People Like Us

Oh ho ho what’s this? It’s another ‘horrible kids being horrible at boarding school’ book!! My freaking weakness of a book type (or one of many). “People Like Us” by Dana Mele was one of those books that I just randomly stumbled upon on GoodReads thanks to that site’s propensity to feature books on the side of your feed that they are trying to promote. Most of the time I ignore these ads, but on occasion I’m drawn in because of tantalizing covers or large words promising great things, usually of thriller kind. Knowing full well that I was pretty much taking a gamble, I requested it. When it opened with a bunch of boarding school popular girls finding a body, I was immediately drawn in. Because who doesn’t love a bit of show more salacious carnage to kick off a book? But as the book kept going, it became quite clear that it was going to be something we’ve seen before without pushing many boundaries inside of the genre.

The cast of characters is a pretty standard cast list for a YA thriller/mystery. Our protagonist is Kay, a girl who came to the prep school Bates Private School with two main motivations: to pursue a soccer scholarship for college, and to run away from a trauma from her past. She has a number of secrets she keeps from her other friends in their popular crowd, just as they have secrets from each other as they rule the school and sometimes torment other students. Unfortunately, there was definitely too much of her hinging on on this tragic and secret past of hers, and while it was slowly and carefully unfolded I never really found a moment of connection to Kay. While most of her relationships with her friends are pretty one dimensional, there are a couple exceptions to this: she is attracted to and perhaps in love with her best friend Brie, but their romance has never come to fruition because the timing has always been wrong (or Kay has been misbehaving in some kind of way). And along with Brie there is Nola, a classmate who has always been seen as weird, but may be Kay’s only hope in solving who is harassing her and targeting her friends. I really liked that Dana Mele treats Kay’s sexuality as just a fact of the story, and that all of these characters were fairly fluid in their sexual identities. But beyond that, none of them were particularly noteworthy or interesting. As Kay’s friends face their various consequences to being jerks, I never felt particularly bad for them, nor did I really feel a sweet satisfaction outside of a general ‘ha ha awful popular kids get what’s coming to them’ feeling. They weren’t likable, but they weren’t interesting enough to be fun to hate either. Too many of them were placed to either be non lethal body counts, or to make the reader wonder if they are the one who set it all up in the first place.

The mystery too was a little lackluster for me. There were plenty of red herrings the muddle the waters effectively, be it misdirection about the mystery at the forefront or the mystery of Kay’s past. But ultimately, I did kind of brush across the solution well before the solution was revealed, even if I didn’t let it stick in my mind. And by the time we did get to the solution, I didn’t feel like we’d come to a big revelation. It just kind of happened, and I felt neither positive nor negative about how it all sussed out in the end. There was one final twist that did shock me, though, which was a nice surprise given that I thought that I had everything totally figured out within that storyline. It’s the little surprises that felt rewarding in this book, but when you don’t find yourself as a ready very invested in the majority of the mystery, or the consequences that it is going to dole out of the characters.

So what made it so readable, perhaps you are wondering? Well honestly, I am always going to be a sucker for the boarding school brats being rotten to each other trope, along with the themes of the misbehaving idle rich getting what they so richly deserve. If you want a standard book within this trope and genre, “People Like Us” is going to fulfill that want and need because it is so by the book (as it were). It almost acted as a comfort read for me, in that I didn’t have to think too deeply about it and that I knew that bad people were going to have bad things happen to them. Sometimes all we want is a book that hits all the things that we want and to be able to just enjoy it for what it is, and I do have to admit that I got that from “People Like Us” when all was said and done.

If you are looking for a YA thriller mystery that reinvents the wheel, “People Like Us” probably isn’t going to be the read for you. But if you want that familiar comfort of a genre you’ve come to really enjoy without rocking the boat, it could be a good bet. show less

A dark academia mystery in which a teen girl away at boarding school gets caught up in the suspicious death of a fellow student. She finds herself being blackmailed into doing bad things to her frenemies in order to keep her past secrets safe, all the while trying to figure out who actually killed the victim.

This one was a little ho-hum for me. None of the characters were at all likeable, which is possibly part of the point, but it still just didn’t work for me – I need to either love or love to hate them, and these inspired nothing more mild annoyance for me, which means that the tension the author tries to build just didn’t happen. And that may be why the pacing felt slow to me, too: maybe it’s just because I…didn’t care show more what happened? The twists were hit and miss as well; I had the killer figured out fairly quickly, and the twist that I didn’t see coming wasn’t all that shocking when it was revealed. But, again, that could just be my lack of enthusiasm for the characters themselves. show less

Kay is attending one of the last social events of Year 12 late at night. She and her friends decide to have a midnight swim in the lake surrounding her boarding school. But when they get there, they find the body of a fellow classmate floating in the water. This brings up a lot of Kay's past as she has to deal with the police, just like she had to when her brother and her best friend died. This is a story of lots of suspects and twists and turns as Kay is forced by a covert website to confront each of her "friends"secrets to try and uncover who the murderer actually is. There is a secret on again, off again relationship with her best friend, a possible link with her ex-boyfriend who slept with the murdered girl, the girl's boyfriend and show more other people who have motives and means.
I must admit I guessed who the murderer actually was about half way through the book. The ending is harrowing where Kay's past is revealed and made me feel a little cheated because you have invested so much time into the main character, that to find out what she did ( which makes her on par with the murderer) is quite confronting. It is for mature readers due to the LGBT relationship and the casual attitudes the teenagers have to sex, alcohol and drugs. It will be interesting to see what the students make of this book. show less

Probably more like 3.5 but rounding up.

I THINK I NEED THERAPY AFTER READING THIS. What a twisted sapphic mean girls murder mystery. I love a classic unreliable narrator and this was everything I wanted from this book.

Full review (probably) coming soon.

I really enjoyed this book. I read it in like one sitting. It was fast paced, (somewhat) twisty, and I just could not put it down.

It also definitely wasn't my genre. This book was hella enjoyable, but... personally, I didn't find it wasn't anything more than that. And I truly think that this was purely a personal issue. I just... couldn't connect.

So I'm having a bit of a hard time rating this one. I'm really torn between 4 stars and 3.5. I feel like I could easily justify either rating, but since I DO feel that it was largely because it's not my genre, and it WAS really enjoyable, I'm going to leave it at four for now.

All complaints aside though, I really did enjoy this book quite a bit! It was exciting and action packed and kept me on show more the edge of my seat the entire time! Also all the characters were great! Not super remarkable (or else I just have no memory... this is just as likely tbh), but well developed and fun to read about.

The plot was really good too! I can't really say much about it without spoilers, and also I suck at giving plot descriptions, so just go read the back if you want to know what the hell it's actually about. However, actual DESCRIPTIONS aside, I would like to talk about the plot.

It was REALLY good. While the characters are great, this is very much a plot driven book. And the plot shines. It's so clearly well thought out, and it's well paced and exciting and (fairly) twisty!
I really think the plot is where this book is strongest, so if that's your thing, I think you will love this book. I, however, prefer my books more characters driven. (And also I prefer my books to not be thrillers. So there's that.)

Okay, but I DID figure out who the murderer was. I spent probably the first two thirds of this book (look at me making up percentages because I actually have no clue!) with NO IDEA who the murderer was. But somewhere around the two thirds point (again I'm actually totally guessing on this percentage, lol.) I started to get suspicious, and by the time we actually find out... Yeah I was pretty certain already.

Still, the plot was NEVER boring, even after I'd figured the murderer out, and there was still some TWISTS that left me SHOOK.

Overall? This wasn't entirely my style, but it was hella fun, and I one hundred percent recommend it! show less

I would give this book 3.5 stars*

I thought this was a super fast pace mystery that really hooked me. It def reminds me lot of both 13reasons why and pretty little liars. The mystery kept me engaged. I had a hard time becoming emotional invested in most of majority of these characters because so many of them were unlikeable especially the lead. But the mystery kept me so engaged. I thought the actions of the police made me so angry but I guess I could see that happens in real life at points. I do see the theme "every action has a consquence even if you don't notice the very similar to shows like 13 reasons why. I would def read more by this author in the future.

I would give this book 3.5 stars*

I thought this was a super fast pace mystery that really hooked me. It def reminds me lot of both 13reasons why and pretty little liars. The mystery kept me engaged. I had a hard time becoming emotional invested in most of majority of these characters because so many of them were unlikeable especially the lead. But the mystery kept me so engaged. I thought the actions of the police made me so angry but I guess I could see that happens in real life at points. I do see the theme "every action has a consquence even if you don't notice the very similar to shows like 13 reasons why. I would def read more by this author in the future.