Source: I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
On New Year's Eve, Jess's life is unrecognizable: her best friend is in the hospital, her boyfriend is a cheater. A drug-dealing cheater it would seem, after finding a stash of Nostalgex in his bag.
Nostalgex: a drug that stimulates memory. In small doses, a person can remember the order of a deck of cards, or an entire revision guide read the day before an exam. In larger doses it allows the user detailed access to their past, almost like watching a DVD with the ability to pause a moment in time, to focus on previously unnoticed details and to see everything they've ever experienced with fresh eyes. As Leon, the local dealer, says 'it's like life, only better.' What he fails to mention is that most memories are clouded by emotions. Even the most vivid memories can look very different when visited.
Across town Sam Cooper is in trouble. Again. This time, gagged and bound in the boot of a car. Getting on the wrong side of a drug dealer is never a good idea, but if he doesn't make enough money to feed and clothe his sister, who will?
On New Year's Day, Jess and Cooper's worlds collide. They must put behind their differences and work together to look into their pasts to uncover a series of events that will lead them to know what really happened on that fateful New Year's Eve. But what they find is that everything they had once believed to be true, turns out to be a lie ...
(Summary from Goodreads)
This is a mystery/suspense thriller aimed at YA readers, but it is rather dark, with quite a bit of murder taking place. It is told from differing points of view from multiple characters, but the majority of the book is told from Cooper’s and Jess’ perspective. Each individual character’s story all had a common link in some way to ‘Whiteface’, someone who no one actually knows the true identity of, but is the one behind everything.
I loved the character of Jess and felt that I could relate to her, as well as the character of Cooper, who was just unfortunate enough to get caught up in someone else’s mess. Leon also turned out to be a surprise character and not who I thought he was.
I loved the character of Jess and felt that I could relate to her, as well as the character of Cooper, who was just unfortunate enough to get caught up in someone else’s mess. Leon also turned out to be a surprise character and not who I thought he was.
This book is very fast paced and full of action right from the start. I liked that the author used the fictional drug, Nostalgex, as a means of showing the reader not only the events that had taken place in the past, but also different perspectives of the same events from different characters. Unfortunately, the author doesn’t entirely distinguish between characters enough and I relied heavily on the big bold name at the start of a new section to tell me which character perspective it was from.
Like with all mystery and suspense novels, there were plot twists that I could figure out and also ones that I didn’t see coming a mile away! Particularly who ‘Whiteface’ turned out to be. I never would have picked that character to be responsible for the entire drug operation. But at the same time, I wasn’t entirely convinced that it was possible to be who it was revealed to be. Their true identity doesn’t come until the very end and the reason given for that character to have gone down the path they did was weak and not the most convincing in my opinion. I feel like that could have been expanded on but the book ended rather abruptly after that. The ending was also sad and I was left feeling a little disappointed and thinking, “Oh, is that it?”.
Overall, despite the ending, this was still a good quick read and I was happy to read a thriller aimed at a younger audience than the adult thrillers that I normally read. I gave it a 3.5/5 rating and it’s worth a read if you like mystery and suspense.
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