Tag Archive | Dead Ringer

REVIEW: Dead Ringer by Jessie Rosen

Dead Ringer by Jessie Rosen

Read: September 2015

Format: ARC Ebook (Kindle)

My Book Rating: 3/5 Stars

Genre: Contemporary Mystery YA

 

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

 

I actually didn’t think I was going to like Dead Ringer at all when I first started reading it. The point of view started with the new girl in school, Laura, then started jumping to other characters and I’m honestly not a real big fan of that. It has it’s moments, and it has to be done right. I forced myself to keep reading and I came to appreciate the multiple POV’s, ultimately they did work, I just wish the transition had been smoother.

As I said, Laura is the new girl at school and she looks eerily similar to Sarah, the girl who died almost two years prior. As Laura adjusts to live in her new school she begins digging around the past, trying to figure out what really happened to Sarah.

We also get into the head of Charlie, he’s the schools star soccer player. He has his own secrets to hide about Sarah and he’s also getting close to Laura. I really liked Charlie, I liked how his character was developed. I was able to sympathize with and root for him.

The third character from whom we see a POV is Sasha. She’s also out for answers to Sarah’s death and an enigma herself for much of the book. We initially don’t know her motivation or how she even knows about Sarah. I think she was a great addition to the story and added a nice extra layer of mystery.

All of this was great, except…. details were given in the beginning of the book don’t match up with the end game. I really can’t say a whole lot or else it will ruin the book for those who have not yet read it. The ending is fabulous, minus the terrible cliffhanger the author leaves us with. But, the motives and inner thoughts from the beginning of the book do not fit with the character after the big twist. There’s suspension of believe in fiction, and I’m pretty lenient with what I’ll let slide, but this stuff was big. Like the author changed the ending as she was writing it and didn’t go back to change those earlier details.

The characters were likable though, and trying to solve the mystery was fun, but I’m a stickler for the details and I’m just really irritated with this one

Will I read the next book? If NetGalley offers it up to me, I will happily take it to see if the resolution to the cliffhanger will make up for the details in this book that didn’t make sense.

Ultimately, I’d say this book is average. It had a lot of potential but it needed some reworking in order to make the pieces fit together properly. If you’re less of a stickler for details and are just looking for a nice mystery with some interesting twists, this may be the book for you.