'm so tired of the love interest being the villain in this types of stories, and there was entirely too much going on in the plot to really flesh anything out entirely. The book really dragged, too, which made it hard to stick with.

If you're looking for a good YA thriller, maybe pass on this one.

This was such a fun read!

I'll start first with the mystery - Natalie, the future homecoming queen, is found dead in the school pool on the night of the homecoming game. This mimics a crime that was committed when Cecelia's grandmother was in high school. In fact, Cecelia's grandmother (Maura Weston) is a famous author who writes murder mystery stories. She's a local celebrity and everyone is obsessed with her books. A good portion of the first half of the book was more about the murder many years ago, as opposed to Natalie's murder. When Natalie's body was found, the story picked up, but otherwise, it was a slow start. I do have to say, I knew who killed Natalie right away, but the author did a good job at making me doubt myself. There were a lot of red herrings, but there was one thing that the killer did before Natalie died that I just couldn't ignore.

That brings me to the romance. The whole Cecelia / Ben / Gabriel situation took away from the story, although I can see why it was needed. Ben was a strong character, whereas I think Gabriel fell short. Ben was interning with Cecelia's grandmother, while Gabriel was on the football team and working many jobs around town. Gabriel seemed to just be the second choice love interest who was there for no reason. His part in the story really didn't make sense until the end.

And now, the ending. The ending I really liked. There was a lot going on at once and it was predictable, but I think it was done well. I wasn't happy with the ending because there was one character I really liked who turned out to not be likable. But, sometimes a tragic ending is better than a happy ending.

This is going to be a great read for the fall season and if you like YA thrillers, I recommend it! After the first half, it was fast-paced and intriguing. This was a 4-star read for me and I had fun with it. Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Books for Young Readers for this ARC!

Pretty Dead Queens is an amazing young adult mystery-thriller that keep you on the edge of your seat, I couldn't put it down. It'd keep you guessing from the start, who's the bad guy? Or, bad guys? Cecelia is a likable narrator with sharp mind and wits. Adapting as a new girl in mourning living in a little town when she was a city girl all her life were not easy for her, especially with her estranged and odd mystery-thriller writer of a grandmother who have a pack of fans obsessing about the town and her, even. Her new friends hiding things from her weren't easy too. But somehow our girl able to put the mystery to end once and for all. And it's a great journey to have, with #MeToo bits that I appreciated so much. Don't forget about the twists, they're delicious. Definitely guessed some, but the small twist about her friend (Luke) and another big twist were unexpected to me. A solid four stars read from me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me a free ebook ARC of Pretty Dead Queens. I'm a big fan of Alexa Donne's YouTube / BookTube / AuthorTube channel and have heard her speak about this book as she made progress with her planning, writing, and revising. This review is my honest opinion, and I hope I don't have much bias from being a fan of the YouTube series.

I have read each of Alexa Donne's novels as they have come out. I feel like her writing has reached a new level with Pretty Dead Queens. There's a lot of playful language, sound devices, and puns that I enjoyed in the narration of this one. Even though I'm not part of the main target audience for this book, I liked the main character and the story. There were some fun, unexpected moments along the way.

I recommend this book to fans of mystery, especially to teens and other who enjoy young adult literature.

Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne is a good YA mystery novel. It's quite sad when a family can be so messed up, but that is a reality. The story follows Cecelia, who moves from LA to a small town to live with her grandmother after Cecelia's mom passes away. The story started off a bit slow, and I was able to deduce who the suspect would eventually turn out to be. Overall, a fairly good read.

I give this a 3 out of 5 stars due to it being slow in the beginning, the dialogue did not feel like typical teenage banter, and some of the scenes were not developed well.

#PrettyDeadQueens #NetGalley @RHCBEducators

No longer interested in reading, after being made aware of the author’s gross behavior of attacking invalidating the voices of authors of color.

This was a quick read, a young adult mystery on the lighter side. While the main character was dealing with the death of her mother, it wasn't treated nearly as seriously as it deserved. She goes to live with her grandmother, a famous author. Her first book was about a local murder of a friend of hers. She quickly becomes part of a group of popular kids, ie day one and soon after one of them gets murdered. Lots of secrets as she tries to find the killer. The book got more interesting towards the end

3.5 I really enjoyed Ivies and was stoked for this one! I really did enjoy reading this book but it was a standard YA thriller, nothing super special or surprising. Still interested in anything she writes though!

Thank you Netgalley and Random House Children's for an arc in return for my honest review!!

After the death of her mom, Cecelia Ellis goes to live with her estranged grandmother, a celebrated author whose Victorian mansion is as creepy as the murder mysteries she writes. On the surface, life is utterly ordinary in the California coastal town . . . until the homecoming queen is murdered. And she’s not Seaview’s first pretty dead queen. With a copycat killer on the loose, Cecelia throws herself into the investigation, determined to crack the case like the heroines in her grandmother’s books. But the more Cecelia digs into the town’s secrets, the more she worries that her own mystery might not have a storybook ending.
Great plot, but a slow start that focused too much on giving too much detail up front. The book read like a young adult novel, but the language and sexual activity just did not fit what was marketed to me as a younger young adult novel. The twists were predictable, and I was able to guess the murders within a few chapters. Overall, it’s not a bad book but it is not one I loved and for sure not one I would reread.

Yes! Alexa Donne is back with another YA thriller and this one's a beauty! After the death of her mother, Cecelia has to move to the coastal town of Seaview where her famous grandmother writes murder mysteries in her creepy Victorian mansion.

When a copycat killer strangles the homecoming queen in a similar fashion to a fifty-year-old murder of another homecoming queen and Cecelia finds the body, she doesn't hesitate in investigating. Afterall, her grandmother does it all the time for her books so how hard could it be?

This was a great story. As always, Alexa gives us a bunch of voice, lots of suspects, and great twists. This book also touches on the grief of losing a mother, which is something the author has had to go through herself recently. I gobbled this one up in record time and am already looking forward to Alexa's next book!

Thank you to Crown/Random House Children's Books, NetGalley, and Alexa Donne for letting me read an early version of Pretty Dead Queens.

Loved this! What a great YA mystery thriller. Cecelia goes to live with her grandmother in small-town coastal California after her mother dies. Her grandmother is a famous writer whose first bestseller was a fictionalized account of a real-life murder of a prom queen in the town 50 years ago. Cecelia makes friends with the cool clique and then discovers the body of one of her new friends, the prom queen. Cecelia goes all Nancy Drew and investigates the crime. Lots of people have things to hide, lots of twists, lots of fun! Really enjoyed this.

I've recently gotten back into thrillers and I loved this one! The plot twists were so good, I was definitely on my toes throughout the entire book.

Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne is my 135th book of 2022 and 45th book of the summer. This YA mystery thriller will be released on October 4, 2022. A huge thank you to #NetGalley, @randomhousekids and Crown Books for Young Readers for allowing me the opportunity to read a digital ARC. All opinions are my own.

Cecelia Ellis has to move to the small town of Seaview, CA, to live with her estranged grandmother after her mother dies. Her grandmother is a celebrated author who lives in a Victorian mansion and pens murder mysteries. Her most famous book is her first which was based on the real-life murder of a Seaview Homecoming Queen. When Cecelia attends her senior year homecoming game and finds the homecoming Queen dead, in the same way as the one from her grandma’s book, she determined to get to the bottom of the copycat murder.

WOW! I LOVED this book! ❤️ It is full of suspense and tension. It’s supposed to be a love letter to Murder She Wrote (though it takes a much darker turn) and it is absolutely amazing. I loved the structure of the mystery and how clues, red herrings, and plot twists were introduced. I figured out who did the most recent murder before it was actually revealed, but I didn’t guess the ending. This is perfect for fans of A Good Girls Guide to Murder or the Truly Devious series. The book does have cursing, underage drinking and drug use, allusions to sex, and violence. This is definitely a high school and up book. I may let my 8th graders read it with parent permission.

High school girl moves to new small town and attempts to solve local murder.. I honestly cannot decide if this is a trope I love or hate because it is often just so unbelievable even I’m not fictionally buying it. I was a Nancy Drew fan as a kid and love a good whodunnit so I always give them a chance anyways. I do like that the main character’s grandmother is a famous author and that it’s a copycat murder but other than that, it feels very familiar to other books in the same vein. And while Cecelia is definitely a busy body, she definitely stumbled on helpful information a bit too easily. Overall, still an entertaining read with a MC that reads her age (take with that what you will) but the author uses slang that I know teenagers aren’t out here saying still. I guessed the killer pretty early but there was another good twist here that I liked. If you enjoy YA thrillers and books by Karen McManus and Holly Jackson then this is right up your alley!

3.5 ⭐️

Brief Synopsis: After her mom dies, Cecelia Ellis relocates to the small coastal town of Seaview, California to live with her grandmother. Her grandmother happens to be Maura Weston, acclaimed mystery novelist whose first book was based on an actual murder that took place in Seaview. Killer Queens, Maura’s first novel, is based off the murder of a homecoming Queen that took place 50 years ago. And now in present day, the new homecoming Queen has been murdered. The exact same way as the murder from 50 years ago. With a copycat killer on the loose, Cecelia takes it upon Herself to find answers, though she may not like what she finds.

I think this book is a really great YA thriller. I did guess several things in this book, but there was an added twist at the end that I honestly did not see coming. The twist made the book much more enjoyable for me. I feel like sometimes people don’t like thrillers where they guess everything but I don’t necessarily mind. I think a good thriller has elements that the reader should guess and that catch the reader off guard and this had some of both for me.

Overall I really liked Cecelia’s character. She was smart, witty, and didn’t fit into your typical “new girl in town” stereotype to me. I do feel like she jumped quickly and adamantly to different conclusions about who the killer was, but I feel like that is probably just typical of a 17-year-old amateur detective so it did not bother me.

This book gave me some Two Can Keep a Secret vibes, which is another YA thriller that I enjoyed. So if you liked that book then I would definitely consider reading this one. Overall I think this is a good thriller and a definite recommendation for a good Halloween/spooky season read.

I’m speechless.

After reading well past 3 in the morning Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne has become my new favorite ya thriller. Pretty Dead Queens is thrilling, mysterious, and suspenseful and will have you on edge from the first page until the very end as you journey alongside Cecelia in trying to solve a copycat murder.

With a relatable mc, a plot full of twists, and the copycat murder of a homecoming queen, this book is destined to be your next obsession.

I highly recommend checking out Pretty Dead Queens and I am extremely jealous of everyone who gets to read it for the first time. The thing that really sets this book above any other ya thriller, is the inclusion of each character’s relationship with grief.

I received a copy of this book from Random House Children's and Netgalley.

I thought this was a pretty engaging murder mystery even though I do have some issues with it.

Cecelia dealing with her mother's tragic death is a great character to follow but there's a weird thing where characters randomly dump info at her for no reason?

This obviously makes solving a murder a bit easier. The issue is that Cecelia's only canny to a point and when the book needs her to be thoughtless for reasons of plot, she comes off a inconsistent.

I love a good YA thriller! This reminded me of Pretty Little Liars meets Good Girl’s Guide to Murder meets Nancy Drew.

The beginning was a slower start and build up but, then it really sped up and had some great twists and turns.

If you love a good high school based who dun’ it… this one is for you!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishing team for my free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I love YA mystery books and this one was really good!
This book makes you get lost in the story and you want to sit there all day and read this book!
Definitely worth checking out

I swear, this author does not know how to write like a teenager. It'd be less obvious if she wrote this in third person. "Womb to tomb"? Really? At least qualify it with "my mom used to say" or something, because I cannot fathom someone born after 1940 uttering that.

HGTV, Barney, "girl Friday," Axe body spray...this is a YA book. Who are these references for?

She doesn't describe things like a teenager, naming specific architecture styles. Why is she able to identify things built in the 60s? She doesn't say she's into architecture, it's strange she'd recognize styles from different eras.

Cecelia is remarkably obtuse for plot reasons.

Instalove, both romantic and platonic.

Her reason for beginning the plot (right on time at 30%) is pretty shallow.

People walk up to her and give her information, like NPCs.

I mean, it's a fine YA book. The writing is serviceable, the pacing's good, there's a lot of small town drama. I'd give it three stars except I predicted the ending, the entire ending, by chapter 3.