3.5 stars.

Honestly, all 3 of the girls annoy me. Ama I have some sympathy for, but she's rather prone to jumping to conclusions. Also quitting. Jo can be so arrogant and selfish; Polly's babyish and hard to relate to or believe. They also fight for half the book, which seems to undercut the theme of sisterhood.

The plot kinda drags, and I hated Eleanor after a while. Henry was too easily influenced by her, even considering his age. Frank was the best character in his misunderstood-perfectness (that's sarcasm). The pacing of the ending was awkward, and the ending was too HEA for my taste (and the rest of the book).

3.5 stars.

I thought the ending was too formulaic, with

Spoiler

all the closure being all in Sadie's head

, though perhaps the intention was the whole "this is real life" 4th wall break. Too much surface-level conflict, but the moral/emotional dilemma was interesting and the writing was pretty good.

Kind of NCIS-y, with a lot of characters and scenes running simultaneously. Bishop's fascinating (and, I suspect, shares an archetype with Gibbs!). But the title and summary are so misleading; I would've rated it even higher if it stood alone better, but it was still really good.

It's a little creepy, West's unexplainably supernatural dreams and interactions with Olivia. I have no problems believing that he heard what people said to him while he was in a coma, but

Spoiler

seeing the face of Olivia's rapist

? That's definitely stretching disbelief. And that last dream, the one

Spoiler

right before Olivia died

, was cliche, cheesy, totally overkill.

The Rose/Lissa relationship really had that stereotypical/idealized white-teenage-female-BFFLS thing going, which is not that interesting. The love interest was archetypical: hot older male mentor/colleague who feels morally prevented from a relationship with the main character.

A brilliant and touching (pun intended) sequel. Ben was as elusive as ever, Adam cool but about impossible to see through. Camelia was quite oblivious, but I'm glad she had enough self-respect to try and move on.

A decent read, but seriously mainstream. The demi-love-triangle occupies that uncomfortable region between overplayed and insignificant. Of course I appreciated Rose's victory as a plot point, but I wasn't all that impressed by her mommy issues.

I really liked the first story, but 90% of the book followed another narrative that I wasn't as interested in. I can't blame the mother for wanting to keep her daughter, but that little girl would've been much better off if she'd been given up for adoption.

Really emphasizes the importance of home security and "stranger danger." As an older sister myself, I can totally understand Livvy telling Teddy to run even though as a reader I think it's an unnecessarily risky move considering how vulnerable he is. And wasn't it just great that it all resulted from Dad's thoughtless complaints to a stranger?