Author: Kara Thomas
Publisher: Delacorte
Genre: YA mystery
Pages: 336
Rating: 3/5 stars
Synopsis:
“There are ghosts around every corner in Fayette, Pennsylvania. Tessa left when she was nine and has been trying ever since not to think about it after what happened there that last summer. Memories of things so dark will burn themselves into your mind if you let them.
Callie never left. She moved to another house, so she doesn’t have to walk those same halls, but then Callie always was the stronger one. She can handle staring into the faces of her demons—and if she parties hard enough, maybe one day they’ll disappear for good.
Tessa and Callie have never talked about what they saw that night. After the trial, Callie drifted and Tessa moved, and childhood friends just have a way of losing touch.
But ever since she left, Tessa has had questions. Things have never quite added up. And now she has to go back to Fayette—to Wyatt Stokes, sitting on death row; to Lori Cawley, Callie’s dead cousin; and to the one other person who may be hiding the truth.
Only the closer Tessa gets to the truth, the closer she gets to a killer—and this time, it won’t be so easy to run away.”
This dark and twisted thriller was so beautifully written and dived deep into plot line and connections I never saw coming, yet It didn’t have much of an effect on me. I never got fully invested in the story and by the end all of the twists fell flat for me since I wasn’t connecting with the characters or story.
Kara Thomas has a talent for digging into deep, dark, and terrifying stories so she can tie together different things in ways that’ll mess with your mind and this book is no exception. I loved how she tied in kidnappings, murders, and tons of different elements to pull this story along. It takes a long time to build up to the point where there are more questions than answers but, sadly, the payoff wasn’t there for me. The story was interesting but didn’t get my heart racing and I didn’t feel any connections towards the characters. There were so many questions it hurt my head and the lack of action got me tired of wanting to know what happened.
I liked the characters in this story at first and one of the few things I actually enjoyed in this book was watching them develop. Tessa has a really dark past and she was fascinating, especially when she and Callie’s friendship began to grow again which was when the story finally began to pick up. I liked seeing how different the two girls were, yet they still retained a brilliantly written friendship that was full of some great girl power. I also liked how the side characters were used in this book. All of them actually played a part in building the story instead of just existing for the sake of creating a flat world. Seriously, the way the characters are twisted together is one of the best parts of this book. There’s always someone who is a bit deeper than they seem.
This book is full of twists, red herrings, and discoveries that’ll make your stomach twist. It was a really interesting book, it was just difficult to be invested since it took so long to finally get to the point where everything was building up in a way that was understandable. The story is set very meticulously as friendships are built and little pieces of information are delivered. I understand what the story was going for but it took so long! I fell out of love with the characters and couldn’t be bothered by the end of the story.
Overall The Twisted Corners is dark, twisted, and full of questions to leave your brain spiraling. Kara Thomas’ writing is beautiful as always and seeing her pull the strings in this story is impressive. The ending is still dancing around in my brain, but I am disappointed. I think I would have been able to give this book a perfect 5/5 stars had it not taken so long to really get the story moving.
From the Library of Alexis 