3.75 🌟 I’m not usually a big thriller fan but Julie Soto’s name caught my eye and so here I am! This book is centered around high school hierarchies, bullying, and a mysterious suicide. The main character is caught between feeling both a sense of belonging and not belonging in the popular circle (The Thrashers) and finds herself being a central part of the mystery.

I found this book to have great pacing. I appreciated the character development within both Julian and Jodi. My main critique is that the ending felt a bit rushed and less impactful than I was expecting. The epilogue in particular seemed hasty and unnecessary. That being said, I still enjoyed this suspenseful ride and binged the majority of it in one day.

I think fans of 13 Reasons Why and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder would really enjoy this!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC, which I received in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a perfect binge-worthy YA thriller. It had me hooked from beginning to end. This book was filled to the brim with teenage angst and drama. The Thrashers - named so for their most popular member Zack Thrasher - consists of the rich and popular Julian, Lucy, Paige and Jodi which comes from a significantly different socio-economic background. She and Zack has been friends since childhood and he's THE boy according to her.

The Thrasher dealt with many different complex topics such as suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, bullying, assault, high school hierarchy and so much more. It was a perfect balance of mystery, paranormal and drama.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with this eARC.

I haven't been captivated by a YA thriller since A Good Girls Guide to Murder a few years ago. I am happy to say, I think this one was even better. I ate up every morsel of this story! I was so enthralled by the writing; I wanted to call out of work to finish it! Imagine a more sinister mean girls with secrets, despair and the unfortunate death of a classmate, pending charges and a little paranormal -- and you have The Thrashers. Wow, I wish I could read this again for the first time. I KNOW this is going to be a sensation already.

Every school has a cool clique. But this is one that is the focal point for a murder.
Everyone is in love with Zack Thrasher, and that doesn’t exclude the members of his own clique. Everyone wants to be part of his crew, and those who become close but don’t make it get “thrashed”— basically broken up with via a current member.
Someone who wanted in, died, and after a journal is found pointing the finger at the thrashers, they become the center of attention in a bad way.
I enjoyed this listen! Everyone in the popular crew was going through something and feeling like they don’t belong and/or had a different perception of themselves than how their friends actually saw them. When they were forced to spend time apart, that really put things into perspective. I thought it was very of its age and I enjoyed the mystery twist to it.

Thank you Macmillan Audio for the listen!

This was my first book by the author and I really enjoyed it. Her writing makes this hard to put down. It was thrilling and intriguing.

Although this is a Young Adult novel, the themes are a bit heavy. Emily Mills dies by suicide and popular friend group, The Thrashers, are speculated to have played a part. Jodi Dillon was one of the nice ones to Emily; even though she’s part of the Thrashers through a long friendship with infamous leader, Zach Thrasher.

Emily’s journal is found. Jodi dives in to figure out what lead to her unfortunate death. Strange things start happening…coincidence or possibly Emily seeking revenge?

This was a great read! It reminded me a bit of Mean Girls trying to be part of the popular crowd. I also received the advanced listening copy and enjoyed the audio!

Thank you NetGalley for the e-arc!

3.75 ⭐

So, initially I didn't care for this book that much. The beginning was kinda slow and the writing too abrupt and boring.

However, it was easy to read, and, by the time the pace picked up, it was so intriguing and I was freaked out by everything.

And the epilogue made me :o and left me wondering if there will be a sequel.......

I usually go more for romance or fantasy but when I saw Julie Soto I had to read. The twists in this book had me hooked and that ending! I received the ARC through NetGalley but I’m 100% preordering a physical copy!

Yes, I truly have loved everything Julie Soto has written and this is no exception! I'm convinced that Soto can write any genre and keep you captivated the entire way through. Her characters are so well developed and perfectly fit the genre. The twists in this book had me on the edge of my seat and gasping for MORE!

What a great story! Can't wait to read more by this author!
Thanks Netgalley and to the author for the ARC!

julie soto you are a master of every genre. please save some talent for the rest of the world. I went into this completely blind so I had no idea what to expect. I only knew I had to read it bc julie wrote it. I was hooked from the very first page to the very last.

I thought the pacing was great and the story never felt like it let up and there were so many points where I got legitimate chills. truly the best way to describe this book is “haunting”. some of the reveals I think will be predictable for most but some of them really took me by surprise. and that epilogue?!?! goosebumps.

also I know this is a thriller and not a romance but thank you julie for still giving us a little sprinkle. the tension was everything I wanted and just the right balance with the rest of the story.

thank you thank you thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for this digital arc.

I just finished this on my commute and I’m internally screaming JULIE SOTO WHATTTTT???? where is the rest of it? I’m gonna SOB??? WHATTTTTTT.

Phenomenal story telling. Wow. Oh God I’m so torn about this book, I’m actually gonna be sick. If there isn’t a sequel I might kill myself. Because whattttt???? oh Gods…

Thank you St. Martin’s Press/Wednesday book for the digital arc. I hope you all send me the physical one because I think this might be my entire personality for the foreseeable future 😭

Thank you to Netgalley for the arc. Ive never read anything by this author and Im glad this was my first one by her. I really enjoyed this story. It had a lot of twists and turns and was very well written and super enjoyable.

This book reminded me a little of Pretty Little Liars show. 5 besties who have been labeled “the Thrashers”are being questioned about the death of a schoolmate. It has been deemed a suicide, but the family and investigators believe that she was bullied by this friend group. Secrets, lies, haunting and other odd occurrences bring out the truth of who Emily was as a person.

I think this is classified as a YA book but I would maybe consider it more of a New Age. I think there were things in it that I may not want my younger child reading. Not that it bothers me as an adult but there is use of F*** a few times. There is also a séance and “talking to the dead”. I just think that maybe these are better suited for a little older age group.

It was a really fun story and definitely had me hooked! Thank you Wednesday Books and NetGalley for this ARC!

I unfortunately wasn’t the target audience for this. I disliked every character, and I accidentally went into this thinking it would be dark academia but it just felt like pointless plot and drama. It also felt younger than most YA do this day (yayy teens actually getting books made for them again). Due to that though, it falls flat for me.

The Thrashers , by Julie Soto
4.5/5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

TRIGGER WARNINGS-
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Violence, drinking, drugs, death, suicide, bullying, sexual assault

This was a really captivating read and kept you on your seat. I liked the sprinkle of supernatural in it, it wasn’t too overdone so it was believable. The characters were written well too. The ending was a real twist, I didn’t expect that in the epilogue.

What irks me was that Jodi put everybody else’s secrets on display, but she didn’t out Hannah‘s, who caused a lot of interference and harm, she could have saved Emily- she knew what Emily was doing and took part in it. This would have probably taken everything in a different course in someway?

I feel like Jodi never took responsibility for her own actions of how she treated Emily. If Jodi wanted to be her friend she should’ve just been her friend. She should have taken responsibility for how she acted and how she played Emily and played her friends. She was “two timing”, acting one way with Emily and then acting another with her friends; if she didn’t want to have Emily around she should have been more direct with her. Her desire to have Zach to herself and fit in with his friends, drove her to be mean as well.

Emily should’ve taken the hint or they should have come out and directly said something right from the beginning. Jodi’s just as responsible for how she treated Emily as the rest of them are. The only person who was direct, (a little more harsh than needed…???), is facing jail. No one saw how Emily’s actions were invasive and such to them? I feel like if Emily acted like that with other people they would have treated her the same as the Thrasher’s did, they wouldn’t tolerate it but the Thrasher’s were the only ones that included her for whatever reason and she graded on them and wore them down. So they were the targets to pin Emily’s death on.

They went about disassociating with Emily the wrong way. Maybe reaching out for help would have been better. The counsellor definitely should have said something knowing how obsessive Emily was with them/Jodi.

Also how come nobody ever called Emily’s behaviour out? Maybe because they didn’t want to speak ill of the dead? It was never publicly outed that Emily‘s treatment of people- too direct, blunt, intrusive, obsessive, how she borderline harassed people, was in a way what caused her to have no friends or for people to dislike her and leave once they got to know how she was. I think the friend group tolerated her as much as they could, which was nice, but it gave mixed signals. I feel like nobody wanted to speak on it because you don’t speak ill of the dead.

I feel like Emily’s death wasn’t exactly from bullying; her own actions had consequences. I mean, she was damned and determined to fit into a friend group whether they wanted her there or not. You don’t have to be friends with everyone and not everyone needs to like you. Then she became obsessive just like with her other friend Vanessa. I don’t think they should have treated her the way they did and played her like that and pretended they liked her, they should’ve been honest from the start. It could’ve avoided everything.

Also her parents knew how she was so why didn’t they get her help? Julian was honest with her, but everybody else was wishy-washy, like including her and then talking shit behind her back. Zach played on her feelings and used that to fuel his ego, and Jodi was just too chickenshit to say anything. That didn’t help with sending mixed messages to her. For whatever reason Page and Lucy just followed suit.

Also, it would have been nice to flush out Jodi and Julian‘s relationship especially after learning what we learned in the epilogue it makes you wonder if it was Julian‘s actions or possibly Emily‘s…?

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, for
giving me an E-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was such a good read!! I’ve been a fan of Julie’s for awhile now and I never doubted that I would enjoy Thrashers but I was surprised at how much I loved it!

I have enjoyed Julie Soto’s previous work, but I had an absolute blast with this book. It had all of the vibes I was looking for: high school, mystery, paranormal, and drama. A lot of plot twists and turns which were really fun. It reminded me a lot of Heathers and Reality Bites vibes. I only wish that I would have saved this read for October because it would have been perfect.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press/Wednesday Books for the digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Loved this book! Everything worked really well together between the high school cliques and ghost vibes. I loved all the different characters. Story kept me hooked throughout. It was hard to put down!

When I sat down to start this, I had no clue I’d be glued to those pages and utterly consumed by this story. I blinked, it was mid afternoon, and I was utterly shook, gasping, and cackling at that epilogue! I loved it!

I’m always so fascinated by toxic high school dynamics and the precarious intricacies of relationships at that age. It felt like an interesting mix of books and movies I loved when I was younger. The characters and their group dynamic vs. their individual relationships gripped me. The slow reveal of each person's interactions with Emily enthralled me, and the lean into the paranormal was the icing on the cake! I devoured it in a single sitting.

If you enjoyed books like 13 Reasons Why, Pretty Little Liars, Before I Fall, you will want to add this to your TBR.

Thank you to the author, St.Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books, and NetGalley for the eARC.

All opinions are my own.

This was so bingeable. While the beginning was a bit slow, it did speed up and was amazing. The epilogue had me spiraling. Very thrilling read.