THE HANGING GIRL By Eileen Cook

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

THE HANGING GIRL By Eileen CookThe Hanging Girl by Eileen Cook
Published by HMH Books for Young Readers on 10/3/17
Genres: Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 320
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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ReviewedbyDani

Skye Thorn has given tarot card readings for years, and now her psychic visions are helping the police find the town’s missing golden girl. It’s no challenge—her readings have always been faked, but this time she has some insider knowledge. The kidnapping was supposed to be easy—no one would get hurt and she’d get the money she needs to start a new life. But a seemingly harmless prank has turned dark, and Skye realizes the people she’s involved with are willing to kill to get what they want and she must discover their true identity before it’s too late.

Short and Sweet

Skye Thorn is known in her high school for giving tarot readings and having psychic visions, the thing is Skye has always faked these abilities. One of Skye’s classmates gets kidnapped and Skye has insider information about what’s going on. The police are trusting Skye’s “psychic visions” to help bring Paige home, but things turn ugly when this kidnapping that seemed like a prank turns serious. Now Skye must find out who’s behind what’s happening before it’s too late.

Characters

Skye: Our main character who fakes her psychic abilities. Skye takes part in this prank to kidnap Paige because when all is said and done she’s supposed to receive some of the ransom money and start a new life. I liked Skye and then again I didn’t. I’m glad she realized when she was in too deep but it was already to late at that point. We learn a lot about Skye and her troubling past and why some of the kids at school don’t trust her.

Paige: During the book we get a few chapters from Paige, it mostly shows her writing her experience. I felt bad for Paige because she was targeted for this “prank” because her father has money and she’s the most popular girl in school.

Pluto: The guy Skye is working with to pull off this prank, there’s not much we know about him except for the fact that he’s calling the shots.

My Thoughts

~ I really liked the concept of the book, Skye trying to make some money and things go wrong and now she has to figure out who’s behind everything. Is it the most original idea? No, but I still enjoyed reading this book.

~ Skye’s mom is also a psychic which I found interesting because I didn’t know if I could trust her or not because Skye would keep saying that her visions were off most of the time or she would call her mom a fake.

~ Skye also has a best friend, Drew. Drew was good supportive friend and we see how their friendship was kind of a motive for Skye to even take part in the kidnapping.

~ I felt worried for Skye while reading the book because she was lying a lot and she had to keep her story straight and I was interested to see how that worked out for her.

~ There were a few twist in the book that I enjoyed, but I did not like the ending at all it wasn’t satisfying to me. It just didn’t end right for me personally, I wanted more.

Overall

I thought this was a good book, it was short and easy to read through. At one point I was so confused at who could have been behind all of this because there were so many twists. I’ll be honest and say this isn’t my favorite book but it wasn’t bad, so if you like mysteries with a lot of twists then this may be the book for you!

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WITH MALICE By Eileen Cook

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.

WITH MALICE By Eileen CookWith Malice by Eileen Cook
Published by HMH Books for Young Readers on 6/7/16
Genres: Contemporary, Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
Source: Reviewer Purchase
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ReviewedbyDani

Eighteen-year-old Jill Charron's senior trip to Italy was supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime. And then the accident happened. Waking up in a hospital room, her leg in a cast, stitches in her face, and a big blank canvas where the last 6 weeks should be, Jill comes to discover she was involved in a fatal accident in her travels abroad. She was jetted home by her affluent father in order to receive quality care. Care that includes a lawyer. And a press team. Because maybe the accident...wasn't an accident. Wondering not just what happened but what she did, Jill tries to piece together the events of the past six weeks before she loses her thin hold on her once-perfect life.

Short and Sweet

Jill’s trip to Italy was supposed to be the time of her life, but when she wakes up in the hospital with no memory of the last six weeks she’s confused to learn that she’s suspect number one in the murder of her best friend. Now Jill has to try to remember what happened during her time in Italy and prove her innocence.

Characters

Jill: Our main character who doesn’t remember anything from her trip to Italy especially the accident. Jill was an okay character, she was frustrated during most of the book because she couldn’t remember anything that would be useful to the case. The one thing that bothered me about Jill was the fact that she thought she could never intentionally hurt Simone, like how would you know?

Simone: Jill’s best friend, who also went on the trip to Italy but didn’t make it back alive. The only thing we really know about Simone was that she was friends with Jill and that her parents thought Jill was the one who always set up the plans that had these two girls up to no good.

Romance

In America Jill does not have a boyfriend from what I read in the book it seems like Jill stayed away from boys like the plague. But you know what happens in Italy stays in Italy unless the boy you were involved with also becomes a suspect in the murder investigation. In Italy Jill met Nico an Italian student who works as a guide for the program Jill is in. We don’t really learn much about this relationship because Jill can’t remember anything, but we know for sure that these two got together.

My Thoughts

~ My favorite thing about this book was getting to see the police transcripts and learning other people’s perspectives on what happened in Italy with Jill and Simone especially because Jill doesn’t remember.

~ There’s a lot of twists in this book mainly because whenever Jill does feel like she remembers something we don’t know if it actually happened or if she was being influenced by what shes reading in the news about the accident.

~ Our setting in the book is a hospital and then a rehab facility that Jill stays in while she recovers. Jill also takes some therapy classes while there and I liked reading about these sessions because Jill tries to dig a little deeper into her feelings and her life.

~ Jill meets Anna in the rehab facility and I liked her character more than Jill. Anna seemed to be a realist and thought logically while Jill seemed to think everything would be okay.

Overall

With Malice was a good book overall, I didn’t enjoy the ending that much I wish there was more I feel like it was kind of rushed. I liked that the book had me guessing as to what happened in Italy and we have to piece it together, could Jill murder her best friend or not?

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