Kara Taylor

3.5 Rating

Prep School Confidential has all the elements to make me want to pick it up. Murder Mystery, popular girls, an exclusive prep school, and BOYS!!

You have Anne, who is this no-nonsense girl that just keeps getting herself into sticky situations. First she's forced to leave New York City after an accidental arson incident at her previous school... then she finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation when her roommate of a week turns up dead in the woods. When the school show more starts going into cover-up mode and all the teens that go there start acting shady in their own ways, Anne goes into detective mode, vowing to find out what happened to Isabella on her own. The mystery takes on many twists and turns where this book could never be called boring. Since there are so many predictable mysteries out there, I love when I seriously can't figure out who "did it". Luckily this one was not one of those, I was guessing til the end!

The only thing I didn't love love was Anne herself. At times she annoyed me and did things that seemed inappropriate. For example, she was having improper thoughts about Isabella's twin brother at the funeral. Ummm gross much?? You can't be attracted to a guy at a funeral. It's icky. And also she was judgmental about clothes... like headbands and black skirts. Even so I grew to like her... it was just small moments where I thought she was being insensitive. Also I was a little sad that one of the most interesting characters (Isabella) was killed off so soon... I was just getting to know and like her!!

OVERALL: An intense prep school mystery that is somehow full of life! It has a witty main character who can hold her own and also make you laugh. The mystery is fast-paced and will keep you guessing!

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If you enjoyed the first book, Prep School Confidential, you're likely to enjoy Wicked Little Secrets, as it's more of the same.

In Prep School Confidential, Anne Dowling was expelled from her Manhattan prep school for accidental not-arson and is sent to Wheatley, a prep school in Massachusetts. Within a week of arriving at Wheatley, her roommate Isabella was murdered and Anne doggedly pursued the case despite the warnings from practically everyone.

Wicked Little Secrets picks up in the same show more school year as the previous book, with Anne on precarious footing with the school administration, but in a good place with her boyfriend Brent and her new friends. With only a photo of the 1980 Wheatley crew team - the words 'THEY KILLED HIM' scribbled on the back - Anne's curiosity and investigative spirit get the better of her and she's investigating a mysterious disappearance that involves her boyfriend's father and several other very high profile men.

I usually loathe love triangles but I found both Brent and Anthony, the twin brother of Anne's dead roommate, interesting enough and Anne's perspective on both boys enjoyable enough. It definitely doesn't detract from the story, nor does it become the main point of the book. Sometimes how ~dreamy~ the boys are becomes a real focus of the books, but that doesn't happen here. Anne's desire to find the truth actually often gets in the way of her love life, friendships and academic career.

Anne started the series as a popular, shallow girl but the events at Wheatley have changed her. Her growing frustration and anger at the injustice and corruption that privilege buys, not just at the school but beyond it makes her a very likable lead, as it always pushes her to go a little bit further. Most of the events in the book, beyond the initial murders, are put into motion by the actions of Anne herself and an active protagonist is always more interesting than a reactive one.

A fun murder mystery you can zoom through quickly because you won't want to put it down. 7.6/10 show less

Debut author Kara Taylor dishes up murder and mystery at an exclusive boarding school in Prep School Confidential. When Anne Dowling finds herself shipped off to a new school in Boston after accidentally setting fire to her old one, she decides the best thing she can do is keep her head down, earn good grades, and try to win her way back to New York after the heat (hah!) dies down. Her good intentions are tossed out the window, however, when her new roommate Isabella turns up dead – show more viciously murdered on school grounds. When investigators seem to be getting the runaround from school officials, Anne decides to take matters into her own hands and uncover the murderer before he strikes again. She soon finds herself knee-deep in suspects – including her teachers, fellow students, and even her roommate’s twin brother! Can she discover who killed Isabella before she becomes the next victim?

Anne is a protagonist who just felt…real. She was flawed, made mistakes, had her moments of confidence and indecision, and crushed on both good boys and bad. From the description of this book, I got the impression that Anne was the “queen bee/mean girl” at her previous school. The queen bee part of the equation was definitely in evidence, but the mean girl element wasn’t (I think I may have been reading too much into things). Anne was a girl who held on to her principles as much as possible, even standing up to authority figures when it didn’t threaten her education (due to that little fire issue at her last school, she’s on pretty thin ice). She wasn’t a goody-two-shoes by any means; she could pick a lock when necessary and stick her nose in where it didn’t belong along with the best of them. I loved that she was the type of person willing to dig deeper into her roommate Isabella’s death when it looked like the official investigation was being blocked by school officials and a killer might go free. Plenty of secrets were uncovered in Anne’s quest for justice, in some very surprising places.

Prep School Confidential is a mystery, with a bit of suspense/thriller thrown in for spice. There are lots of twists and turns, multiple suspects, red herrings galore and even a cold case disappearance in the school’s past which is hinted at here and will be the focus of book two (Prep School Confidential is the first in a series). Debut author Kara Taylor muddies the waters sufficiently that the motive and murderer aren’t readily apparent, which I appreciate in a mystery. There did come a point late in the story, though, where I was a bit stunned to discover that yet another suspect had joined the mix, and I began to question where Taylor was going with a thread involving one of the original suspects. The story was teetering on the edge of “everything but the kitchen sink” territory, but managed to pull back at the last minute by eliminating several suspects in rapid succession. This kicked things into high gear for the final quarter of the book and left things on a strong note. Be assured that even though Prep School Confidential is the start of a series, this particular mystery is solved within its pages while the cliffhanger at the end points definitively towards the next mystery Anne will be investigating.

Even though a couple of guys are mentioned in the book description, don’t go into this expecting a lot of romance. While Anne does end up attracted to two very different young men in the course of her investigation – rich guy Brent and town bad boy Anthony – the romance is definitely secondary to the mystery. In fact, the chemistry between Anne and each boy is minimal, which makes it more of a “tell” than “show” romantic triangle. Once again it wasn’t until late in the story when I actually felt a tentative chemistry between her and one of the guys (I can’t say who without spoiling things), but it looks like the love triangle will still be up in the air for book two.

With a solid mystery at its core, a love triangle to add just a smidge of romance, and a female protagonist I can really root for in Anne, Prep School Confidential gets this YA contemporary series by Kara Taylor off to a solid start. Even though it’s not breaking any new ground, this is a nicely paced debut which provided plenty of twists and turns to keep me guessing “whodunit” all the way to the end. I’ll definitely be picking up book two – Wicked Little Secrets – when it’s released in 2014. show less

If there's one thing I like every now and then, its a good mystery. And this one definitely served its purpose. I like to challenge myself and see if I can come up with "whodunit" and if I can't it means that its the best of the best. I figured out who the culprit was in this one, but I still really liked it.
The writing in this was one of my favorite parts. I had a bit of a heavy read last time where I was crying and upset and everything, but this one pulled me out of it. The humor in it show more made me laugh from the beginning to the end. Because I needed this comic relief, I enjoyed it that much more.
I also liked the mystery in it. It was a little hard to decide who I thought did it because as normal, there were so many different things saying someone else did it, but I used my "CSI" and "Criminal Minds" investigative skills and I decided from there. And they all worked.
The only thing I didn't like was the juvenile feel of it. It grated on my nerves the entire time. For her to be 16 she seemed as if she were 12. It kind of felt more like MG vs YA. Honestly, I would've liked it more if it was. Then I wouldn't have had to write this part of the review. :(
But, overall, I liked this. It was a really great start to a new mystery series. I can't wait to continue on and see the next things that gets in Anne in trouble. show less