Title: All That’s Left To Say
Author: Emory Lord
Publication: July 18, 2023
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Genre: YA Fiction, Mystery
Pages: 400
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SYNOPSIS: (From Goodreads)
On prom night, Hannah MacLaren sits in the headmaster’s office in her fanciest dress, soaked to the bone. She pulled the fire alarm right as the queen was about to be crowned, and she’s in huge trouble. But Hannah had her reasons for ruining the biggest night of everyone’s lives.
One year ago, her cousin Sophie, who was also her best friend and the person she loved most in the world, died of an overdose. Drowning in grief, Hannah became obsessed with one question: Who gave Sophie those pills? Then she concocted a plan: enroll at her cousin’s fancy private school with a new look and a mouthful of lies, and find out the truth once and for all.
But she didn’t expect all the lines to blur. She didn’t expect Sophie’s friends to be so complicated. She didn’t expect to fall for her longtime enemy. Now, she has a choice: let herself really mourn Sophie and move on, or see her search through to its explosive end–even if it means destroying herself.
REVIEW:
**A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**
I had heard so much about this book and was very excited to finally get to read it. I love a good YA Mystery, especially in a school setting, and this one sounded great. A fancy school with some rich kids, absolutely. Lord definitely has the suspense build down!
Hannah was an interesting character. It took me a while to decide if she was purposefully being evasive with real information about herself or just hoping for the average teenager to not be very perceptive. For the most part, I liked her. Although at times I felt she was the maker of her own chaos. However, I found I liked some of the side characters the best. She made friends with some new people, but the people from her past turned out to be people I liked the most. That disappointed me a little because I like to see a sense of growth.
Lord built up the suspense well on what we were going to discover about what happened to Sophie. My issue was that I felt the build-up didn’t match the reveal. Maybe that is just me, but after an entire book of it possibly being this big grand thing, I felt it wasn’t as life-defining as I wanted it to be. It was still a great story and still a great build-up, I just felt it left me wanting. However, Emory Lord is a fantastic author and I’ve read her books before. I will definitely be checking them out in the future as well. Everyone should check out All That’s Left To Say and other books by Emory Lord. You won’t be disappointed.
