A YA mystery/thriller that gives off Pretty Little Liars vibes without the romantic drama and has all the girl bonding? Yes please! I adored this book. It was like reading a book filled with telenovela level drama or like I was reading juicy gossip from high school drama. I loved it. It was fun and different. 

Sawyer is 18 and recently received her GED. She was raised by her single mother, Ellie. Ellie had Sawyer when she was 17 and ended up in a crappy apartment above a bar where she would work at to provide for Sawyer. Ellie told Sawyer her grandmother kicked Ellie out when she revealed she was pregnant and that her rich Southern family wanted nothing to do with Ellie or her baby. That is until the very prim and proper Lillian Taft shows up at Sawyer and her mother’s apartment. Ellie was off running around for a few weeks with a guy as usual. Lillian offers to give Sawyer half a million dollars for college if Sawyer comes back with her to attend Debutante events and be presented to society (she of course draws up a contract for her to sign). 

Going with Lillian had the added bonus of finding out who her father is. Sawyer then meets her maternal aunt, Olivia, her husband, JD, and their two kids, John David and Lily. Lily is Sawyer’s age in her final year of high school. Lily is also being presented to society with her cousin. They don’t get along right away, but eventually they bond and get into several questionable situations with Lily’s best friend, Sadie Grace, and her nemesis, Campbell. 

There’s a mysterious hit-and-run, stolen pearls, teen pregnancy, and a bunch of cover ups. It’s all pretty PG-13, and through adult eyes, a little silly, but I loved it!



LOOK AWAY! SPOILERS!!!




You’ve been warned. 

So we find out that Campbell is trying to frame her father for stealing these pearls because he framed his son, Walker, for a hit-and-run that resulted in the victim ending up in a coma. Walker thinks he actually hit this person (he was drunk at the time) and he goes on a bender, drops out of school, and breaks up with Lily (yes that Lily) because he thinks he’s a garbage human. So of course the girls join Campbell in framing her father. And they succeed (yay) and Walker’s told the truth. 

Sawyer also finds out that Lillian has been paying the bar to keep Ellie employed when she spent 18 years running off with random men for weeks at a time. And that Lillian has ensured Ellie and Sawyer had food, clothes, and shelter without either of them knowing the truth. 

Eventually Sawyer suspects her father must be Campbell’s dad (Senator Ames), Lily’s dad, Sadie Grace’s dad, or her new friend, Boone’s dad (who is married to Senator Ames’ sister). It’s a real family affair. And really problematic as Ellie was 17 and all these potential candidates were 21-23 years old. Senator Ames and his wife, Charlotte, all but confirm that he’s Sawyer’s dad and Ellie even confirms it. However, this turns out to be a lie. Turns out her Uncle JD is her father, and Sawyer is a product of a pregnancy pact Ellie made with her fellow Debs, Ana and Greer. Ana was the one knocked up by Senator Ames and she’s since been missing ever since. Greer, who is Sadie Grace’s new stepmother, lost her baby and dropped Ana and Ellie after that. This is of course where the story ends. With the mystery of what happened to Ana and what will happen to Greer since she faked a recent pregnancy with her new husband. 


And now my thoughts. 

I absolutely HATED Ellie. She’s not a good mother. There’s more to being a parent than just loving your kid and making sure they had clothes on their backs, a roof over their heads, and food in the fridge (these last 3 were very much because of Lillian and NOT Ellie). Ellie is a petty, spoiled, emotionally immature child that not only LIED about Sawyer’s father and the events surrounding her conception, but she lied about her family not wanting anything to do with them. Sawyer didn’t have a family outside of her mother. And after the pregnancy pact, it confirmed my suspicions that Ellie is the kind of woman that had a kid so she wouldn’t be lonely and she’d have someone who’d love her unconditionally. It’s really disgusting. Because she emotionally manipulated Sawyer. She ghosts her own daughter when Sawyer decides to stay with the Taft family through the duration of their contract. She tells Sawyer she doesn’t need to go to college because she needs to be with her mother. I could’ve forgiven her actions as a 17 year old but she’s 35 and still trying to keep Sawyer around for when she’s not running off with some man. So she’s never alone. I really, REALLY hate that it seemed that Sawyer was forgiving her mother after all that. Because it’s just so problematic, toxic, and abusive. Any young person reading this should know they don’t have to forgive their abusers EVER. Even if they change. 

Okay Spoilers are done!!



I adored Sawyer and Lily. I enjoyed Sawyer being challenged and being out of her element but still holding her own. She wasn’t this stereotypical, scrappy, unintelligent “from the wrong side of the tracks” and “I’m different from other girls” kind of teenager. She was a bright, sarcastic, cunning, resourceful young woman who might have had different tastes but she didn’t outright reject the new pampering and fashion she was being asked to adopt. She incorporated pieces that were hers and negotiated with her grandmother so nothing was so shocking it caused gossip. 

I think it did drag a little, but it was still a really fast paced story. I wished the other Debs weren’t so in the background. I mean no one had names other then the main 4 girls, the three boys, and their parents. I’m not saying that they needed whole backgrounds or be part of the main story, it just seemed less real (?) I guess. It just seemed like the hyper focus on this group made it hard to imagine that anything else existed outside of this bubble. And again, I hate that it seemed implied that Sawyer was going to forgive her emotionally manipulative mother. It’s just so toxic. And it definitely got points taken off for that. 

Other than that, I think it’s a great YA mystery. It was funny and genuinely had me go “SHUT UP”, “WHAT THE FUCK?!”, and “I KNEW IT!” It’s definitely appropriate for the younger end of the YA range and as an adult, pretty predictable, but still a lot of fun and had a few surprises.