Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - They'll Never Catch Us

📝 SYNOPSIS:
After a secret-filled summer apart, two sisters who share a passion for cross country running return to school, where a runner better than either of them has just transferred. When tragedy begalls her, the sisters are the top suspects.
👟🍂🏠🔎🚔🕺🏻💔👭👫

👍🏻 RECOMMENDATION:
💚 READ it at your leisure.

💬 FAVORITE QUOTES:
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👓 FORMAT:
🎧

📑 COMMENTS:
• Social commentary is woven into both the plot and dialogue naturally. Sisterhood and friendship are core themes, which give an uplifting feeling to dark subjects.

• *Most* of the plot twists are predictable. It takes a surprising amount of time before the disappearance occurs, but that gives the readers time to get to know the character better.

• The ending is beautiful and heart-wrenching (but hopeful), even if it doesn't make sense. Seriously, prepare to suspend your disbelief from around the climax onward.

• The protagonists' journeys are rewarding. Side characters are developed decently, and some experience growth too. There are occasions where the characters' motivations don't make sense, and I assume we are meant to classify it as teenage stupidity.

Content Warnings

aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

Pretty solid story, but I didn't LOVE it. I liked seeing how the sisters relationship grew and changed. I knew a bunch of people who were in crosscountry so that was pretty cool to read a story centered around a sport people don't really focus on. I think the very end was pretty satisfying. Wish Noah would've faced more consequences tho.

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haley49's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I really really enjoyed this book. Ya thrillers are very hit or miss and this hit the majority of its beats. I enjoyed the story of sisterhood and how women are often perceived a certain way and it impacts how they are treated by the men in power. I liked the brief inclusion on how this perception of women impacts races differently.

However, it did slip up in the end and the cause-effect did not seem to add up for certain characters and the ending was a but abrupt.

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crazycatlady472's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

booksofautumn's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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momanom's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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jillkaarlela's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I would say this book is truly “meh”. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t thrilling or unpredictable by any means. I wasn’t really on the edge of my seat and I was left waiting the entire time for it to get interesting, but it never did. There are just so many better YA mysteries out there.

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emily_mh's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This was such an improvement from They Wish They Were Us, which aside from problematic books I read, was probably the worst book of 2021 for me. They’ll Never Catch Us was more enjoyable, the message on misogyny and sexism shone through, and the conclusion was much better. I also liked how Goodman didn’t sanitise how teenagers act. I did have three major criticisms, though. The first is that Ellie and Stella’s voices were incredibly similar. I sometimes had to check halfway through a chapter whose perspective I was reading from. The second is that the inciting incident didn’t happen until 37% through the book, so it was quite a slow start. The third is spoilery:

essentially, I wished the cold cases played a bigger part in the mystery. Because they were already technically solved before the book began, I would have liked a more definitive statement that X person definitely did do Y but the police screwed it up, rather than X person probably did Y but the police screwed it up.

Regardless of these criticisms, this book has shown me that They Wish They Were Us was probably a one-off bad book, so I’m interested in what Goodman writes next.

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