I loved Missing Clarissa, and was thrilled to read another book featuring best friends and podcasters Cam and Blair.

This book has such an interesting premise - is the girl who returned really the missing Lola? Only her sister seems to think she's a fraud - but could Mattie be wrong? The mystery is intriguing, the pacing is good. This is a solid follow-up to Missing Clarissa - not quite as good as the first book, but I still enjoyed it.

I honestly wasn’t too blown away by this audiobook. I wanted a little more substance to the story and a lot of questions were left unanswered

This was an entertaining book but it didn't stand out to me as unique or one I would remember. The narrator did a fabulous job of brining this book to life. I think I would recommend it for younger YA/middle grade readers!

Yes, this is marketed as YA but where I was entranced by the first book in this series, "The Other Lola" was a bit young/immature for my taste. I never fully got swept away into the story. I still love the podcast format and the cover, but I lost interest in the plot.

The Other Lola continues with Cam and Blair playing detective again, and although they are high school seniors this time, their characters don’t seem to have grown up at all since the last book. This sequel to Missing Clarissa had me wondering if the author had different editors for each book. The inconsistencies between the two books were hard to get over, having read them back to back. That being said, this was a decent mystery. Since their last case was solved, Blair has been approached by a writer in New York City who would like to publish the next case that Blair works on. Additionally, both Cam and Blair have been asked to look into the disappearance and reappearance of another teen. Lola went missing five years ago and has mysteriously reappeared. Mattie (they/them), Lola’s younger sibling, is convinced that the girl who returned is not Lola and wants to get the truth, so they appeal to Cam and Blair to find out what really happened. Both Cam and Blair are annoying characters, even more so in this book than the first, but if you can get past that, the mystery has enough twists to keep you guessing at the ending. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

While I really flew through Missing Clarissa, this one just sort of missed the mark for me a bit. I liked how we pretty much picked right up from the last book and got into a new "case" if you will. I found the mystery to not be really that truly mysterious, however, and then it just turned sad. The story was truly a very slowwww burn. I thought that the inclusion of characters we met in the first book to be fun, and appreciated the new characters, it was just a bit much to keep track of everybody at time. I also found this edition to be a bit more slow than Missing Clarissa. Truly, Brad is the underrated star for me. I love his relationship with Cam and Irene. I feel like the narrator really brought the story to life, though and it made the experience so much more enjoyable. While I did enjoy it, I just think it had much more potential and fell a bit flat for me. I do think that if there are book in this series in the future I will still read them, though.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced audio listening copy of this book. All opinions within this review are my own.

I don't think I've enjoyed a YA mystery/suspense this much since A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. I found this one to be more on the domestic suspense side and from what I understand, book 1 was really more of a mystery with a podcast element. I definitely need to circle back and read it! That being said, I managed to follow the story perfectly fine even if I hadn't read book 1.

I love Blair and Cam. I found both their friendship and characters to be realistic and well developed for a YA read. This one started a little slow but definitely picked up! If you love a good YA suspense with some great friendships and LGBTQIA+ and non-binary representation, then pick this one up!

CW: child abuse, drug use, homophobia, adult/minor relationship, panic attacks/disorders, religious bigotry, bullying, deadnaming.

I went between the physical and audiobook for this one! The narration was great and brought the characters to life!

A big thank you to Wednesday Books for the early copy and to Macmillan audio and NetGalley for the ALC. All opinions are my own.

I thought this follow up to Missing Clarissa really missed the mark. I only finished it because I wanted to find out what happened but I think this book just wasn’t for me.

The Other Lola by Ripley Jones was a fascinating listen. I looked forward to getting in my car to see how the story continued. Sadly, parts of the book were hard to follow, but overall, it was entertaining.

I wanted to like this one as much as I adored Missing Clarissa but it wasn’t it for me! I think I was confused for a while maybe because it’s been a year since Missing Clarissa but I also just thought the plot was a bit weird. I love clues and suspects and high school small town murders and true crime podcasts and everything so I loved Missing Clarissa but I just don’t buy someone coming back to their family and people not knowing whether it was their daughter who went missing or not.

A bit of a slow start, but once it picked up, I was hooked. A great story, with unexpected twists surrounded with messy relationships and working through feelings.

This was an advanced listening copy. I didn’t realize there was a first one in this interconnected kind of series, and I recommend reading that first. This one was so interesting and unique and the ending was so beautiful, i’m still thinking about it now!

Lola returns home after missing for 5 years, but Mattie suspects it's not really her sister. Mattie seeks help from Cam and Blair, who gained fame from solving a previous missing person case (Missing Clarissa is Book 1). Despite their reluctance, they agree to assist Mattie. As they investigate, secrets emerge, raising the stakes. The audiobook narration by Inés Del Castillo's narration is great and adds so much extra depth and charm to the story. Inés does a great job portraying the characters and really makes it feel like you're in the room with them at times. However, the pacing and focus of the actual story felt lacking, with minimal development of Lola's character. A lot of the time Lola's character really felt like a background character and we didn't really get a solid foundation on WHAT was actually going on with her. Despite this, the final chapters are gripping. Overall, it's an engaging read for young adults.

Special thanks to Macmillan Audio, Ripley Jones, and NetGalley for the opportunity to review the book.

I enjoyed Missing Clarissa and was looking forward to this one.

The mains are the same, with a new "mystery" to solve. This one seemed to progress much slower than Clarissa, and seemed a bit more YA.

I liked that they included some more diverse characters.

This was a good read, but I really just liked the first more. I did enjoy the narration on the audio.

Many thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press for an ARC and MacMillan Audio for an ALC in exchange for my honest review.

WOAH!! This was phenomenal work! I’ve never listened to a audiobook with so many believable twists!! Get the book or audiobook NOW! Very relatable characters! Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this book in exchange for an honest review!

It’s been months since Blair and Cam solved the mystery of a girl’s disappearance in their hometown and the two are still reeling from the fallout, determined this will be their last endeavour both in podcasting and sleuthing. Then Mattie Brosillard, a freshman at their school, approaches them, asking for help with another mystery. Her sister, Lola, who disappeared five years ago, has suddenly reappeared…except Mattie is convinced she isn’t their sister despite everyone else believing she is. Blair has been offered a book deal and thinks this could be the perfect story. Cam, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with it. She has an early acceptance from MIT and has no desire to repeat all the trauma incurred in the hunt for Clarissa. Still, Blair promises there will be no podcast and Cam reluctantly agrees, worried that, if she doesn’t help, Blair will go ahead on her own despite any possible danger.

The Other Lola is the sequel to Ripley Jones’ entertaining YA thriller, Missing Clarissa, and I enjoyed it a lot. This story is more character driven and is a bit slower as more time is spent fleshing out the characters. Welearn more about Cam and Blair’s backgrounds and Mattie, pronouns they/them, is a very sympathetic character. In many ways, this seemed more like a coming-of-age story than a thriller with themes of change, identity, loss, and family. But don’t get me wrong, the mystery is intriguing and kept me guessing throughout.

I listened to the audiobook which was beautifully narrated by Ines del Castillo.

Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook in exchange for an honest review

The Other Lola brings us back to Cam and Blair from the author's "Missing Clarissa". After what happened with the podcast and the trouble they found themselves in, the girls decided they needed to stay away from that kind of stuff in the future. But when a girl comes to them and says that her sister Lola disappeared five years ago and suddenly returned, they're intrigued. Even more so when the girl says she doesn't believe it's really her sister. Nobody believes her, but she wants Cam and Blair to help her find the truth.

All the original players are back - the teachers, Cam, Blair, Irene, Sophie... It was a great sequel. It could also be used as a stand-alone story. Just know that it will ruin the first book. However, the plot of this one is fully separate, as Missing Clarissa fully wrapped itself up.

I'd recommend this for anyone who enjoyed the first book in the series. I'd be willing to read another one, but I'm not sure if there's really a way to make it work.

Why did I request this book? I didn't realize I didn't like the first book. I had forgotten. It came back instantly. Shallow characters. Slightly better writing, but still like reading one of my student's work. The two don't make much growth from their experiences in the last book. Nobody has any depth and the plot is pretty predictable. I will be more careful next time.

The Other Lola is a follow-up to the 2023-release, Missing Clarissa. These are YA-Mystery stories following two main characters: Blair and Cam. In Missing Clarissa, Cam and Blair investigate the disappearance of popular cheerleader, Clarissa Campbell, who went missing from their small town of Oreville, Washington, 20-years before. It starts as a project for their high school Journalism class and ends up being a viral podcast, as well as a life-endangering pursuit of amateur sleuthing.

At the end of the Clarissa case, Cam and Blair had sudden fame, but with it, a lot of unwanted attention. They vowed to never do it again; to stick their noses in where they don't belong, to make a podcast, none of it. Then they meet Mattie, a Freshman at their high school. Mattie shows up on the literal doorstep, begging for the girls' help with an unsettling family situation.

Mattie's sister, Lola, disappeared mysteriously five years ago. The thing is, Lola has returned. She's not talking about where she has been all these years, and Mattie is convinced she's an imposter, but no one else believes Mattie; not her mother, not her brother, Luke, no one. Blair and Cam, Blair in particular, are moved by Mattie's story. They seem so passionate about it. It couldn't hurt to help them out, could it? Look into it a little...

Before they know it, the two are neck deep in another dangerous investigation, but with secrets between them, how will they ever be able to get to the bottom of someone else's twisted family drama?

I was intrigued by this initially, and did enjoy following Cam and Blair during the investigation. For me, it wasn't quite as compelling as the first book, but yeah, still a solid story. The audiobook has great narration and I would recommend that format. I was able to fly through this story and I did find that the narrator helped to keep me engaged, even when I was rolling my eyes a little bit.

I felt like, and I could be misremembering, but for me, personal issues for Blair and Cam took much more of a front seat in this one than the first book. In a way, this almost felt like a straight YA Contemporary story, with a slight mystery happening in the background. By this I mean, the mystery almost took a back seat to Cam and Blair's interpersonal dramas. With this being said though, I do really enjoy both Cam and Blair as characters and I love their friendship.

So, it's not like I was disappointed with those aspects of the story, it just seemed more difficult to get as invested in the mystery surrounding Lola because of it.

Additionally, there were things at the end that I found unsatisfying; that just didn't make sense. I am mainly referring to the events following the big reveal, so sadly, I can't comment more without giving the ending away. Overall though, I still enjoyed Cam and Blair, their friendship and the idea of two smart high school girls taking on the world and solving mysteries. That's a fun concept, which is fairly well executed within these stories.

There are hints that there could be more with these characters in the future. I would be interested in picking up future books, if that turns out to be the case. Thank you to the publisher, Wednesday Books and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with a copy to read and review.

Thank you Netgalley & Macmillan Audio for an ALC of The Other Lola by Ripley Jones. I was excited to see a follow-up to Missing Clarissa, following teen podcasters Blair & Cam. This one is definitely a YA novel but with serious themes throughout. Loved the LGBTQA+ and non-binary representation in this one - It's well done by Jones!

Cam & Blair are still reeling from the fallout of their podcast re: Missing Clarissa when Mattie approaches them, begging for help. Her sister Lola disappeared mysteriously 5 years ago and is now back - But Mattie is convinced that this Lola, is not her sister.

Great narration on this one, easy to binge!