THE COUNSELORS By Jessica Goodman

Dani Young 

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.

THE COUNSELORS By Jessica GoodmanThe Counselors by Jessica Goodman
Published by Razorbill on 5/31/22
Genres: Contemporary, Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 352
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

Camp Alpine Lake is the only place where Goldie Easton feels safe.

She’s always had a special connection to the place, even before she was old enough to attend. The camp is the lifeline of Roxwood, the small town she lives in. Alpine Lake provides jobs, money and prestige to the region. Few Roxwood locals, though, get to reap the rewards of living so close to the glam summer that camp, with its five-figure tuition and rich kids who have been dumped there for eight weeks by their powerful parents. Goldie's one of them.

Even with her "townie" background, Goldie has never felt more at home at camp and now she’s back as a counselor, desperate for summer to start and her best friends, Ava and Imogen, to arrive. Because Goldie has a terrible dark secret she’s been keeping and she is more in need of the comfort than ever.

But Goldie’s not the only person at camp who has been lying. When a teen turns up dead in the lake late one night, she knows that the death couldn’t have been an accident. She also knows that Ava was at the lake that same night.

What did Ava see and what does she know? Why hasn’t she said anything to Goldie about the death? Worse—what did Ava do?

But asking questions offers no answers, only broken bonds of lifelong friendship, with hidden danger and betrayals deeper than Goldie ever imagined.

Short and Sweet Review

Goldie has always felt at home at Camp Alpine Lake, first as a camper but now she’s back as a counselor with her two friends Ava and Imogen. Goldie isn’t very popular in her small town so she’s excited for camp to start but things aren’t to a great start when a teen is found dead. Goldie knows Ava was at the lake the night the teen is found so she doesn’t know why she’s being so secretive. It doesn’t help that the teen found in the lake was Goldie’s ex Heller.

Y’all this book is a hot mess, it’s a mystery with a side of tax evasion. Our main character Goldie is dumb, there’s no better way to say it. We get an insight into what happened in the past and it’s not good. Back in her small town Goldie was at a party with her boyfriend and he was driving drunk and hit one of his hockey teammates and he asks Goldie to take the blame and she does! Its comical to me at this point, because she knows that there were witnesses who knew she wasn’t driving but they don’t come forward and then she’s mad at them, but she also decided to sign an NDA and didn’t come forward herself because she just loved Heller so much. Goldie is shunned by the people in her town and she ends up doing work at the camp. Goldie doesn’t tell her best friends what happened so it’s weird when they run into people from her town and they’re hostile to her, and her friends are clueless. Then Heller ends up dead and found in the lake and Goldie thinks her friend Ava had something to do with it. So Goldie is not only bad at making decisions, she’s also bad at coming to conclusions that make sense. Ava is dealing with her dad being a deadbeat to her but starting life with his new family and he’s also up to some shady stuff. I feel like I would have liked this book more if Goldie wasn’t so unlikeable. She really sat around thinking that Heller loved her and its clear as day he didn’t. Also why were these counselors out drinking when they had kids to watch the next day? If I had to say one nice thing it would be: I’m glad the mystery was solved…

Overall, not a good book. I wanted to read a Goodman book because I heard that one of her books will be getting an adaption, and I chose this one because it’s summer so why not read about a summer camp. I will read the other books that I have by Goodman but after reading this book I don’t have high hopes.

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