Arc Review: People Like Us By Dana Mele

People Like Us By Dana Mele

Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Contemporary, Lgbt
Pages: 384 pages
Release Date: February 27th 2018
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers

Plot: Kay Donovan may have skeletons in her closet, but the past is past, and she’s reinvented herself entirely. Now she’s a star soccer player whose group of gorgeous friends run their private school with effortless popularity and acerbic wit. But when a girl’s body is found in the lake, Kay’s carefully constructed life begins to topple.

The dead girl has left Kay a computer-coded scavenger hunt, which, as it unravels, begins to implicate suspect after suspect, until Kay herself is in the crosshairs of a murder investigation. But if Kay’s finally backed into a corner, she’ll do what it takes to survive. Because at Bates Academy, the truth is something you make…not something that happened.

My Thoughts: I was so excited last year when I picked this book up from B-Fest which is hosted by Barnes and Noble. On the back of this book it’s described as a mix between Pretty Little Liars and Thirteen Reasons Why. Both were books I read years ago but ended up enjoying so I was excited to dive into this one.

I got into this book right away. The action starts from the beginning of the book. Basically each year Kay and her friend’s have this tradition that they do. After the skeleton dance they find a dead body in the water. This has everyone on campus freaked out. Especially Kay because right after she discovers the body she gets sent an email from the girl that just died. The email says that Kay needs to help her with her final project or else a really bad secret from Kay’s past will be exposed.

So right from the start I was hooked on this book. I’m not sure what it is but I love books that basically you find out all these hidden secrets about people. There’s just really something really exciting about finding out this information people don’t what you to know. Plus I was dying to find out Kay’s secret too. So I thought Dana did excellent with the story.

Another part of the book I really enjoyed was the writing. I felt it was very descriptive. I could picture everything that was going on in the book. Everything played out in my head as I read along to the book. I feel that really adds to the book. It’s always nice to have a little movie playing along in your head as you read the book. I can see this being made into a movie.

The only thing I felt I didn’t like about this book was who did it. I feel it was previous obvious who was behind the murder. The whole time I read the book I kept saying to myself I bet it was this person. I just felt all signs ended up pointing to them. So that was a bit disappointing because I was hoping for more of a shock.

Overall I thought this was a fun book. I actually ended up reading this in one day. To me this was more on the cheesy side of thrillers. I have to say these types of thrillers are just a guilty pleasure of mine. I am very interested to see what Dana Mele comes up with next.

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People Like Us comes out today! I hope you guys end up checking it out.

Have you gotten a chance to read this one early? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If you haven’t will you be picking this one up?