Deadly Little Secret By Laurie Faria StolarzPublished: December 2008
Pages: 256
Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children
Some secrets shouldn't be kept...
Up until three months ago, everything in sixteen-year-old Camelia's life had been fairly ordinary: decent grades; an okay relationship with her parents; and a pretty cool part-time job at the art studio downtown. But when Ben, the mysterious new guy, starts junior year at her high school, Camelia's life becomes anything but ordinary.
Rumored to be somehow responsible for his ex-girlfriend's accidental death, Ben is immediately ostracized by everyone on campus. Except for Camelia. She's reluctant to believe the rumors, even when her friends try to convince her otherwise. She's inexplicably drawn to Ben . . . and to his touch. But soon, Camelia is receiving eerie phone calls and strange packages with threatening notes. Ben insists she is in danger, and that he can help-but can he be trusted? She knows he's hiding something... but he's not the only one with a secret.
From the best-selling author of Blue is for Nightmares comes a story of paranormal romance that's sure to be a thrilling and chilling teen favorite.
Deadly Little Secret starts out with a bang, going back three months to the memory of the main character, Camelia, being swept out of the path of an oncoming car by a mystery boy. His black knight appearance leaves Camelia wondering, and wishing, for the whole summer that she could see him again and at least thank him. Being the sucker for boys that I am, I found myself craving the return of mystery boy.
The books pace stayed constant from there, always interesting enough to keep me from putting it down, but never so fast that I found my heart rate accelerating or peeking ahead.
Maybe I'm just a jealous person by nature, but I'm constantly finding myself wishing I had friends as cool as characters in books. Don't get me wrong, I have the greatest friends I could ever ask for, but it always seems like the friends in books are always just a little bit cooler. Their fashion sense is a little more noticable, their interests a little more interesting, their love lives a little more compelling. Not to mention the fact that they always seem to know just the right things to say at the right time.
Anyways, Camelia has the perfect set of friends. Her best friend Kimmie is cute and enjoys making chic clothes in her spare time. Camelia's other best friend, Wes, is gay and always has in interesting opinion. Oh and just to top off the perfect friends part, her boss is gorgeous, in his early twenties, and definitely wishes Camelia would notice these things. Man, I feel like I'm the only girl in the world who doesn't have some super-hottie watching me from the corner.
Although the book indended to make me believe Ben was the stalker, the stories never really matched up for me like they were supposed to. To be honest, it was a little to cliche of a plot for me.
Another interesting aspect of this book was the build up vs. the actual revealing of the stalker. The notes written by the stalker were some of the creepiest things I have ever read, and gave me shivers while I was reading. Ew, I shivered now just thinking about it. But their creepiness was exactly the right ingredient for this book. The notes added a layer of horror to the typical boy trouble drama.
When the stalker finally revealed himself as Matt, I was so surprised! I was convinced it would be John, yet another guy who wants to be with Camelia. He was the only person besides Ben who I thought knew enough to write the notes and take the pictures. But it was Matt, and well... he was creepy! He had everything planned, including the "perfect" little place to stash Camelia and keep her all to himself. His character turned from sad but nice ex-boyfriend into psychopathic and delusional stalker-freak. Although the scene where Matt has Camelia tied up and camped out in the woods was scary and written very visually, I just had this gut feeling that nothing bad would really happen and of course Ben would come save Camelia yet again- dark knight style.
Deadly Little Secret is a quick and easy read as well as a good that is guarenteed to keep your interest. The only problem was how predictable it was, and it sounded bit cliché.
If you haven't read Deadly Little Secret I would suggest doing so!
3/5
No comments:
Post a Comment