Blog Tour and Review: Dead Girls Society by Michelle Krys

Book info:
Title:  Dead Girls Society
Author:  Michelle Krys
Genre:  YA suspense/mystery
Published:  November 8th, 2016
Source:  ARC from Publisher
My rating:  5 stars

I got an email from the publisher asking if I'd like to participate in a tour for this book and another.  The other one is a middle grades book, so isn't my normal read, but they did send me an ARC of it as well. This book sounded really good, and actually I was definitely pleased at just how good it turned out to be!

The main character is a girl named Hope.  Hope has cystic fibrosis, which means she spends a lot of her time out of school because of how easily something can keep her from being able to breathe, how easily she can get sick.  When the story starts, she has gotten a text from some number that she doesn't know, and it is an invitation to participate in some kind of secret group.  It will require her to sneak out of her house late at night, but after being stuck at home, and her best friend Ethan seems to be moving on with a girl at school, she decides it is worth it.  

When she gets to the meeting place, she sees 4 other girls, ones that she doesn't think she has anything in common with.  There are instructions there for each of them, they must participate in dares.  Whoever makes it till the very end will win a lot of money.  If they fail a dare, they will be cut out of the competition.  If they cheat, tell anyone about the activities, or even just quit, they are threatened with punishment.  Each of the girls, other than Hope, seem to have something in their past that the person who is running this whole thing knows and is holding over them as blackmail.

The dares are dangerous as you'd expect.  A couple girls get really hurt, and there are several times that Hope almost doesn't make it.  In fact the person behind it all decides that she's cheated, and her punishment is something that affects her whole family.  

Not only is she dealing with this society, but she's also worried about losing her friend Ethan to this other girl at school.  But then a really popular, cute guy picks her for a project partner when she goes back to school, and he seems to really like her, and be interested in her.  But Ethan tells Hope that he doesn't trust this guy.  

In the end it will boil down to who is really behind the dares, which of the girls in the group are up front about what they are hiding.  Hope will have to find out if her friendship with Ethan can survive her wanting more, even if he seems to not see her that way.  She also needs the money to help her family, and is unsure if this new guy is really what he seems to be.  

The book was a really good, quick read.  I didn't make too many notes as I updated on Goodreads. Probably because it was so good I didn't want to stop to take the time to do that.  I enjoyed the New Orleans setting since I was just down there the first weekend of October, and what was kind of funny was that I actually was reading another book at the same time that took place in the city.  Anyway, I highly recommend this, and I will definitely be purchasing it for the school library where I work.  I liked the characters a lot, you had the main character with a debilitating disease, you had gay characters, there was a suicide that was a big part of the story, and other many other types of characters.  Below is the schedule for the blog tour if you'd like to check out some other posts on the book!

 

Review: Summer on the Short Bus by Bethany Crandell

This is another book that I was lucky to get from a publisher's booth at BEA, in fact it was the same one, Running Press Teens.  Again I saw it sitting on the counter, and had seen it around the blogosphere, so asked if there was any chance I could have a copy of it.  And they happily obliged me.  And as I just finished it, and loved it, I'm so glad I spoke up and asked for it!

Now, the reviews I've seen on Goodreads are almost all either love it or hate it. And while I can kind of see the haters' side, I just don't understand why they couldn't get past their issues and love it.  But hey, as I say all the time, it is a good thing there are so many books out there, because there are so many different people with different tastes and issues.  Maybe it is my experience as a classroom teacher, and knowing the truth about how kids will act that helped me be able to see past the things people complained about.  I don't know.  Although one of those bad reviews did strike a tiny chord with me, and I'll mention that at the end of my review.

The main character is Cricket Montgomery.  And basically Cricket is a spoiled brat.  A rich girl who is in trouble with her father, and now gets sent to work at a summer camp for special needs kids, instead of getting to go to Hawaii with her best friend as planned.  She gets there and is immediately repulsed by the woman in charge, Rainbow.  Not to mention there is something weird about how this woman seems to know things about her that only someone in her real life would know.  Then she meets the other counselors.  And they all seem pretty nice, although the other female, who will be her bunkmate, is a little rude with her at first.  And then there is Quinn, the co-counselor that looks like a movie star.  Zac Efron to be exact.  (Which I'm totally down with that hottie!)  At first she seems to only be able to talk to Quinn.  She is freaked out that she has two of the campers that are basically paired with her.  Meredith, who is in a wheelchair, and Claire, who I believe has Down's Syndrome.  She's never really been around kids like that, and you can tell from the way she acts, and even talks about them.  But she tries not to be that way around the kids, or the other counselors.  Especially Quinn who she is trying to impress.  But one day when she goes to the top of a nearby tower to try to get cell phone signal, she is overheard saying some rude things, and must deal with that.  Of course the longer she is there, the more she gets to know and like the kids, and even becomes a better person herself.

One thing that people complained about is that the author mentions this novel is in no way politically correct.  And it isn't.  Sadly, it was definitely realistic.  While it did use the words we are not supposed to use when talking about these types of kids, they are the words that kids do use, every day.  Like it or not, it's reality.  And one post said that Cricket only changed to prove it to the boy she was in love with.  I didn't feel that way.  Yeah, she definitely wanted him to see that she wasn't the way he thought, but I didn't get the feeling that was all it was at the end.  She really had grown to like her campers. 

I have to say again that I just LOVED this!  It had me smiling at the really sarcastic bits.  I was really disappointed in some things, but still was glad to see how things changed for Cricket.  Oh yeah, one other complaint was about overweight people being picked on.  I can see the point the reviewer was making, and as an overweight person myself at the moment, I would feel bad.  Except, once again, it's reality.  Nice, or not nice, it is real.  And there was one line about being a lesbian that I'm not sure would be appropriate in this day and age of PC, but AGAIN, this book is real.  Really, really, really, real.  That's how kids are, those are the things they say and do.  Maybe one day we'll all be perfect humans and not pick on people or use words that hurt people's feelings.  I doubt it, but it's a nice dream.  For now, I'm going to continue to enjoy books that I find realistic, and that make me laugh.