Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls by Lynn Weingarten

Title: Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls

Author: Lynn Weingarten

Webpage: Lynn Weingarten

Publisher: SimonPulse (US) Egmont/Electric Monkey (UK)

ASIN: B00ZU9UVZ0

Genre: Young Adult

Print Length: 337 pages

Synopsis: When June met Delia, she was a lifeline. Their intense friendship gave June a sense of belonging and security that she’d never had before. She felt braver, smarter, funnier and more attractive when Delia was around. But then something went wrong, and Delia and June had not spoken for a year when it was announced that Delia had committed suicide. June had barely had time to comprehend this news before Delia’s ex-boyfriend convinces her that Delia didn’t kill herself, that she was murdered and June is swept into a tangle of lies and deceit, and a conspiracy she can barely believe, let alone understand.

Wow, this story starts off with so many twists and turns it's exhausting! It set me up for a very gripping story line - which unfortunately did not arrive, because after a dramatic reveal about halfway through the novel there is a nose-dive in the narrative curve. From then on it rambles along without any real direction, and although the final outcome of the story did remain intriguing enough to keep me going right to the end I ended it feeling underwhelmed. Also, I found it interesting that I could not get a feel for the characters or the setting. This was strange because the descriptive narration seemed to be very good, with little descriptive vignettes scattered throughout the novel; rather than the long descriptive passages that I find tend to break up the narrative. Nevertheless, during the early stages of the novel I was all for giving it a 5-star review (or maybe four, because I could not engage with the characterisation or the settings), but the weakness of the second part resulted in me reducing my rating to 2-stars; which was a real shame. That said, and based on the first part of the book, I shall be reading another of Weingarten's novels as this one did show real promise.

What Others thought

Amazon.co.uk; 24 reviews, of which 79% were 3* or more, giving an average of 3.5* Amazon.com; 72 reviews, of which 82% were 3* or more, giving an average of 3.6* Goodreads.com; 5,783 ratings (1,036 reviews), with 80% of 3* or more, giving an average of 3.5*

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