Quick Stats
Age Rating: 14+
Over All: 4 stars
Plot: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing: 4/5

Special thanks to Penguin Teen for providing me with a free copy of this book! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.

I love Jessica Goodman. They’ll Never Catch Us, her previous novel, was one of my favorite thrillers of last year, so I had high hopes for The Counselors—and it did not disappoint!

Camp Alpine Lake is Goldie’s happy place. Every summer she goes to the posh camp for super rich kids on a scholarship, because her parents work there, and there is nowhere she feels safer. After everything that happened to her during the school year, she’s more desperate for camp and the friends that come with it than ever. But when a local boy is found floating face down in the river, dead—or maybe murdered?—Goldie has to face the fact that her favorite place on earth might now be the idyllic sanctuary she’s always thought it.

Is this a murder mystery? Yes. But It’s also so much more. Told in alternating time lines, we see Goldie’s summer, but also her past. We see her friendship with her best (camp) friends unfold over the years, we learn all about Goldie’s dark secrets from the school year, and we get to see how all of these things tie back to the body in the lake. It’s an intoxicating mystery, but it’s also a story of family, both blood and found, bullying, first love, and female friendships. I think The Counselors will appeal to anyone who loves a good contemporary, even if they don’t typically pick up mysteries.
I was so invested in every aspect of this book. The mystery, of course, had me utterly drawn in and on the edge of my seat, but I was also desperate to see more of these characters I grew to love, and to bear witness to the ups and downs of Goldie, Ava, and Imogen’s relationship, which though strong, definitely got toxic at times. Despite the toxicity, I couldn’t help but root for all these broken girls to figure things out and come back together.
I enjoyed the ending. It wasn’t the most shocking thing ever. I wasn’t thrown for an utter loop like I was with TNCU, but I was satisfied and I thought it packed a good punch. Watching the pieces finally fall into place, like the most satisfying puzzle, made up for the fact that the whodunnit wasn’t a huge surprise.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I highly recommend it, and I really need to finally pick up Goodman’s debut, They Wish They Were Us.