3.5⭐️

This was a really fun, quick read. Definitely a YA thriller, so while it didn't hit as hard as I would have liked it to, I think that's just par for the course for the younger audience. I really enjoyed that there was a slight paranormal aspect, and I actually wished that was leaned into more.

While it was a really fun read, it was definitely predictable and felt like a discarded Pretty Little Liars plot. The writing was great, but I just personally would have liked it to have gone in a different direction, or to have felt a bit more original.

The audiobook in and of itself was enjoyable to listen to. I liked the narrators, and felt like they did a great job acting out the scenes. There were a couple different POVs and I was able to tell them apart well - which is sometimes an issue with multi-POV audiobooks. The pacing was good and the inflection was great.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for sending this audiobook for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

This was a fun, binge worthy YA novel that kept me wanting to listen any chance I got. I quite enjoyed the main characters and the story was really entertaining! I will recommend this book to friends!

This book I could not put down loved it from beginning to end. I would highly recommend!! This isn't like something ie read before.

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this audio book.

This kept me intrigued, and I thought the paranormal twist was kind of fun in this one! I enjoyed reading it.

The Thrashers by Julie Soto
3.5/5
Quick Summary:
A coming-of-age thriller following a group of teens as secrets and tensions bubble up in their small-town community, leading to unexpected consequences.
What I Liked:
Good pacing overall; it kept moving without any dull stretches.
Authentic-feeling teen interactions and friendships.
Had a couple twists that genuinely caught me off guard.

What Didn't Work for Me:

Characters felt a little flat at times, making it tough to fully connect.
Some parts felt rushed, especially towards the end.

Final Thoughts:
The Thrashers was a decent, quick thriller. Didn't blow me away, but it was a solid enough read. I'd recommend it if you're looking for something engaging but not too heavy.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy in exchange for my honest thoughts!

soo good! did a puzzle and listened to it all in a day. and the epilogue!!! ahhh
i’ve been in a really bad reading slump but this book really helped me a lot with it. Fast paced and left me wanting more!!

This book is AMAZING! I will be telling everyone about this book and recommending it as the NEW big YA Thriller. The writing style reminds me of Karen McManus, with a storyline as thrilling as "A Good Girls Guide to Murder" and "We Were Liars". This is my new HIGHLY recommended title!

I tried to get into this one and just couldn’t. I enjoy YA and thrillers, but this one just never got going for me. Sadly I DNF’

I was automatically intrigued by this book just by the blurb. It’s been referred to fans of Pretty Little Liars and 13 Reasons Why so sign me up!

Once I started listening to the audio, I was hooked immediately! It has everything I love in a YA thriller… drama, prom night, and toxic friendships! It also has supernatural element mixed in.

This is my first from Julie Soto, but now I definitely want to check out more of her work. I really enjoyed her writing style. It was very easy to listen to while listening to the audio.

Thank you so much to Wednesday Books for the early copy!

The Thrashers are seriously the ultimate high school squad rich glamorous and full of secrets Jodi trying to find her place in this crazy group had me rooting for her from the start The whole mystery around Emily’s death had me hooked like I just couldn’t stop turning pages The drama the suspense and those spooky vibes Yes please The characters are messy real and so addictive I basically lived for every juicy twist If you love highstakes friendships with a dark side this one is a total must read Five stars and all the heart eyes 💖📚✨

This was perhaps not what I hoped it would be, but credit to Soto for writing a well-structured YA mystery that doesn’t stoop to cheap bait and switch tactics, which are a common problem in YA mysteries.

This winds up being a far more serious read than many YA mysteries and that makes it kind of a downer to read. I’m also not certain that I agree with the conclusions the book came to about who is truly responsible for what happened.

That said, the structure here is both complex and high quality, and though it does turn out pretty much how you would guess, it keeps you captivated on the way there.

This has remarkably good character development for YA (especially a YA mystery), and I loved the way the characters individual issues and personality traits wove together to create this story.

This was such a good, well-constructed thriller! The cast of characters was so interesting, and Jodi was such a compelling character. I loved the slight paranormal/ghost angle, too!

The Thrashers is a suspenseful YA thriller about Jodi, an outsider caught up with a toxic elite group after a peer’s mysterious death. Julie Soto blends high school drama, bullying, class tension, and subtle supernatural elements to create an eerie, fast-paced story.

While the paranormal aspect adds intrigue, it feels a bit underdeveloped, and the ending is somewhat rushed. Overall, it’s a gripping read for fans of dark academia and psychological thrillers.

Take a deep dive into the social dynamics of the high school social elite group “The Thrashers” in this YA thriller. Jodi, Zack, Julian, Paige, and Lucy navigate their senior year after losing a classmate. The drama, suspense, heartbreak, and paranormal activity that accompanies them will keep you on the edge of your seat and questioning what the real truth is.

The narration for this audiobook was great. I thought the personalities really came through well. The storyline was really interesting and I loved the overall haunting vibes. While I did guess one piece of the puzzle in the first 25% of the book, I still had a great time with it and all of the lingering twists unfolding. High school kids are truly the worst and even the best ones are awful. This book made me so happy that high school is so far in the past. Thank you so much for my ALC!

JULIE SOTO, how did you make me read that entire book? Can’t be the characters, I didn’t like half of them. Can’t be the plot, it was like been there done that. SO WHAT IS IT? I was glued to the page. Her writing is just magnetizing somehow, while I wasn’t a fan of the characters I still could feel the emotion behind their actions.

Basically if she writes it, Ill read it, It’ll be a good time, because her writing just HITS.

I was hooked from the beginning…I enjoyed the main characters. The ending was unique and definitely unexpected. I would recommend this book to my YA reader friends!

I did a mix of audio and physical.
I loved this book. I think it opens up a lot of conversations and topics.
And on top of that was a really well written mystery.
It was such a fun but sad read!

A girl named Emily was found dead on her prom night. Seemed like a suicide… but was it? An elite friend group of 5 called the Thrashers got carried into this case, because she’s supposed to be in a limo with them. But they all swore they never invited her in the first place. That summer, not only they had to deal with police investigation, each of them also started to get weird creepy messages…. And more.

I was enthralled, felt like I didn’t want to put the book down until my curiosity was sated. It wouldn’t be this interesting if Emily was just an innocent victim but as the story went, the more I get a glimpse of her journal, the more I was afraid of her. Thanks to the voice narrator of Emily’s journal entries, she sounded so obsessed and borderline unhinged, it’s lowkey scary. Jodi’s narrator was good too, she managed to deliver depth & emotions really well.

Apparently there’s some supernatural aspects to the story, which add a different layer but I personally didn’t like it much? Like suddenly all the freak accidents could be linked to this supernatural force, not some sorts of elaborate planned revenge. But it’s okay. Also I didn’t see the romance coming but surprisingly it was a nice addition.

The ending was vile, though. I hope a sequel is guaranteed because leaving the story like that was criminal

3.5 stars, raised to a 4!

For Julie Soto's first published YA book, she hit it out of the park! She packed a punch with The Thrashers--it absolutely is a book that will make you keep saying "just one more chapter", and rightly so! The basis for this plot is a popular group of students (known as "The Thrashers") is suspect in a girl's suicide from prom night; despite this being a suicide, there's definitely foul play. From chapter one this story flies, and in no time at all you're sucked into the unraveling of the characters who make up the "Thrashers", who our victim was, and what secrets everyone are hiding.

I listened to the audiobook of The Thrashers, and loved the way that the story was read by two narrators--they both did a fantastic job of separating character voices and heightening the suspenseful plot with their reading. I found myself wanting to keep listening to the audiobook, despite needing to focus on other "life" things, but kept going because the suspense was too good!

I will say that the only thing I didn't like about this book is that the ending came together too quickly--it seemed like things got tied together a little too nicely. (Although the epilogue left some things up for interpretation!) However, this was a solid YA mystery, and I will be recommending it to my students who love A Good Girl's Guide to Murder.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for a digital copy of this book, and the chance to read and review it! All thoughts and opinions are my own.