The Thrashers: A Novel

The ending was absolutely jaw-dropping! I’m totally hooked on this book. It was so engaging and kept me guessing from beginning to end. This had my mind going in so many directions. It’s high school to the extreme. The most popular group and the girl who can’t take a hint. Things take the most terrible turn for them when she commits suicide. The group faces serious legal trouble and even starts experiencing paranormal stalking?! This book played teenage drama so well. It was full of twists and t

The Thrashers are the elite group of friends at New Helvetia High. Everyone wants to be them…and Jodi, less fortunate than the others, is just lucky to be one, by default because her childhood best friend is the ‘leader’ of the group. When Emily Mills, desperate to be a part of the group, dies by suicide, the Thrashers become the main topic of conversation. Did they push Emily to her breaking point? Then, when Emily’s journal winds up in the hands of detectives, Jodi has to make a choice - does she betray her oldest friend and group she’s come to depend on over the years, or does she protect herself from the secrets she’s also keeping? I meannnnn, this was it. This book had a little bit of everything. Thriller, romance, horror, and very contemporary themes. For Julie’s first attempt at thrillers, I have zero complaints - I only have praise for what she pulled together. While the plot itself isn’t all that unique to YA thrillers, Soto takes it to a different level, pulling in aspects we may not have seen in the past, weaving together timelines and characters to confuse us into who we want justice for, if anyone even deserves justice, and an overall look at our moral compass. There was no downtime, from the first page we were sucked into the mystery and allure of this group and intrigued by Emily and what happened to drive her to the point she got to. The best part of this book is definitely how well Julie Soto wrote EVERY CHARACTER. It was wild how flawed yet endearing they were. It reminds you that no matter where you stand in the food chain of high school life, everyone is struggling in some way or another, from the people like Emily up to the top like the Thrashers. I’m a firm believer that no one gets out of high school unscathed and this book drove that point home to me. I even appreciated how well the adults were written, reminding us that yep, even parents struggle and even those who haven’t been to school in decades still carry some of the hurt from those days. I think I was a firm 4.5 star, I enjoyed myself the entire way through, but that last paragraph into the epilogue sent me over the edge.