Spoiler Warning: The first section only covers the beginning and general thoughts on the book so it has no spoilers. The middle section has some slight spoilers, but nothing too major. The end section spoils the ending.
52 Books in 52 Weeks – Book 32/Week 32 – Set in a School
The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas
I picked this book because I guessed from the title that it probably had something to do with a school. The school didn’t actually feature as much as I expected, but I think it still counts.
Star Rating: ★★★★☆
The Beginning
The Cheerleaders is about a a teenage girl named Monica whose sister, Jennifer, was part of a group of cheerleaders who all died tragically around the same time several years before. She starts looking into their deaths again because of strange letters she finds in her stepfather’s office that implies there was more behind their deaths than was publicly known. When she starts looking into it, she notices that the events she had been told happened don’t seem to match up. She also finds a mysterious number in her dead sister’s phone and when she starts texting it, that person warns her not to trust her stepfather’s version of events.
Monica also has her own personal problems going on outside of that. At the beginning of the book, she’s recently had an abortion after she got pregnant from a summer fling. When she goes back to school, she learns that the man she had the fling with is now a coach at her school.
There are also sections told from Jennifer’s perspective in the days leading up to all of the deaths. They’re pretty infrequent though, it’s mostly Monica’s perspective.
This book weirdly reminded me a lot of Good Girl’s Guide to Murder to the point where I had to double check they weren’t written by the same person. Not necessarily that the plot’s the same, but there were some plot points and character elements that reminded me a lot of that book. The way it uses text messages also seemed really similar.
There were also some parts that reminded me of Dark Places for some reason. I think it was just the flashbacks to the sister’s POV where she’s hanging out with the creepy guy, it kind of reminded me of the brother’s POV in that book.
Overall, I liked this book. It kept me engaged throughout and the way everything wrapped up in the end was satisfying.
The only complaints I have are pretty minor. I had trouble keeping track of some of the characters. They name a lot of characters who aren’t really important. There are also five dead girls, but only three of them really matter that much. It also did something that I’ve seen YA thrillers do a bit, so it might just be a trope in that genre, but a lot of them end up bringing in a drug plotline and it gets a little too ‘afterschool special’ to me. Like any time a character is described as doing drugs they’re always described as a shady drug user and there will be a drug dealing plot and it’s just a little much for me. Especially since those same stories won’t portray drinking in that same light.
The Middle
For most of the book, Monica is investigating along with a girl named Ginny. Ginny wasn’t friends with her sister, but knew her and seemed to have positive sentiments toward her.
Around this point is also when they figure out who the phone number belongs to. It’s a guy named Ethan who had a crush on Jennifer and was also sort of creepy. They go to confront him and see what he knows. He gives them more information about what he saw on the night of the murders. They aren’t really afraid of him, but Ginny thinks he’s suspicious.
Monica also ends up learning a little about Ginny’s father and looking into him. He starts to look suspicious too, mainly because of a lot of coincidences.
The middle’s good. It’s basically doing what most thrillers do for a majority of the book where it’s pointing fingers at everyone to keep you guessing.
The End
Eventually, all of these suspicions get ironed out and Monica starts to focus in on different people. This is mainly through her starting to focus in on Carly who was a druggie girl that had started hanging out with one of Jen’s friends. Through her, she learns that they were hanging around with the cheerleading coach’s boyfriend who was friends with a drug dealer. Which Monica later finds out that the coach’s boyfriend is the same guy who got her pregnant over the summer.
She confronts him and figures out that he murdered two of the girls. They fight and then he gets arrested.
Her parents also finally talk to her about Jennifer’s death and confirm to her that it was a suicide. This is also already pretty obvious at this point from reading Jen’s POV since she talks about being really depressed and wanting to die.
The last revelation is that Ginny’s father actually killed two of the girls because he was driving drunk. Ginny was there and knew about it, which was why she didn’t want Monica looking into it.
I liked the way everything wrapped up in the end for the most part. The confrontation with the guy at the end was a little eh, but it wasn’t bad. I could see people maybe being disappointed that it turned out the sister’s death was just a suicide and not a murder because I’ve read books that had that same plot and people were disappointed by it, but I thought it made sense. It also reminded me a bit of conversations I’ve seen recently where people were talking about how when people go missing loved ones will talk about how they would never do this or that, but you don’t really know.
A Book in Three Acts 