Title: Tell Me What Really Happened
Author: Chelsea Sedoti
Publication: April 2, 2024
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Genre: YA Fiction, Mystery, Thriller
Pages: 416
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SYNOPSIS: (From Goodreads)
It was all her idea. They would get away from their parents and spend the weekend camping. Down by Salvation Creek, the five of them would make smores, steal kisses, share secrets.
But sometime around midnight, she vanished.
Now the four friends who came back are under suspicion―and they each have a very different story to tell about what happened in the woods.
The clock is ticking. What are they hiding? Who is lying? Dark truths must come to light if their friend is to be found…
Told entirely through first-person police interviews, this riveting mystery asks: what really happened that night?
REVIEW
**A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**
A friend’s trip with a bunch of teens in the woods? What could go wrong? Add in a conspiracy theorist, a high school “princess”, and more… you would be expecting chaos. Sedoti definitely delivered on that.
The story follows a group of teens on a camping trip, none of which you would think would be on a trip together, and obviously something terrible is going to happen. Sedoti had a mix of characters from all walks of life, which I found interesting. Usually, books like this are a nice mash-up, but friends. Some of these kids didn’t even run in the same social circles. There was even one who was obsessed with Big Foot.
While the characters were interesting on their own and the plot of the story was a good one, I was not a fan of the execution of this novel. There was a lot of build-up, especially with the interviews with each kid that we kept jumping to and from while going through the main story. I was built up to expect some really interesting plot twists near the end. Unfortunately, I felt the ending was a letdown. I don’t want to give anything away with my review, but i felt there was a lot of talk to lead to not much really. I struggled to make it through the book as is, because it wasn’t really gripping, but I was intrigued enough to want to finish it.
With that said, I have read many books by Chelsea Sedoti and enjoyed them thoroughly. This was simply not my favorite. It may, very well, be yours and I encourage you to check it out for yourself. Also, make sure to check out her other novels, which I have enjoyed and would recommend as well.
