14 Ways to Die

This YA thriller tells the story of a girl who is doing everything to finally get justice for her mom's cold-blooded murder. When Jess was only seven years old, her mother was killed by the Magpie Man. Now, ten years later, Jess joins a YouTube reality show in order to finally find the culprit who has since killed twelve more innocent women. Will she be able to finally unsmask the serial killer, get justice for her mom and start living her own life again? I really enjoyed the overall storyline of this YA thriller. I also like that the author shows how social media can be used for good as well as pointing out the downside of it. What I am not particularly a fan of, is the length of the chapters in this book. Oftentimes, they are only two or three pages long, which I found to be quite disruptive to the reading flow. Also, some things seem highly exaggerated, unlikely and did not make much sense to me. Though, for some reason, I minded said unrealistic elements in this novel less than I would in many other stories. Regarding the suspense, I have to say that I found "14 Ways to Die" to be very gripping and fast-paced at times and then again, in some instances, quite lenghty. All in all, this book has a promising premise, but the execution could have been better, in my opinion. I recommend "14 Ways to Die" to fans of Karen M. McManus' "One of Us is Lying" and Holly Jackson's "A Good Girl's Guide to Murder".