Wish You Were Dead

Every year my school hosts an author visit. Pretty cool, right? Yeah, it really is.

Anyway, last year we heard from Todd Strasser.
Ta da! Here he is!

 It officially took me a year- a whole year- to read one of his books. Its not that they didn't sound awesome or anything. Actually they sounded great. But the man put on a good enough show that kids couldn't wait to read his books. They were always checked out! I wasn't about to put one on hold. I have to be on the verge of frustrated tears at not having the book to put it on hold, and even then I usually end up by it instead of checking it out. So yeah, a young adult murder mystery was about as likely to be put on hold as Fifty Shades of Grey. I'm just not ready for the imaginary ridicule from the librarian at choosing to hold those. Whatever.

Fast forward to this weekend. Of course I ran out of reading material on a holiday weekend. (Although its hardly even a holiday. I mean, really, Columbus didn't even discover America for Pete's sake! I want to celebrate Vespucci day, not the day of some dude who came in a lot later killing off 90% of the inhabitants with his germs and enslaving the rest. I don't care if he helped my ancestors get across the ocean. He's still a hack.) I didn't want to spend more money because I had just bought a totally impractical pair of shoes and was feeling guilty. So I was trying to check something out on my Kindle. Yay! My library offers that now! OK, so their selection isn't all that great and it was kind of a pain to figure out how to do it without instructions that they didn't offer, but I still had access to books! One of the books was Wish You Were Dead. So after a huge hassle trying to figure out the card system, realizing that I couldn't check out on my card due to fines (blast you, children!), stealing my husband's card, and finally "opening up" my book.

Lucy Cunningham is not a nice girl. But when she disappears, everyone takes notice. At first they think that she could have run off after a fight with her boyfriend, but that just don't seem like her. Even though Madison is always frustrated with Lucy's evil ways, she doesn't like that something bad might have happened... especially since she was in charge of getting Lucy home via Safe Ride.

Then things get worse. More friends go missing. There are two common links. 1. Madison is the last person to talk to each of them since they all called Safe Ride while she was on duty. 2. The author of a blog said "I wish they were dead." (Get it, get it. There's the title.) Madison feels compelled to save her friends and keep her name clear.

If you don't want spoilers, even small ones, stop reading. Seriously.

What I love 
Glad you stuck with me. Here we go.

• The technology aspect. I like how they mentioned blogs, texting, Facebook and all that jazz. I think that's something teens (aka the target audience) can relate to. 
• Oh the 11-year-old part of me loved this.
• I seriously had to stay up late to finish reading it. And I liked it.

Seriously, this pic by SurprisinglyNimble was me, except with a Kindle lighting the way, not a lantern. 

• It threw in a plot twist. I didn't think the obvious choice had done it, but I also thought Madison was writing the blog. 
• It reminded me of all the Fear Street books by R.L. Stine that I used to live on. 

Seriously. I loved these books for no goo reason. You didn't have to really think about what to get next because the formula was followed seamlessly. And for some reason, The Hitchhiker really stayed with me. Still scared of hitchhikers. They're creepy and not who you expect them to be.

What I Didn't Like

• Well, it reminded me of the Fear Street books. Formulaic. Predictable. And leaves you with a feeling guiltier than eating an extra scoop of ice cream.
• Seriously, what's wrong with that school district. They don't have background checks on their teachers? They allow a 20-year-old to enroll? What the heck??

So overall, it was OK. I know a lot of kids liked it. And there's a a "thrillogy," a phrase that I find groan-worthy. I don't think I'll be rushing out to read the rest of the books though.

Should you read it? Eh, I dunno. If you like movies like these, I suppose. 

Will I read others by Todd Strasser? Yeah. I'm curious about Boot Camp and I looooved Give a Boy a Gun to the point that I would definitely reread. (Although some kid stole my copy so I'll have to work harder to find a copy...)

Happy Reading, Friends.