I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Four Letter Word by Gretchen McNeil Published by Disney-Hyperion on 3/5/24
Genres: Contemporary, Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 320
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
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For most of her life, Izzy has been looking forward to fulfilling her mother’s dream of studying abroad in Italy. Going into her senior year, Izzy is counting down the days until she can leave her humdrum life behind, until Alberto, a handsome and mysterious Italian exchange student shows up for his stay with her family. Now life in her hometown doesn’t seem so drab, as Izzy, and everyone else, is immediately charmed by Alberto and his irresistible accent.
But something about Alberto isn’t quite…right. As an avid true crime fan, Izzy has been following a serial killer case in San Francisco and the murderer, whose description bears a passing resemblance to the Italian exchange student living in her house, seems to have made his way north. As Izzy pays closer attention to Alberto—his actions, his temper—she finds more and more holes in his story that he has trouble explaining away.
When a local girl is murdered, Izzy thinks Alberto might not be who he seems. Worse, a series of “accidents” seem to target Izzy herself. In a race against the clock, Izzy must convince anyone that Alberto could be a notorious killer before another girl ends up dead.
Short and Sweet Review
Izzy has wanted to follow her mothers dream of living in Italy and now that it’s her senior year she’s counting down the days until she can leave. When Alberto an Italian exchange student comes for his stay with Izzy’s family things in town don’t seem so dull anymore. Alberto is able to charm everyone around him with his Italian accent and curiosity but Izzy feels that something is off with him. Izzy have been following a crime case about a serial killer in San Fransico and she thinks it may be Alberto. When a girl is murdered Izzy knows she needs to convince everyone around her about who Alberto really is before someone else ends up dead.
Let me start by saying I usually love McNeils books but this one was not good, in the slightest. I gave it a rating of 2 and I think that was being generous. Izzy and her family are dysfunctional, her dad is around but not really there and her mom has anger issues and is taking them out on people around her. The only thing that seems to make her mom happy is Albertos pressence. Izzy has a horrible best friend Peyton who has a boyfriend but likes to flirt with Alberto, and this ends up causing a lot of trouble. Anyway we see how Peyton doesn’t like to take the blame for her actions and she’s also keeping a big secret from Izzy. I won’t ruin it for you guys but Peyton would not be my friend after the way she acted in this book. Anyway someone ends up murdered and the gears in Izzy’s head start turning and then someone attempts to kill her multiple times. The only person who believes Izzy is Jake and she spent most of the book trying to avoid him because she thought he was trying to break things off with her. I think Izzy was a hard character to root for and honestly everything about this book is a mess. The characters are just off and its called four letter word because the mom doesn’t like four letter cuss words. Oh and the ending and what the mom does is just crazy like she definitely needed to be in a psych ward.
The premise of this book sounds great, a thiller/mystery with an italian exchange student who might also be a serial killer sounds like it’ll be intriguing. Instead I got a book full of dysfunctional characters some who just had blinders on and their heads in the clouds. It was also very predictable. I think this book would have been better off it was just Izzy facing off with Alberto and she didn’t have all her crazy family members and friends get in the way. This book is a prime example of if your child is telling you something you should believe them but the only people who believed Izzy were Jake and the police. As hard as this is for me to say this I think this is a book that should be skipped.
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