Book Review
Title: Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller
Rating: 3.5 Stars
The opening to Pretty Dead Queens wasn’t that interesting but it does introduced you to what I assume is the main cast of characters. We are introduced to Cecelia Ellis who is moving from LA to California to live with her grandmother, Maura after the death of her mother since her father isn’t in the picture. Initially we are just following Cecelia as she tries to settle into this new place and her new school, Seaview High while dealing with her grief. It doesn’t help that Maura is a famous mystery author and the star of the town, but she does immediately fall in with the popular crowd by accident after being helped by Bronte and learns that one of her grandmother’s books is based on a real murder that happened in the town back when Maura would have been attending the school and that was the death of the prom queen. This seems like it is going to deal with murders in the present day a bit like One of Us is Lying but with more Nancy Drew elements rather than blackmail.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, we continue to follow Cecelia as she tries to settle and fit into this new town. There are several other characters like Bronte, Ben and Gabriel who have all lost a parent so Cecelia doesn’t feel so isolated since there are others who understand what she is going through. Nothing has really happened at this point other than at Cecelia’s welcome party thrown by her grandmother where she ends up having a moment with Gabriel after the constant reminders of her mother become too much for her and he ends up giving her some advice on how to cope with that loss at little better and even advising therapy if she needs it. Gabriel is a love interest alongside Ben and while Cecelia seems more focused on Ben right now I prefer Gabriel. Ben comes off as a little self-centred since he did lose his mother and his grandfather is suing the mayor because of it causing some tension between the friend group but Cecelia doesn’t really care about this. Honestly, I am nearly 100 pages in and nothing but teenage drama has happened and I am being reminded of the reason I don’t read many young adults novels anymore but I am hoping it picks up soon.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, things finally begin to happen when a murder occurs and this one is a copycat almost the same as the murder in Maura’s book and the one that happened in real life over fifty years ago. The victim this time is Natalie, the Mayor’s daughter and Cecelia’s friend and Cecelia is the one that finds her body, and one thing that stood out to me during these scenes was how off the pacing was. One moment we have Natalie’s murder but we don’t linger on it or the aftermath at all we just jump right to the next day where Cecelia doesn’t seem affected at all and jumps straight into being Nancy Drew and wanting to solve the murder. I also feel the fight with Morgan before Natalie’s death makes her way too obvious to be the actual killer so there isn’t even any tension surrounding Morgan at the moment despite her being desperate to speak with Cecelia. Ben seems more like a potential killer for me since he had issues with Natalie’s family and she treated him quite badly any time they were seen together and since her murder took place in the halftime of a football game, Ben wouldn’t have been on the pitch as the mascot at the time but honestly it could have been anyone since Natalie doesn’t come across as a nice or likable person at all.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, Cecelia is really stepping up to be a Nancy Drew but not in a good way since the pacing is off and everything seems way too convenient for there to be any real stakes involved. I just can’t believe that Cecelia accidently fell in with the most popular crowd who happening to be related to people like the Major and the Sheriff plus there are other who can get her access to information that they really shouldn’t all because she has known them for less than two weeks it just doesn’t make any sense to me. However, the dynamic between Gabriel, Ben and Cecelia makes sense since they have all lost a parent and it gives them something genuine to bond over but I still feel that Gabriel should be the main love interest since he just seems like the better choice for Cecelia than Ben. Cecelia is forming her own theories and suspects with the more information she collects but they are baseless right now since she doesn’t have any real evidence or any real skills or connections that she could use to her advantage like the others in the group. Going forward I am intrigued to find out who killed Natalie and why but the questions of whether or not I am going to like this book remained unanswered for now.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, Cecelia is learning more about the town and the murder of Caroline and how this events links back to the current murder and who could be responsible for it. Honestly, right now both Luke and Gabriel might be suspects since they weren’t in the locker room at halftime but Cecelia and Ben know the killer only had six minutes to kill Natalie and three of those were taken up by strangling her. I don’t think it is Gabriel since he has no reason to want to kill her and hasn’t shown any disturbing or out of character behaviour. While Luke has as he wasn’t willing to give the police his alibi originally even though this turned out to be hooking up with Morgan and he threatened Natalie in a text message the day she died but the motive isn’t clear at all right now but I also think that her father could be responsible since he has the motive and character for it. There are also several adults around town that seem shifty enough to commit murder but again it come down to motive and what reason they would have for targeting Natalie in particular other than she is the daughter of the Mayor and someone might want to get back at him.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, there are a lot of secrets about the town and its residents coming to light especially after Cecelia learns that Natalie was spying on her mother’s therapy patients and using that confidential information to blackmail a lot of them including Ben and Gabriel. Gabriel won’t tell Cecelia what he was doing for Natalie to blackmail him because he doesn’t know her well enough and I was relived that someone in this town has some sense. However, Cecelia is beginning to think that this might not be a copycat murder with some strange things happening but revenge for what happened to Joe, the man accused of the original murder. Grace, his sister, doesn’t believe he was responsible for killing Caroline even though everyone else does and from the evidence he looks extremely guilty. It seems like the author is keeping their options open for the ending like they weren’t sure how the book was going to end when they were writing it and it shows but I think I might end up enjoying it if the ending is satisfying without being cliché or rushed.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, everything seems to happen at once and while this was entertaining it didn’t really make for a satisfying ending. Honestly, I felt that if Alexa Donne used one of the red herrings as the actual killer the ending would have made a lot more sense than it actually did. I also felt there needed to be a lot more in the character development department since we didn’t care about most of the characters throughout the novel and the fact that Cecelia has known them less than a month also adds to this so it would have made more sense for the novel to span months and I think it could have benefitted from being a duology or series like A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder which had similar themes and tropes but executed them 100x better than Pretty Dead Queens did. Despite this it was still a fairly quick and entertaining reads with likable and cute characters like Gabriel who I desperately wanted to see more of especially in the immediately aftermath of the ending and seeing how his friendship and relationship with Cecelia developed.
Buy it here: Barnes & Noble Book Depository Indigo IndieBound
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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