I knew Missing Clarissa was going to be a remarkable story.
A stunning YA thriller/mystery debut!
Ripley Jones, I can not wait to see what you give us the next time because I can assure you I'll read it!
Once I started I wasn't able to stop.
I was immediately drawn into this story.
Exciting, twisty, fascinating and engrossing read.
I found this to be fantastic and unique with great characterization.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

Wednesday Books,
Thank you for your generosity and gifting a copy of this approved eARC!

I loved so many things about this! From the quirky characters to the story line. Just, everything I adore about this genre.

It’s fast-paced and engaging. I love the mystery aspect as well. But I do think the character POVs and development even outweigh that.

This is a great follow up read for fans of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. I can’t wait for more from this author.

I would like to thank the publisher, Netgalley, and the author for the ARC of this book. I read an advanced copy of this book, so the final edition of the book might be slightly different. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

I always love throwing in a mystery/thriller book in between my fantasy books, as it brings a nice break from it all while still being really fun and entertaining to read! When I was approved for this book, I was honestly really excited, since it seemed right up my alley! I’d read a few podcast based mysteries before, and adored them, and was honestly so sure it would be the same here!

Unfortunately, that was far from the case. Right from the beginning, something about the writing and characters didn’t work for me. They felt so juvenile, in a way that set it apart negatively from other YA mysteries I’d read before. I know that with younger characters, more bad decisions, reckless ideas, and naivety is expected, but it almost felt absurd here. The worst character for me was Cam, and while I could relate to her on many levels, she was honestly just such a horrible person and friend. She never really had any care for others nor paid attention to how her actions would harm others, and she never really learns from her mistakes either. She consistently only cared about herself, and even after she caused more and more pain to her mother, friend, and others around her, she doesn’t really actually stop. At some point, it just also happens to work out in the favor of her loved ones, and all seems to be forgiven. Blair also felt really flat, and she really only seemed to have one driving force that wasn’t really fleshed out at all. It almost felt like she was a side character in her own story, that’s how underutilized she was.

The plot was also quite predictable, which is always really frustrating in these sorts of books. I was also just never fully swept away by the mystery, and I think from the set-up it already started falling flat for me. I never had a reason to really be invested in Cam and Blair solving the mystery, because I wasn’t invested in anyone involved (not even Clarissa, especially not Clarissa).

Overall, this book really wasn’t for me at all, and I’m so disappointed because I had really high hopes for it! (I did really like that we had a queer relationship in this book though!)

Missing Clarissa is young adult meets true crime podcast. Twenty years before the events of the book, Clarissa, a popular girl, goes missing, throwing her small town into turmoil. Now, best friends Blair and Cam are going to find out what happened to Clarissa for their journalism project. Podcasts are in! This will be fun! A joke, even! It doesn't take long for them to discover that people still mourn Clarissa and digging up dirt about her isn't the joke they wanted it to be. Hurt still lingers within the people Clarissa knew, but could one of them be her killer?

The meat and potatoes of Missing Clarissa is primarily predictable--the killer is who I immediately pegged and I didn't find the red herrings particularly convincing, which is one of the reasons this wasn't a five star read for me. I also found Sophie's incarceration policy beliefs shoehorned in and jarring, leaving me wondering what purpose those philosophical tangents were serving to the theme, which seemed mostly focused on the place dead girls serve in society's greater mindset.

That said, I did enjoy the characters, although Cam could be overmuch and her decisions toward the end did not seem entirely realistic to what the reader understands about her leading up to that point. I loved Blair and how she came into her own by the end.

Overall this is a nice little mystery, probably better suited to younger YA readers.

Blair and Cam are best friends and working on a journalism project about a girl who went missing 20 years ago. The 2 girls become local sleuths and are trying to uncover what they can about Clarissa, what happened to her, and also themselves. 

I wanted to like this book more than I did. Some things worked well and some were misses. 

What I liked...
1. The setting - I thought the small town vibe and politics were portrayed perfectly. It was authentic and helped enrich the plot. 
2. Some of the characters 
3. The actual writing was strong. I think this is another reason I was kind of bummed. 
4. The entire premise. I love a mixed medium delivery. 

What didn't work...
1. Our main characters are surface level, annoying, and quite unbelievable. They both have such low confidence and self-esteem, parts of the story were difficult to consume. I also wasn't invested in either of them.
2. It's way too predictable. I'm pleading with the publisher and author to change the cover because it's released to the masses. I knew the twist and what was going to happen, way too soon. 
3. The ending is rushed. 
4. The podcast is more of a toe dip rather than a significant immersion and I really missed that element. 

All in all, I did want to get to the end and enjoyed pieces of it.

Enjoyed the story! A podcast was a unique angle and the characters were interesting. Was able to figure out where the story was headed before the climax but still enjoyed reading as it played out!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books for providing me a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All the opinions and views expressed in this review are purely my own and not affiliated with any brand.

This was a very good book. It went along the lines of Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. So if you liked that book you will love this one! Ripley Jones wrote a compelling story that was easy to follow. Even better, I wasn’t able to figure out who the murderer was. The characters were all likable with the exception of one. But I think that character was unlikeable by design which makes me like Ripley Jones even more! I don’t usually read a story where the antagonists are meant to be unlikeable so its true skill to hit it on the nose.

Overall, this was a very well written book with an excellent story line. I would recommend this book.

“Missing Clarissa” by Ripley Jones is a gripping YA true-crime novel that delves deep into small-town secrets, how society romanticizes the pretty young girls who go missing, and the devastation unsolved mysteries leave behind on family, friends, and the generations that come after.

Blair and Cameron start a true-crime podcast for their journalism course in high school. Picking Clarissa Campbell started off as a joke. She was a popular cheerleader who attended their high school years ago before she inexplicably disappeared. What happened to her still remains a mystery. No one truly knows what happened to Clarissa. Did she run away from home and start a new life somewhere else? Or did something terrible happen to her?

Blair and Cameron think they can get to the bottom of what happened to Clarissa. Yet, as they dig deeper, they realize this story is bigger than they ever could've imagined. What started off as a joke soon becomes a story the two teens are invested in and will stop at nothing to solve. Cameron and Blaire are convinced something horrible happened to Clarissa and whatever that may be, whether she's dead or alive, deserves to come to the light. Even if it means prying into the past where the residents have long since buried their secrets and shining a light on those awful truths may have terrifying consequences.

Jones offers an intriguing insight into why stories of young, popular, pretty girls get blown up in the media that will make readers think about the way these tragic stories get romanticized and blown out of proportion. Despite being teenagers, Blair and Cameron raise a lot of brilliant points about the way pretty missing white women are portrayed by the media and the general public who have their own opinions and conspiracy theories about what happened.

Having the podcast tie into the story was a neat addition because it allowed other characters to have a voice in not just the story as a whole, but in Clarissa's story, too. Having these characters speak their part shows how much one person's disappearance can affect so many and how they all have some part in Clarissa's life and the last few days before she went missing. It did feel as though the story needed a few more podcasts for it to drive home the theme and style of the story.

Blair and Cameron were fun characters. Their personality shined throughout the novel as they delivered punch lines, wit, sarcasm, and a whole lot of teen angst in perfect harmony. There were a lot of laugh-out-loud moments as well as anxiety-inducing ones. They were definitely the best characters to follow along on this mystery and true crime podcast!

"Missing Clarissa" by Ripley Jones is an addictive, fast-paced read that is worth picking up on its expected publication date of March 7th, 2023. Add this to your reading lists because this is one heck of a true crime read that's about to be unleashed!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press (Wednesday Books) for inviting me to read a free e-arc of this novel and for the opportunity to share my honest opinion in this review.

Ripley Jones’s debut, Missing Clarissa, is a fun, fast-paced, young adult thriller. Blair and Cam, two teenage girls, decide to focus a journalism project on a local missing woman from twenty years ago. What starts out almost as a joke, becomes more serious as the girls dig deeper and interview people that were close to Clarissa. But they soon learn that digging into the past can be dangerous and whoever murdered Clarissa is still out there…and aware of their podcast.

I finished the book quickly because I could not put it down! The podcast causes much of the book to be dialogue, which adds to the fast pace of the novel. I loved the interviews with those who knew Clarissa and the mysteries surrounding her life and death. I do think Missing Clarissa would benefit from more description. When Blair and Cam take a little trip and they end up close to Forks, WA, I had no idea the setting was the PNW. More description of the environment would aid the overall atmosphere of the book. While I enjoyed the mystery, I wasn’t scared reading this book and felt the stakes could be a little higher.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading Missing Clarissa and look forward to more from Ripley Jones.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Missing Clarissa by Ripley Jones is a YA thriller/mystery with a twist that you won't see coming! The story revolves around Blair and Cameron, who are working on a true crime podcast. They decide to focus on the story of Clarissa, a popular cheerleader who disappeared in a rural town in Washington. Nobody knows what happened. Was she murdered? And by who? It's up to the two teens to find out the truth before the killer comes for them!

Here is a gripping excerpt from the Prologue:

"We looked away out of respect. We could give her that much. We could pretend we didn’t notice. We weren’t happy to see her fall. We liked her. She was nice.
Most of the time.
None of us saw Clarissa leave the party.
And none of us saw her again.
And, in our hearts, we know no one will. Because that’s one thing we’re sure of, though we’ll never say it out loud: Clarissa Campbell, wherever she went that night, is dead. And the last person who saw her is the person who killed her.
We don’t know who. Not for sure.
But we have a few ideas. And we know this much:
Everybody loves a dead girl."

Overall, Missing Clarissa is a YA thriller/mystery that will appeal to fans of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. One highlight of this book is the exciting climax. There was a reveal that I absolutely did not see coming. I was definitely surprised in a good way. Another highlight of thsi book is the LGBT representation, which was nice to see in a YA thriler. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of this genre, I highly recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in March!

I think what attracted me most to this book is the whole true crime podcast theme to it. It had an Only Murders in the Building meets Nancy Drew vibe. As a person who tends to enjoy the Mystery/Thriller meets YA genre these days, this book was right up my alley. I flew through it pretty fast and pretty much read it in under 24 hours.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC!

Blair and Cameron start a true crime podcast focusing on their local town's unsolved murder from 1999. The popular cheerleader, Clarissa, is presumed dead or murdered, after disappearing during a party and is never seen or heard from again. The girls discover small-town secrets and truths that were never meant to be revealed.

Being a lover of true crime books and podcasts is what initially interested me in Missing Clarissa. I think the YA community would really enjoy this book, given the age of the main characters. Some parts of the book fell flat for me personally, but overall I did enjoy the read.

⭐️.5 stars
I’m a sucker for a true crime book. Also a huge sucker for true crime podcasts. So I really thought this book was going to be it for me.
The story follows two high school best friends creating a podcast in order to solve the mystery of the disappearance of another high school girl from 20 years before.
Here are my thoughts.

1. I enjoyed the podcast set up. However, I do not think it was exercised very well, only getting drops of it at the end of a few chapters, and even then it was more of someone’s monologue rather than an actually conversation going on between hosts. I would have preferred that.

2. It being in third person, it got a little confusing as to who was thinking what and in whose mind we were ultimately in. I had to go back several times to confirm what was going on.

3. Blair’s shtick of “I suck at writing, I don’t want anyone to read my stuff” but then as soon as someone says she’s good, its “stop lying to me, I know you’re lying, how could you say that?” was may too much for me and ultimately just plain annoying.

4. There were a lot of good characters but unfortunately I felt no connection to any of them, so there’s definitely a need for more character development.

5. This was probably my biggest pet peeve through this book; these are 16-17 year old high school students who just seem to be allowed to go around asking people really personal questions about and ongoing investigation and these grown adults are just spitting out extremely personal and also very incriminating things, which was very unrealistic to me and took me out of the story a little.

Unfortunately this just wasn’t a good read for me but it may be for someone who is looking for a true crime novel that wouldn’t be so invested in the details.

*this ARC was available to me in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher.*

This book was absolutely wonderful. I could not put it down.

Two high school best friends, Cam and Blair, team up to create a true crime podcast for their journalism class.

While they have no real clue experience into podcasting, the girls begin researching the twenty year old disappearance of another highschooler, Clarissa Campbell in their hometown.

I loved the twists and turns of whodunnit, the character development among Cam and Blair, the amazing Irene, the supportive Mr. Park, and the thrill of trying to answer what happened.

I also loved Ripley Jones’ writing, phrasing, and overall word usage. An incredibly enjoyable read.

This book is everything I love about YA books. Both Cam and Blair are smart and nuanced, but not without flaws. Their friendship was one of my favorite aspects of the story. Throw in some humor, a solid plot and a strong supporting cast of characters, and you have a page-turner. However, I wish there would have been a little more to the conclusion; it felt like once the crime was solved, there was no background to wrap things up.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Blair and Cam start a podcast to try and solve a missing student who was never seen again. This happened years ago. The more they research, the more they cone up empty. This book kept me interested.

This is going to be this coming springs hottest book! It was so crazy good! I want to read more by this author as soon as I can! Highly recommend it!

I was hoping for more podcast in this story. It was almost a young adult book. While I liked the premise and storyline and the book did hold my attention, it was predictable and I feel like I had unanswered questions at the end. I would have liked the ending wrapped up a little nicer, but all in all not a bad read.

First I will say thanks to the publisher for allowing me to receive the ARC for my honest review.
Took me 4 days to read this book which is lengthy for me. I had a lot of issues with this book. I don’t think the synopsis really was accurate for the book. There were several “unlikable” characters as well as some great ones. I think this book touched on some topics that are very important for our society to really pay attention to and think about but gave no warning in the synopsis…that being said, many may not have read it. I see where the author was going but to continue to describe basically every Individual by there skin color/ethnicity seemed racist when they may not have had that intention but we will never know will we? I didn’t need to know the elderly women was white, the man was white, etc. The political views were strong and may not be the same as the reader which could turn a reader off and there was no mention of any of these views prior to starting the book. In my opinion the author portrayed Cam as an unlikable genius who was rude, loud and obnoxious without caring for others feelings the majority of the time yet she clearly showed many signs of being on the Autism spectrum and that would have been something to clearly explain and teach readers more about Autism vs thinking she’s just an unlikable person vs just not a nice/good person…which she really was. It also had LGBTQ throughout the book without mentioning this as though it is a “normal” day to day lifestyle. Again, readers should have been forewarned and this is a very important aspect of all of our day to day lives and many people shun this lifestyle as much if not more than color or ethnicity and should be openly discussed and hopefully accepted. Those who are not accepting of it would have been turned off by the book and remain ignorant to the LBTQ community unfortunately. We also need to take in the fact of adult (especially teachers) abusing students and getting away with it. In real life, this would not have been acceptable in 1999. Overall, the book had potential but didn’t live up to the hype and was disappointing and I wouldn’t recommend it. Would also be hesitant to read another book by this author again.

Clarissa went missing 20 years ago from the same town where Blair and Cameron live. I don’t wanna seem natural then for their final assignment in their journalism class they create a podcast looking into this event that people in their town of been talking about for 20 years. Unfortunately some of the people that were involved still live in the town they might not take too kindly to having old rooms reopened. Besides just being a murder mystery there’s also conversation around the types of relationships Avenue and what a healthy relationship looks like, as well as our main character Cameron who is Neuro divergent and while a scholar in school she definitely lacks some social graces. The relationship between Cameron and Blair is an important one and they navigate high school and their investigative process. This book was totally engaging I didn’t know what was going to happen next and I look forward to more from this author.