Review: TWO CAN KEEP A SECRET by Karen McManus

Echo Ridge is small-town America. Ellery's never been there, but she's heard all about it. Her aunt went missing there at age seventeen. And only five years ago, a homecoming queen put the town on the map when she was killed. Now Ellery has to move there to live with a grandmother she barely knows.

The town is picture-perfect, but it's hiding secrets. And before school even begins for Ellery, someone's declared open season on homecoming, promising to make it as dangerous as it was five years ago. Then, almost as if to prove it, another girl goes missing.

Ellery knows all about secrets. Her mother has them; her grandmother does too. And the longer she's in Echo Ridge, the clearer it becomes that everyone there is hiding something. The thing is, secrets are dangerous--and most people aren't good at keeping them. Which is why in Echo Ridge, it's safest to keep your secrets to yourself.

My rating: 4.5 stars.

This was so nearly a 5 star read. It was so close, by the end. But it was also so nearly a 3 star read near the beginning.

Let me explain.

This book starts off really well. I was immediately gripped by Ellery and Malcom's story. You've got family secrets, fascinating characters, decades-old mysteries, an intriguing cast, and missing prom queens. But from about the 15% mark to the 30% mark, I felt the pace slowed down a lot.

I was really struggling just to keep reading it. Until--bang. We get a second crime happening in the present timeline. (Spoilers ahead) As soon as Brooke goes missing, the pace picked up and I was eagerly reading. I felt like there really was a threat in the current time (rather than the emphasis being on the past crimes in the town), and it seemed like Ellery could really be in danger. I believed her fear at this point.

By this point, Two Can Keep A Secret was a solid 4 stars for me. And the thing that really made me like the book even more was the reveal of the villain (right to the end, I still had absolutely no idea who had done it) and the final line. Seriously, the final line changes everything. Karen McManus really is a master.

Ellery is a great main character, though it did take me a while to warm to her. I think partly it was because I was comparing her to the female narrators in McManus's first novel, and Ellery is really different.

I also found that Ellery and Malcom's narrative voices weren't as distinguishable from each other as the narrative voices in McManus's first book were, and a couple of times I did get confused about who was narrating each section--particularly as the narration doesn't always alternate between these two main characters.

But all in all, this is a solid YA thriller.