if i could rewrite the blurb, it would probably go something like "jess joins a youtube reality show to bring awareness to her mother's killer who is still at large, gives some very weak on air taunts to the killer, and then all the clues conveniently fall into her lap leading to the killer's arrest." i've got a lot of things to say about this book, so strap in.

the writing here was just ... not good. writing doesn't have to be sophisticated to be good, but this was just overly simple and the definition of telling instead of showing. it definitely could've used another few passes from an editor bc it was so much longer than it needed to be so the pace absolutely dragged. it was told in first pov and i often forgot that jess was a character because of how bland she was. how are you the main character and still the least memorable person in the story? everything just felt like "i feel scared of the magpie man. i feel sad seeing my dad like this." and it all just felt hollow. i know the short chapters were a deliberate choice, but between a meandering/inconsequential plot and poor writing, the length of the chapters just kept me from ever feeling close to any character. i don't know how else to describe the writing other than like, montage writing? it felt like we were glossing over the entire book, and any direct dialogue was just a break between more montages of jess going to school or
thinking of ways to taunt the killer online or looking at photos of her mom.

i'm so glad that the author cited AGGGTM as an inspiration, because otherwise i would've felt bad comparing this book to it. this book is like AGGGTM's ugly step sister. it lacks everything a thriller needs: no compelling mystery, no suspicious characters, no clever clues, and it was just plain boring. every potentially interesting red herring was immediately cleared up; i was very interested in sonia and the mystery of her, only come to find she's nothing more than a strawman to criticise the way ppl follow social media virality. the threats were interesting, until it's immediately revealed that it was just michael trying to drum up views. none of these clues were drawn out long enough to make enough of an impact. the threats turned out to only be michael, and the newspapers were mr collins, both of whom were innocent. these were the only concrete pieces of evidence that jess was ever in any danger. this means that basically the only threats the killer himself truly made were the note in the newspaper and the one instagram live comment. needless to say, the stakes were not high. not once did i ever think jess was truly in danger, nor did it ever seem like this was an urgent matter beyond the end date of the reality tv competition.

this book pitches itself as a serial killer story told thru a social media lens, and in the words of tyler the creator: so that was a fucking lie. the reality tv show competition plot stops being relevant at less than 50% of the way thru, and even in the first half, it doesn't? do anything? the show only films jess for FOUR DAYS. one monday per week for a month, during which they just follow jess around her daily
life; the interesting stuff doesn't even happen on most of the mondays, and we're still expected to believe this is getting jess all the viewers. and then social media stops even being part of the plot beyond lines like "people took out their phones to film" or "people would come up to me in the hallways to tell me they liked the show", which was just trite and a weak attempt to keep the social media stuff going. even ignoring this, jess spends most of her time on camera lying bc she doesn't want the magpie man to see what evidence she's collected. she tries to act normal so it ends up just being ... a show following a girl going to school. the only way this book uses social media is as a vehicle for other people to deliver jess information. and maybe i'm a grumpy asshole and that's the point! maybe if we all came together through social media we could accomplish more! that's a lovely sentiment, i just dont think it was executed effectively here.

probably the most heinous crime is the fact that this book just! does not! have! a! plot! yes i could tell you what events happened but that's all they are; there was no cohesive mystery, it just felt like reading a laundry list of things that happened. it just meanders until jess stumbles onto something useful. if it hadn't been for ross reaching out, she would never have met the other victims' families. if clara hadn't reached out to jess first, they NEVER would've caught elliot. everything else was pure luck. jess didn't even go to clara's house bc she suspected elliot, it was literally coincidence that she happened to find evidence that it was elliot. (don't even get me started on the "evidence" in this book, it was all circumstantial and would never hold up in court unless elliot had a deeply incompetent lawyer.) jess was a passive player in this whole book, which is why her final statement that "i caught the magpie man" feels so deeply unearned and laughable.

the explanation for the magpie man's murders was incredibly scooby-doo. congrats, you just unmasked the bogeyman and he was ... a bad guy. no nuance or grey area, just straight up a dude who sucked. jess's mom just happened to be in the wrong place in the wrong time, and then this guy just decides to keep killing after her. no explanation, he's just evil. i don't know if i mentioned already or maybe just inferred it, but the events of this book are extremely unrealistic. everything goes a little too right all the time. i cannot believe how fast he gets charged for murder, not to mention that they are somehow able to nail him for ALL SIXTEEN murders? yeah sure ok.

i felt like this book wanted to be a grief therapy book and a thriller at the same and failed at both. i completely understand wanting to foreground the families of the victims, and i can see that's what the author tried to do when jess did her "alive" tshirt stunt w the families, almost like inspiration grief porn. but you can't have jess simultaneously trying to move past and live with the grief while also supposedly hellbent on catching w killer. it weakens both of her arcs; either she's still so torn up about her mother's death that she keeps pursuing her killer or she's learning to make peace with her loss and backing off to keep herself safe. you just can't have these moments of jess feeling safe and healing in the middle of book, what's meant to be the height of tension, if the whole point is catching a killer out to get you. i know i'm beating the dead horse into the ground now but i just really want to communicate that these "healing" moments were intensely cheesy and absolutely killed the pace of what was meant to be a quick paced thriller.

some less important rants: but what the fuck was up with danny? why the fuck would you suggest that jess and danny were flirting and/or into each other? she is 17 and he is in his 20s and it never even goes anywhere so why would you include this except to gross me out? BAD. and while we're on the subject of love interests, jamie is somehow even more boring than jess is. he was IN the final showdown with the killer and more than once i forgot he was even there. a lackluster romance between two lackluster characters. Also, what was the point of mayfield? it felt incredibly out of place in the story as a whole. bernie only got alcohol poisoning so we could meet elliot for the first time, and only in a throwaway paragraph. bernie had a weirdly big speaking role despite not actually having anything to do with anything at the end.


ok i'm going to shut up now, ive talked for long enough; i didn't like this book and you get it. i was debating giving this book 1 or 2 stars, but i felt bad about giving it a 1 star because i only give those to books i genuinely hate. i dont hate this book, i'm just disappointed it was so boring.