Disclaimer: This review is spoiler free except for the parts labelled as spoiler
Book: Two Can Keep a Secret If One is Dead Author: Karen McManus Page Number: 323 Pages Genre: Mystery Rating: 3 / 5 stars “Welcome to life in a small town. You’re only as good as the best thing your family’s done. Or the worst.” Synopsis: Twins Ellery and Ezra recently move to a small town called Echo Ridge. This is no ordinary town… 20 years ago, Ellery’s aunt had disappeared. 5 years ago, homecoming queen Lacey Kilduff’s body was found. Both were two occurrences in which the perpetrator wasn’t caught. Then a month after Ellery moves in, another girl goes missing. Ellery, Ezra and their friends: Malcomn and Mia make it their mission to uncover the town’s secrets-and find who is behind these murders. As soon as I picked up this book I got PLL vibes (Pretty Little Liars). The title is lyrics from the PLL theme song, the character Ezra in this book shares his name with a main PLL character and just like how “A” leaves cryptic messages for the Liars to decode, the murderer in this book leaves behind messages and little treats for the town as well. But that’s where the similarities end. I love the show PLL so I went into the book excited only to come out feeling disappointed. It wasn’t downright terrible but it also wasn’t a particularly well written mystery that kept me on the edge of my toes either. I hadn’t expected too much out of this book in the first place since I didn’t love “One of Us is Lying”. (I felt like the secrets of each of the characters were revealed too early and it took away the mystery.) There were many things about Karen McManus’s second installment that made me feel disconnected from it. Here is what I didn’t like:
The ending was unexpected for sure but very random. At the end of the book I still had so many questions and the book just felt unresolved!
My main problem with the ending is that the murderer (Peter) felt so random. It’s like the author chose anyone who we didn’t suspect at that point to be the murderer so the ending would be “unexpected”. I really would have liked to see Peter have a better motive and having a reason for killing the girls….. It would have made the ending have more resolution. What I Did Like: The Last Sentence: The only reason this book gets even three stars is because of the last sentence which has the perfect amount of creepy. Spoilers: “I thought she was your mother.” *Shudders* “We’re finally figuring out that we haven’t been normal for years and it’s time to redefine the word.” Overall I thought this book was a nice, easy read where I could take a break from my usual heavy fantasy and read something lighter. I would recommend this book to people who love Karen McManus’s other books but I suggest going in with low expectations.
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