Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls

May 1, 2015
Quiet but tough June investigates the apparent suicide by fire of her wild former best friend, Delia. When Delia's death is announced over the school PA system, neither June nor her boyfriend, Ryan, has spoken about Delia in a year. Although the announcement is the first readers have heard of Delia, flashback chapters-inexplicably written in third person rather than in first person like the rest of the text-gradually show her as impulsive, troubled, and intensely attached to June. At an informal, alcohol-filled memorial, Delia's ex-boyfriend Jeremiah approaches June with the idea that Delia may have been murdered. June's subsequent investigation leads to tangles with drug dealers, jealous ex-lovers, and Delia's abusive stepfather. Plot twists keep readers guessing, though some clunky sentence-level writing causes hiccups ("Her voice sounded dreamy and wistful, the way it did when she was fucked up, which she currently was"). June's character is inconsistently drawn, one minute goggling with grating naivete at the idea that someone in Delia's life might be a drug dealer and the next talking her way into the dealer's party with relative ease. A revelation at the end cheapens the story, reducing Delia to a caricature and removing ambiguity from an otherwise compelling moral dilemma. Provides some tense moments but ultimately disappoints. (Suspense. 14-18)

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May 1, 2015

Gr 10 Up-June's best friend, Delia, is dead. Everyone keeps telling her it was suicide, but June isn't convinced. What's worse, Delia's drunken downward spiral got so bad in the last year that she and June barely spoke. The person June knew best in the world was almost like a stranger to her. Jeremiah, Delia's boyfriend whom June barely knows, soon draws her into an impromptu investigation. Meanwhile, the teen leans on her own boyfriend, Ryan, for support-but their relationship becomes strained when she begins to suspect that he's lying to her. Then there's Ashling, Delia's most recent bestie, who provides June with a suicide note from Delia. Is this yet another lie? As June begins uncovering the conspiracy surrounding Delia's demise, she realizes too late that she's put herself in danger. This pulse-pounding mystery is intercut with intense memories of the two girls growing up. Through these flashbacks, readers meet the free spirited, irreparably damaged Delia. Weingarten keeps the tension taut; every time June resolves to answer a question, it raises two more. The novel is quietly suspenseful; readers will be draw to the well-written and well-rounded characters-even the supporting players. Thoughtful and provocative, this will be a hard book for teen readers to put down until the thrilling, twisted end. VERDICT Ideal for teens craving a good mystery/thriller.-Ryan P. Donovan, Southborough Public Library, MA

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2015
Grades 10-1 Oh what a tangled web: June and Delia were best friends until one strange night, and now it's been a year since they last spoke. Then the news breaks: Delia is dead after a fire, an apparent suicide. But despite their estrangement, June still knows Delia better than anyone else in the world, and she can't believe that her former friend would ever really take her own life in such a way. Here the story takes a sharp turn out of Thirteen Reasons Why (2007) territory as June, becoming convinced that Delia was murdered, slowly suspects everyone around her. The multilayered mystery dances back and forth in time and in perspective, raising more questions about truth and morality than it answers, and an open-ended finale will leave readers questioning. The narrative gets a bit bogged down by its complicated structure and hard-to-decipher characters, but older readers looking for gritty, heady intrigue and suspense will find plenty to sink their teeth into here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)