Book Review: The Thrashers by Julie Soto
Stars: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This review may contain minor spoilers.

Julie Soto’s YA thriller follows a group of 5 friends, dubbed The Thrashers, after the death of their classmate Emily on Prom night. Their entire group is under investigation for potential involvement in Emily's death, causing tension with other students and even between each other. This story includes paranormal intrigue, found family, enemies to allies, and whodunnit mystery. Please check the trigger warnings prior to diving in.

This reader doesn't typically gravitate toward thrillers, but when Julie Soto released this shortly after I devoured her other novels, I had to give it a try. And I'm so glad I did. Each character in the story was not what you expected, including Jodi who is the main POV. The dimension and depth she gave each had me completely invested and on my toes to learn the next reveal in the story. I was questioning until the last page whether the paranormal aspects were real or a manipulation.

The friendships are the primary driving force for this story, with so many relatable moments that were beautiful and heart-breaking. Jodi learned throughout this story what each friend's character was and who she wanted in her life. There is a romance subplot that I was here for 100%. The pining and jealousy and protectiveness and and and…it's everything I want to read with a high school romance like this one.

I really enjoyed this story, and the more I think back on it the higher I rate it. Would eat it up if there was a book 2, but it honestly doesn't need it. I loved how the story ended with the epilogue!?!

Thanks NetGalley & St. Martin's Press | Wednesday Books for the eARC!

This is surprisingly Young Adult but doesn't read or feel that way with the deep topics discussed like death. This reminds me of a better Pretty little Liars with a side of Mean girls energy. The side characters reminded of the modern-day Heathers.
The pacing was easy to read for young reader. The plot: was very tiwsty and i didn't expect a lot of things.
The writing was so insightful and gave the characters so much depth.

Perfect if you love:
How did you die?
Why did you die?
"Scary AF" Moments.
Nail biting

Thank you so much to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for this arc!

I don’t read a lot of YA these days, nor do I usually care for thrillers, but I took a chance because I’ve loved everything I’ve read from Julie so far and once again she knocked it out of the park. She just has that *it* factor that translates to excellent and captivating writing, regardless of the genre.

Wow. Just wow. I was hooked the entire time I was reading this. I found the paranormal elements compelling, and the flawed nature of each character had me questioning who to root for the entire time. It was a raw, emotional story that not only touched on important mental health topics but also the toxicity of relationships and the importance of prioritizing your wellbeing in a friendship. I really really enjoyed this book!

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for the digital advanced copy!

✨ The Vibes ✨
Mean Girls with a supernatural twist

📖 Read if…
✨ Pretty Little Liars is your favorite teen drama
✨ You don’t mind thrillers that veer into the supernatural
✨ You devoured The Clique series in your teens

Julie Soto truly amazes me because HOW can someone write so well across so many genres???

The Thrashers is Soto’s YA debut, and boy does it deliver. The book follows a group of popular and wealthy teens that may have contributed to a fellow student's death. As the police close in on the group, Jodi starts to rethink everything she knows about herself and her friends.

In a way, this feels like Soto’s take on Pretty Little Liars (with a dash of The Clique). There’s a lot of bullying and questionable behavior, which is admittedly tough to read at times, but the book was tense and spooky to the max — exactly the kind of thriller I love diving into during the summer months. I also appreciated the way Soto incorporated supernatural elements. Those can sometimes take me out of a story, but I thought they actually really elevated the emotional moments of the story.

There’s a little bit of romance sprinkled in as well, and that ending!! It was the perfect way to wrap up the story and left me wondering if we just might get a sequel one day…

Julie Soto is for sure an auto-read author for me and I’m eagerly awaiting her romantasy debut later this year.

The Thrashers is out now. Thanks to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Trashers is Julie Soto’s ya debut and this is a mystery story with Thirteen Reasons Why and A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder vibes.
 
The story is set at the New Helvetia High and The Thrashers are a group of friends who are very elite and elusive. The whole concept was so intriguing, and it’s so character focused and with each page you learn more about the people and it takes you von such a ride. The group consists of Julian, Lucy, Paige, Zack, and Jodi. And while all of them come from a wealthy background, Jodi is a bit of an outsider and a character that is more down to earth. She is best friends with Zack and their friendship was so different and it was interesting to follow along.
 
Of course, there’s lots of secrets and drama and everything changes when Emily dies. She desperately wanted to be part of the Thrashers but never got in and that gives you a whole new perspective on them. At the same time, you’re trying to figure out what happened with Emily and that took quite some twists and turns, and I liked how the story illustrates some very important topics. I was so into the theories and plot and time flew away while reading this book. The conclusion was very sufficient, and I was happy with the end.
 
If you’re looking for a thrilling and captivating ya book, definitely check out The Thrashers. 4 stars.
 
(Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an arc.)

“The Thrashers” by Julie Soto had me hooked from the beginning just like her other books! I couldn’t put this YA book down! It was a good story about kids in high school. Secrets are always around!

The Thrashers by Julie Soto is so bingeworthy!! Although it is technically dubbed YA, it is one roller coaster ride you don't want to miss! Highly addictive and I will be recommending to everyone!!
Thank you to NetGalley, the author, & the publisher for an ARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review

I was really interested in the premise of this one but the execution didn't do it for me at all.
The whole topic of suicide was not handled with care. The story made you feel like you should be rooting for the bullies when they were horrible to Emily and horrible to each other.
Emily was made out to be a weird, stalker, and it almost felt like they wanted you to believe she deserved her fate.
The "mystery" around it all was anti-climactic and left me disappointed and underwhelmed.
The "paranormal" elements lended toward the continuation of the story but were never rationally explained.
The bully romance? Miss me with that.
The epilogue???? I wish I hadn't read it because what was that?

The best YA thriller I’ve read in forever! This was impossible to put down- it had the perfect amount of spooky tension to keep the reader engaged. The character development was great, and the epilogue left me in shock. I love when an ARC leaves me feeling this way!

What a fun read! It’s fast paced, lots of interesting twists, and just full of messy drama. Love it!!

Things I Liked:
-I appreciated the realistic view of high school, cliques, the harshness of people doing whatever to fit in, peer pressure, the impact of money, the fear of falling out of the "in" crowd, & how quickly everything can change.
-Even though I hate that Zach got off on a technicality, I appreciate that it depicts the injustice nature of the system & how this happens all the time.
-I liked reading this story from Jodi's perspective. She seemed very genuine & I liked her honesty even about her own shortcomings/failures.
-The ending is the type I like from thrillers...it wraps this story up in a way that leaves me wanting to know more about the aftermath.

Things That Didn't Sit Quite Right With Me:
-I wish that readers had gotten to see more about how things turned out in the aftermath (like between Jodi & her father, did Jodi's mother die by suicide?, do Jodi & Zach start friends [I hope not], do the Thrashers go their separate ways after high school, does Emily haunt Julian forever?, etc.).

Overall, I gave it 4 stars.

Is there anything that Julie Soto can't do?? What a phenomenal YA thriller debut!!

I loved this book so much! I really wasn't sure what I was getting myself into with this one, but I was truly hooked from the very first page. This book follows a truly dynamic group of teens, the thrashers, and the rollercoaster that occurs when their group is being more closely examined following the death of on of their classmates who had wanted so desperately to be closer to them. This was a true page turner, you were constantly wanting to know what would happen next. Even when you thought you had answers, you were still left wondering. Even the epilogue left me wondering and waiting for Soto to revisit this world (please Julie, I am begging!!!).

If you love a good twisty experience that has red herrings, secrets, what occasionally feels like an unreliable narrator, and even some unexplainable events? Guess what, I've found your next read!

This is a YA mystery about a group of popular teens who come under fire when it turns out that the girl who killed herself was bullied by them. Or, rather, had been Thrashed -- so named for when a newcomer tries to ingratiate themselves into the Thrashers and then is, unceremoniously, dropped. Things escalate as we see the Thrashers through Jodie's eyes; she who never quite fit in, wasn't in the same socio-economic class, but was still part of the group, suddenly wonder : was it true? And, worse : as accusations started to heat up for the others, but not her, would she be the next one Thrashed?

Right out the gate I want to say : I want a sequel. I thought I knew what I was in for when everything was all done and wrapped up -- which is to say, I wanted more because I wanted to live through another LoVe-esque pairing (iykyk) -- but then Soto hit us with the epilogue and the want became a need. For the same reason and yet.. more reasons, too.

Which isn't to say this was perfect. Jodie, for all her dislike if not outright denial about the act of Thrashing, sure leaned into wanting it when a certain character was introduced to the group. Zack, the inspiration for the group's name, was.. bafflingly naive and never quite had the character development to back it up (maybe this was the point?). And in hindsight I question the choices made for Jodie's father. Finally, the detective character, who we thankfully didn't see much of, felt a little thinly characterised, too. And her behaviour was somewhat unnecessary.

And yet.. I still want that sequel. Julian was such a nostalgic character for me, and likely for all other Veronica Mars lovers out there. And even if the mystery, and some of those unexpected events, hit me out of left field.. I was still into it. Even though there was maybe one too many things happening here, I was glued to these pages. This was my first Soto but definitely won't be my last.

3.5 stars

If you read the premise for The Thrashers, it appears to be a depressing story of high school bullying and it driving someone to suicide. However, this book consistently surprised me. It ended up being a compelling story about friendship and how much of ourselves we allow to show to those close to us. The action doesn’t stop in this novel. It was definitely a page turner! The ending went in a direction I didn’t expect. But what glued this story together was Jodi, our main protagonist. Her voice in the book drew me in, and I liked that she was a nuanced character. She was overall good but hardly blameless. I liked how the story depicted high school cliques. How teenagers will mold themselves to fit in while seeking to expel anyone who they view doesn’t belong. This dynamic hardly ends after high school. And it’s not a new phenomenon born out of smartphones. It predates it. I like how technology is in the mix but hardly the instigator of the cruelty teenagers can show. The Thrashers is YA but I think even adults might garner much insight from it.

Thanks to the publisher for the gifted copy.

This was so good. I loved the plot and characters. It was paced perfectly. I didn't wanna put it down and was on the edge of my seat

I'm a little late in posting this review but a big thank you to St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books, and NetGalley for the ARC.
Have you ever felt like you just don't fit in? Meet The Thrashers – the clique everyone at school knows, whispers about, and secretly wishes they could join.
This book delivered everything you'd expect from a YA thriller. It's packed with intrigue, eerie hauntings, and twists that kept me guessing at every turn. Julie has proven she can shine in any genre, creating a gripping, suspenseful atmosphere that fans of One of Us Is Lying and 13 Reasons Why will appreciate.

For a full list of content warnings, please check out Julie's website.

This was my first Julie Soto book. I’ve not well-versed in YA thrillers having only read 2 in the last year, but this didn’t grip me and have me questioning everything and everyone. I didn’t get any heart palpitations. It was a pretty straight forward story to me. I enjoy finding out the plot twist and having call backs to details from earlier in the book and be like “omgggg!! That’s what that was!!” I didn’t really get that with The Thrashers. I still enjoyed reading the book.

Supposedly, there might be a sequel and if my bb is in it, I’m still going to read it.

That epilogue got me effed up. I don’t need that in my life.

Thank you Netgalley and Wednesday Books for the ARC!

The thrashers follows Jodie and her 4 friends after someone they knew unalived themselves. All 5 of them become entangled in what happened with Emily, the police, and a haunting? I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this book.

Having devoured Julie Soto's romance Not Another Love Song, I was intrigued but slightly hesitant to dive into her YA debut. While I'm not typically a YA reader, the buzz around this book was undeniable, and I'm so glad I took the plunge!

Soto masterfully crafts a compelling narrative around Jodi, a high school junior navigating the complex social dynamics of "The Thrashers," a clique orbiting the seemingly perfect Zack Thrasher. Jodi's long-standing crush on Zack is complicated by the lingering shadow of Emily's death the previous year—a girl who desperately craved their acceptance. Whispers and rumors of the Thrashers' potential involvement create an undercurrent of unease that soon escalates into something truly bizarre.

The twists and turns in this book kept me absolutely hooked! Soto brilliantly captures the tumultuous landscape of high school, where insecurities run rampant and self-discovery feels like navigating a minefield. I particularly appreciated how she built a palpable sense of unease and confusion as the investigation into Emily's death intensifies, allowing me to viscerally connect with Jodi's growing sense of disorientation. While some elements of the high school hierarchy felt familiar, they served the story perfectly, and I found myself completely engrossed.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing an advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review.