Book Review: Murder Madness Such Sweet Sadness by Jamie Blair and Dawn Rae Miller
9:08:00 PM
Title: Murder Madness Such Sweet SadnessAuthor: Jamie Blair and Dawn Rae Miller
Pages: 242
Genre: YA Contemporary/ Mystery
Release Date: 29 March 2016
From Goodreads: "Haddie, Livie, Reggie, and Val. Four girls with secrets to tell. A murderer is loose on the FU campus, and despite their best efforts, the police are nowhere near making an arrest. It’s beginning to look like Jackson’s murderer may walk free — until someone calling themselves The Fifth begins threatening each girl. Suddenly, The Fifth starts revealing the girls’ darkest secrets: Reggie is the campus drug dealer, Livie is a kleptomaniac, Haddie hasn’t remained a virgin, and Val is struggling with her sexuality. With no option but to work together, the girls dive deeper into Jackson’s web of lies, and hope to unmask The Fifth while solving the mystery of Jackson’s death. The more answers they get, the more dangerous life at FU becomes — not just for the girls, but for the people they love the most. Which makes a girl wonder, who’s next on the murderer’s list?"
Thank you to YA Bound Book Tours for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for review!
Murder Madness Such Sweet Sadness is a great continuation from Kiss Kill Love Him Still. While this book series seems more fit for the "older" young adult crowd (is that just considered new adult?) simply due to the near constant references to drug use/selling by Reggie and Jackson's numerous videos of his...conquests, this is a great light read that I easily sped through. Not because I wanted it to be over, but because I was dying to learn more about who the killer was!
I got a very Pretty Little Liars vibe from this book once The Fifth was introduced. A was a constant threat to the girls in the PLL series, and The Fifth gives me the same feeling due to the whole revealing secrets about Haddie, Livie, Reggie, and Val.
What I really enjoyed was the character development between this book and the first. Reggie and Val are probably my favorite characters and I liked reading about them trying to grow out of their old lives and how they were when Jackson was alive. Reggie getting out of the drug dealing business and trying to be a respectable college student was great character progression, and Val coming to terms with her drinking problem was great for her. Haddie and Livie are not my favorites, and I really didn't see much change or progression with them, sadly. Livie is still self-centered, and Haddie's issues with her father are still prominent and both seem kind of...stuck. Hopefully we see more growth with them in the third book because I feel like Livie has great potential!
One thing that really bothered me was that Livie was so caught up in the person that she thought Jackson was that she couldn't really accept and see him for the slimy scummy guy that he truly was when he died. Again, hopefully this will just mean more development for Livie in the third book, but it just got on my nerves at times.
Also, I STILL HAVE NO IDEA WHO KILLED JACKSON.
All in all, I really enjoyed the second installment in this series and felt it was a good bridge from the first book to what will be the third book. I'm definitely invested enough to read more and am eagerly awaiting the third book in October! If you like mystery/contemporary series, then definitely pick this book up! But don't forget about the first, Kiss Kill Love Him Still!
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