About the Book
-
Author:
- Faith Gardner
- Genre:
- Mystery
- Voices:
- Bisexual
- Cis Girl
- White (Non-Specified)
Cover Story: Spooky
Drinking Buddy: I am the Quirky Main Character
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (sexuality, language)
Talky Talk: Utterly Flat Plot Trajectory
Anti-Bonus Factors: Red Herring, Saved By the Bell Syndrome, Homeless
Bromance Status: Slush Pile
Cover Story: Spooky
Can’t really improve on this, with the creepy lighting and ominous computer. I’m not sure if I’d write ‘murder?’ on a notepad like a shopping list.
The Deal:
Posey Spade was a high flier at her San Francisco high school, winning awards for her work on the school paper. Now that her father has moved her to a much more rural part of California, she’s determined to pick up where she left off, and become a superstar with her new school’s…what? They don’t have a newspaper? Well, the AV club, then.
Unfortunately, the other members of the AV club just want to sit around watching reality TV. Only Mrs. Moses, the club sponsor, is interested in Posey’s talents and schemes.
And then, Mrs. Moses vanishes. No one knows where she is. She left her cell phone at home. Something horrible must have happened.
Posey makes it her mission to locate her missing teacher. So what happened? Did her hippie husband do her in? Did Sal, the homeless AV club member, have more than a student/teacher relationship with her? Did Mrs. Moses uncover something she shouldn’t have?
Drinking Buddy: I am the Quirky Main Character
It’s not easy being the new kid at a school, especially a small one. There are cliques and bullies and not everyone is friendly to outsiders. But Posey is determined to bring the AV clubbers out of their shells and make them into an investigative journalism team that will do great things. And what better way to break the ice than…writing a mission statement!
There are no two more depressing words in the English language. I know the author was just trying to show how offbeat Posey is, but damn, I have never met someone who took the mission statement seriously that I wanted to hang out with socially. I’ve had a mission statement hanging next to my desk for ten years and I have no idea what it says.
Aside from that, Posey just seems to have sprung from the sea like an awkward Venus with no past. Her mother abandoned her family–discussed for less than five pages. She had a friend/crush named Hannah at her old school–less than five pages. Her father was transferred to this backwater to run the local newspaper–but we’re never told why. Posey is here, she’s ready to research, but we have no backstory.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (sexuality, language)
I guess Posey is bisexual. She once mentioned wanting to/having tasted Hannah’s lip gloss. And she has kind of a romantic tension thing with Sal. But their relationship is so awkward that it’s almost hostile. And the murder investigation had the potential to be exciting, but all it really ended up being was a lot of interviews and speculation. Was it Colonel Mustard in the Library with the wrench? No? Okay, we’ll try again tomorrow.
Talky Talk: Utterly Flat Plot Trajectory
The whole time I was reading this book, I thought ‘There had better be a damn exciting payoff at the end.’ I was destined to be disappointed. There was no rising or falling action. Posey and Sal were just a couple of new friends with zero chemistry. The teacher is missing, and of course the kids crack the case, but through pure dumb luck. They never eliminated a single suspect or used anything they uncovered to figure out what happened. It was just three hundred pages of speculating about what happened to Mrs. Moses, interviewing people who did not advance the investigation, and then…yeah.
Anti-Bonus Factor: Red Herring
This book read like the author’s notebook, with a bunch of potential scene-stealing plot devices that could have really pepped up the book, but were never used. Aside from Posey’s parental abandonment and her mysterious relationship with Hannah, we had:
*The strange cult in the town, that the kids never investigate or research.
*The bear that shows up in Posey’s hot tub and then vanishes. And why does she have this fear of bears, anyway?
*The suspiciously well-funded theater department at the school.
*Posey’s father maybe dating a local waitress. How does she feel about that? Guess we’ll never know.
None of these things affect the plot at all. I’m sorry, you can’t mention a cult and do absolutely nothing with it.
Anti-Bonus Factor: Saved by the Bell Syndrome
Where every adult is cruel or stupid.
Posey knew that the AV club was not going to be taken very seriously, at least until they break a major story. But she’s not prepared for how dismissive all the adults in her world are. The police laugh at them and the principal forbids them from investigating a missing teacher (The negativity will affect students’ grades!). Even her own reporter father is more interested in Posey’s sore throat than Mrs. Moses. Everyone was just kind of cartoonishly mean or dumb.
Anti-Bonus Factor: Homeless
Posey soon realizes that Sal is homeless, and living in his van. His parents are deadbeats. Mrs. Moses had taken on a parental role, making sure he was safe and helping him prepare for the future. That’s why he’s taking her disappearance kind of hard.
But is that all there is to it? There’s a rumor going around that Sal and Mrs. Moses had more than an educational relationship. Is this something Posey can let slide? Sal is her friend, after all, but she’s also an journalist. Where do you draw the line?
Bromance Status: Slush Pile
Thanks for your submission. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
Literary Matchmaking
There’s Girl on the Line by the same author.
Merriam Metoui’s Portrait of a Shadow is a supernatural take on the missing persons theme.
As is Leon Kemp’s Tresspass Against Us.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received a free e-copy of this book from the publisher, but no money or vegan sandwiches.
