I Killed Zoe Spanos

“I’m looking down on the estate from above, and then I’m on the balcony, sitting all the way at the edge, legs pressed through the wooden rails and dangling down, down in the night. Inthe dream, the height doesn’t scare me at all. My fingers dance across the top of the railing like it’s a set of piano keys.”― Kit Frick, I Killed Zoe SpanosDNF.Because I did not get to 50 percent, take my rating with a grain of salt.I think many will love this. But I am so tired of the Gothic YA novel. I thought this would be a book in the way of something like "Dangerous Girls", which is probably the best YA mystery I have ever read.This is slow going and uses lots of flash backs. It is written in that dream like Gothic way and feels longer than it is. Just not my preferred genre.Please do not let this stop you from, reading it as most reviews of this one are quite positive. Maybe just not the right book at the right time.

I love this book with my full heart and soul! Lots of people have mentioned that there are many twists and turns in this book, but let me be another one of those voices-there are many twists and turns! And they all feel earned. None of them are cheap and they fit snuggly in the narrative that is being told here, right up to the very end. Oh, and speaking of that ending. I seriously got a Usual Suspects vibe when I came to the last few pages. I'm not really into mysteries, but this one definitely kept me engaged and interested all the way through. Read this book!

I ordered this book not once, but twice! Both times the book pages fell out of the spine as soon as I opened the package. I collect books of all types, modern and vintage. I have never seen a book so poorly bound. Extremely frustrated that I can’t seem to get a copy that is well put together.

Was this really the YA Rebecca? No, not really. But was it really good? Yes. Plenty of tension and suspense, tightly written, with damaged characters who wanted to redeem themselves, this book had all the mystery! There were so many different directions it could have gone that it really was unpredictable. I really enjoyed it!

Great book from start to finish. Well written, perfect summer book. The characters are well establisbed, and you feel a connection with them. Definitely worth it.

A mystery mixed with a podcast? Yes, please!What happened to Zoe won’t stay buried…Anna decides that taking a summer nanny position in the Hampton's is just the fresh start that she needs before starting college. Over the last year her and her best friend have taken to the party scene. Drinking out of control, taking drugs for recreation, and hooking up with boys she can barely remember. Anna is now growing tired of the hang overs and black outs and yearns to get away.Once she arrives in the Hampton's she quickly draws the eyes of strangers. It appears that she bears an uncanny resemblance to a local girl, Zoe Spanos, that has gone missing.Two months later, when Zoe's body is found, it is Anna that confesses to her murder.Martina Jenkins is best friends with Zoe's sister, Aster. A budding journalist in the making she starts and hosts the Missing Zoe podcast. Unsatisfied with Anna's confession she intends to find out who is actually responsible with killing Zoe.I stumbled a bit in the beginning with keeping all the characters straight but once I hit the 20% mark this book really took off and I had a hard time putting this down. Until......That Ending! GAH! It was all a bit too much if I'm being honest and I had a hard time suspending disbelief in what had been such a compelling story until then. Such a shame. The writing itself is terrific and after reading other reviews please know that I am in the minority with my opinion on this. Do read this if it piques your interest because you will be rewarded with a captivating mystery and while the ending didn't work for me it just may work for you. 3 stars!Thank you to Edelweiss and Margaret K. McElderry Books for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I was immediately intrigued by this book. The premise that a girl confessed to a murder that she didn’t believe she committed, and another girl set out to find the truth already had me hooked. I was ready to discover the truth.Anna is such a troubled teen looking to right her past wrongs. She’s trying to grow up by settling her party side. But by taking steps to forget her past, memories start flooding her mind and now she has to decipher between truth and fiction.I felt physically irritated while reading this. And I think for this type of book to illicit that type of reaction is good. I was mainly irritated because I am an impatient person and I wanted it revealed what happened. It didn’t settle right with me why Anna would confess to something she didn’t do. Why would she put herself in that position? I felt like while reading this I needed a suspect board with string attached to each picture and showing each connection and theory, Carrie Mathison off her psych meds “Homeland” style.The writing and setup of this book was really unique. Between alternating points of view of past and present and changing between Anna’s first person and Martina’s third person narrative; this presented an interesting way to tell a story. The addition of the podcast really helped bridge the past with the present. Despite these tools used to connect moments in time, the reader, in this case, was left confused and without the story making sense. At times, between past and present, it felt like I was reading two different stories.There will be so many paths and theorized plots your mind will go through while you read this story. And really I didn’t know how this story was going to end until the very last page. It was a good thriller, but there were times where I was uninterested in the story. There were parts of the story that were hard to believe and for me it took a lot of away from the overall story. Thanks to Simon and Schuster and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review

I found the beginning a little slow to get into, but the pace soon picked up. It’s definitely a page-turner that kept me wanting to find out more. The twist right at the end was unexpected. Really enjoyed it and would recommend