The Cheerleaders

The dark tone of the book is the first thing I noticed. Coming home from practice, Monica tells us about her family life, how her mother and stepdad's marriage is on the verge of collapsing, and how they had an unwanted baby a few years after deciding they didn't want anymore. Additionally, in the same vein as that news, it isn't said explicitly, but is basically revealed to us through her actions, and the conversation she has with her mother, that she was having a baby. Was, as they talked about it in past tense, indicating that she had an abortion. She isn't with her boyfriend anymore (and didn't even tell him that she was expecting, even claiming to her mother that the baby wasn't his, which I don't believe to be true and believe is only being used as an excuse) but it is never a nice thing to not know that you were having a child and having it aborted before you can even have the choice.

Five different girls are dead, including Monica's sister and her sister's best friends. They were all cheerleaders, but within one year they were all dead. It is something that Monica is constantly trying to forget, and instead of confronting her feelings, she is trying to hide behind them and avoid confronting her feelings for as long as possible. The pain is too much for her and she knows that if she tries to deal with it, she is going to be hurting more than she is now, as looking deep inside yourself at your painful feelings is going to make them worse before they have the chance of getting better.

The death of those five girls isn't only affecting her as the school's morale is lower, and it seems to be a lingering feeling that doesn't go away, hanging over the whole book and bringing everyone's feelings down. It is like a dark cloud, constantly infringing on everyone and constantly making it hard for the school to carry on like nothing is wrong, no matter how much they want to, and how much they try. Some of the girls were murdered first, and then a few months after this Jen committed suicide, although Monica doesn't believe that it is something that Jen would have willingly done.

Brandon, who we can only assume is involved her either her pregnancy, or trauma, is the new coach for the football teams, and she has an instant visceral reaction to him, showing that maybe he could have been involved in both one of her traumas and pregnancy. Especially since he is much older than her, and not at an age where he would be in school anymore. And only a few pieces of text later it is confirmed that he was the one who got her pregnant (proving what I thought about it being Matt, her ex's kid, wrong).

Jack Canning was the one who killed the girls, or at least he was the one that suffered the consequences for killing them as he was killed by Tom, Monica's stepfather and a police officer. Tom gets lettered all the time, on the anniversary of Jen's suicide talking about how they knew that Jack wasn't the one who killed them. This doesn't do much more than plant a seed of doubt inside Monica's head though.

One thing that I am really liking about the composition of this story is that not everything is said explicitly, and if it is it has definitely been hinted at beforehand. Like the fact that she became pregnant with someone's child and is having an abortion, even up to this point isn't explicitly mentioned (although within the last few chapters it is all but confirmed). It makes reading a more interesting task as you're always looking for more information, and maybe some hints on what is going to happen in the future. It definitely makes for a more engaging experience, even if it also leaves room for interpretation as well.

Jen's life wasn't as perfect as Monica made it out to be. She wasn't living it so, of course, she didn't know everything about her sister's life including her struggles with being tall and strong rather than athletic and nimble. There were also the breaks that were starting to form in the triad friend group of Jen, Juliana, and Susan. Juliana was starting to become good friends with another girl, Carly, which of course only added to the apprehension Jen was already feeling. Losing her friends on top of everything else that she was already feeling might have been the final straw.

Meanwhile in the present Monica has been texting a number that she found on her sister's phone. She found the phone in her stepfather's desk, which is a very weird thing considering the police department should have it, or it at least should be known to them all that her phone is in the house. This number gets her to question her stepfather in her head and wonder whether he was really telling the truth about everything that happened, or it if was just something he made up because he was the actual perpetrator of the crime. This number also tells her not to trust anything that her stepfather says. At this point, I am still unsure whether this is the actual truth, and the stepfather is covering everything up (because that does look likely) or if it isn't true as it is really early on in the book and it isn't a horror book but a mystery book. It seems way too obvious that it is the stepfather, so at the moment I am not going to believe what the person Monica was texting has to say.

The person that Monica found out about on her sister's phone starts telling her more, including saying that they were one of her sister's friends. They also tell her to go to an abandoned house to learn more about whatever it is that they want to tell her. She does end up finding a letter containing her sister's handwriting. This handwriting matches the handwriting of a creepy stalkerish letter that she finds in her sister's things, which raised alarm bells and could potentially be linked to all the murders.

After this, we get more insight into what Ethan was like before, and how he had been Jen's first kiss but she was too embarrassed to say that he was. Not only that but one time when her group of friends was bullying him and they had all looked away she saw him move his fingers into the form of a gun.

The three main people (with one I am a little suspicious of) I suspected at this point were Jake, who was the person actually concluded to be the actual killer, Ethan, who had a lot of weirdness surrounding his character including getting expelled for writing people's names down in a book (specifically the people who had died) and Carly, who I don't really have a good reason for suspecting other than that she eventually drew Jen's best friend away from her and instead of that being a coincidence it could have been planned (I don't know this, so she is the person I have the least amount of evidence pointing towards being the actual killer). Additionally, maybe this is because of how anxiety-filled this book is, but I hold some suspicion toward Ginny. Maybe its the fact that she is mostly finding out everything they need to know while they're apart, so it could easily be faked, or maybe it is because she was so willing to help (maybe to throw Monica off the scene of who the actual killer was) but it is something that I am taking into consideration and wondering whether I could be right or not.

Moving back into the future, we can see the time that Ethan got expelled and that it was the same day that Jen slid the note back into Ethan's locker. But she is starting to become involved because Susan, the one who saw her put the note in the locker, reports it to the principal and she starts to be not believed, even by her own stepfather. She is obviously confused as she doesn't know that Susan has brought suspicion to her, but when she does find out she doesn't speak to her for over a week.

What we also learn in this flashback is that Carly was giving some pills to Jules (although we don't know what kind of pills they are) and getting into the car of a random male who Jen doesn't get to see, but doesn't recognise from the voice.

I do think that the pace of this book is too slow at some points. It sometimes felt like I was wanting to put this book down, which is never something that you want to happen with your readers as an author. A lot more could have happened, and there was too much, 'going to this place, and then off to that place, and talking to this person, and then having to confront that person.' Because we are getting the story from two different perspectives, with one having the correct information and the other just trying to gather it, it makes some of the interactions that happen, useless. There was a lot of anxiety created in this book, especially because Monica was going around a lot of different places that she really wasn't supposed to be, and asking hard-hitting questions that most people wouldn't want to answer. Additionally, anxiousness came from the past, where we know that all the girls die, so we are just left looking for clues about why it happened or waiting or it to happen. Even though that is the case, it definitely felt like that was relied on too much to carry the story, as there definitely could have been other, more cohesive elements in this story that brought it all together instead of relying on the fact that five girls died in the past, and in the present, the killer may still be lurking about.

Around this time in the book, there are changes in Ginny that make my earlier statement about not trusting that she didn't have a hand in murdering all the girls more true. Thinks that even Monica is starting to notice. Like how she has, in the space of a month changed from a normal and quiet girl to someone who is willing, or even eager, to break into a police station and find evidence that they need to help move along their investigation. Or how Monica's mother looked weirdly at her when she wasn't looking, or how she smiled once she thought Monica couldn't see her face after Monica called her a badass. Or even her forceful nature when trying to remain in on the plan of breaking and entering, and not entertaining Monica by saying that she will just go on her own. Her excuse, 'that the girls deserve better' doesn't ring true to me of what we know bout her character.

I could be looking too deep into this, and it could be nothing, but the suspicion has obviously been intentionally created, so I'm not going to kick myself too bad if I am wrong about her having some involvement.

They call the police and report a suspicious man near Marks's house, the only officer on duty that night and Tom's partner, and the fact that it seems so easy for Ginny, while Monica nearly cancels the plan multiple times only further adds to my suspicion. They get the witness statements and in one of the first ones they find out that someone else did see the pickup truck that was outside the girl's house, Juliana arguing with the driver before they were killed. The person described getting in the pickup is a petite, dark-haired girl, which they assume is Juliana, but I personally think could be someone else (namely Ginny).

This Ginny theory I've got going on is even further pushed so as to not make Monica seem suspicious she asks Mike if he can look for a person, Ginny's father, who Ginny said she already knows the location of. Mike ends up calling her back the next day, after confirming that his family was completely fine, and tells her a lot of new things about Ginny's father. Namely that he had been arrested a lot, he skipped out on a court date meant for three days after the girls died, and that court date was related to something that would put him behind bars for a long time. That theory starts to fall down next though, as Ginny is actually honest with Monica, and I can feel the sincerity in her words.

At this point, Carly blocks them when Monica asks to meet up again and with two different people (Patrica and Allie who were both on or involved with the cheerleading team) who give her little bits, but both feel like they're either leaving things out, in Allie's case, or do not know enough to properly help, in Patrica's case.

They do eventually get Carly to talk to them again, but going under a fake account and inviting her out as a kind of university-related thing. Once there she actually opens up more, telling them about how she used to buy drugs from one guy who went to a posh university and that he could have been involved in her murder. But she refused to elaborate, rightly so, because people like that (the rich and privileged) get away with things as 'minor' as murder.

One rumour that was going around before was that Allie's boyfriend was cheating with Carly, but what we find out instead is that Allie's boyfriend is the one who got Monica pregnant and the one who she kissed mere days ago, Brandon.

my theory about who it was ended up being completely wrong, and I should have looked at the first person who committed a crime in the whole book if I wanted to find out who the person who killed the two girls was. Brandon, who committed statutory rape on Monica had also done the same thing in the past. Someone who walked away from that so easily isn't someone that I should have previously overlooked so easily as not being the killer. This wasn't some massive master plan, it was just some sick, deranged sub-human who thought panicked after learning that he would be going to jail for sleeping with a 15-year-old. Obviously, he didn't learn and did it again with Monica. He never deserved a second chance in the first place, but once given one he didn't learn anything at all.

The link between Ginny's father and the girls is that he was most likely the person who crashed into them, his car falling into the lake and him dying. He was already facing domestic violence charges, and also a DUI. The DUI especially links in with what actually happened with her dad. And the reason she knows this so well, we learn, is because she was in the car with her father when it crashed into the two girls. But what did give a little more, say, spice to this part of the story is that she had a chance to save him, he wasn't dead after the crash, but after everything that he did, all the beatings, all the hate, killing two innocent kills because he was drinking, she left him. She left him to die and he did. When she was talking about the fact that she knew where he was, she was saying that she knew he was dead and was no longer living.

Overall there were parts of the book that I didn't really enjoy as much. A lot of it felt like it was just going to one person, talking to them and getting a little bit of information, and then moving on to the next person who the previous person told them about. That isn't the greatest makeup of a book, and I would have given this book around 3 stars if it carried on that way. But once Monica started suspecting Ginny, and they started doing illegal things it started to turn around and the book was much more enjoyable. The dialogue was good and immersive throughout the whole book, that wasn't something I worried about at all, it was moreso the movement of the story that I didn't like as much until more than halfway through the book. In the end, the second half made up for the first and it did bring it up from my previous assessment.

7.8/10