Kiss Me, Kill Me ~ Lauren Henderson

Kiss Me, Kill Me
Delacorte Books for Young Readers
(January 8, 2008)
272 pages
$15.99 (hardcover)
Amazon

Sixteen-year-old Scarlett Wakefield is starting fresh at Wakefield Hall...in more ways than one. Here, at Wakefield, unlike at her previous school St. Tabby's, no one knows her dark secret. A couple of months ago, Scarlett was invited to a party at one of the It girls homes. She'd only ever dreamed of going to their parties, but now that she's gone, the party lives in her nightmares.

After hours of finding the perfect outfit to buy, getting her makeup and hair just right, Scarlett was finally ready to enjoy the party--and she did. For a little while.

Besides dreaming of what it would be like to attend parties like the one she was at, she had also dreamt of what it would be like to kiss Dan McAndrew...as they stood on the terrace together, it seemed her dream was about to come true. What Scarlett never could have imagine, though, was that once she kissed Dan, he would die. Just drop dead in her arms.

And so begins the murder mystery of Kiss Me, Kill Me that's not so much a murder mystery. The book is a good book to read and follows the premise that no one knows what killed Dan but everyone blames Scarlett so she moves to Wakefield Hall to escape the scrutiny only to have someone there begin leaving her anonymous notes.

I really liked that Scarlett was involved in gymnastics--and not just in the 'jump in the air and flip around' sense but she really was and it was woven into the story--and, as I said, I did enjoy this book, but it ended very abruptly.

There is a sequel coming out in January so I'm not sure if the plan is to flesh everything out then but I felt kind of cheated because it set everything up to possibly be this great, Here's-What-Happened...and then it was maybe ten pages (or less) of ending the story by seemingly just saying This is What Happened. It didn't pull things in that had happened in the start (or one or two tiny ones), but nothing that a good mystery does where you can say, oh wait! that means...okay, now I get why that was there!

The sequel (Kisses and Lies) isn't out yet so I can't say this for certain, but maybe reading them together wil be more satisfying?

I still give it an 8/10 because disappointing ending aside, it was enjoyable and I hold high hopes for the sequel to fix some things...

(nb: don't read the Kisses & Lies summary unless you've read Kiss Me, Kill Me--it tells the KMKM ending right off)

~*~ coming soon ~*~