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hazel_eyes's review against another edition
2.0
I wanted to like this. I really did.
But...
the characters were 2 dimensional and there was absolutely no resolution to the story. this just created so many questions and answered none, so if I want to know what is happening, I still have to read another book. the plot was quite predictable but the writing was so bland and fairly basic. it was quick and easy to read which I liked but I just had such high expectations for this book because I liked the idea of the magpies, but they were just randomly mentioned throughout the book.
I kept expecting more and it just never came.
But...
the characters were 2 dimensional and there was absolutely no resolution to the story. this just created so many questions and answered none, so if I want to know what is happening, I still have to read another book. the plot was quite predictable but the writing was so bland and fairly basic. it was quick and easy to read which I liked but I just had such high expectations for this book because I liked the idea of the magpies, but they were just randomly mentioned throughout the book.
I kept expecting more and it just never came.
ksushareads's review against another edition
4.0
В элитной закрытой школе Иллюмен Холл происходит трагедия. На вечеринке находят тело ученицы с загадочной татуировкой сороки на спине. Одри - новенькая и не хочет выделяться и вляпываться в истории, а уж тем более расследовать загадочную смерть студентки, с которой она даже не была знакома. Но, волею судьбы, она оказывается втянута в самую гущу событий благодаря своей соседке по комнате. Айви - отличница и примерная ученица, была близка с погибшей. Она не может смириться со смертью подруги, тем более, когда версия с самоубийством трещит по швам, и тайное Общество Сороки оказывается как-то замешано в этом деле. ---
Мне очень понравилась атмосфера. Закрытая школа где-то в Английской глуши, старинное здание, которое хранит столько тайн и историй. Студенческие объединения, старосты и префекты, короче, погружается с головой. Всё это на фоне расследования загадочной смерти ученицы. Только из-за поэтому стоит прочитать книгу
Мне очень понравилась атмосфера. Закрытая школа где-то в Английской глуши, старинное здание, которое хранит столько тайн и историй. Студенческие объединения, старосты и префекты, короче, погружается с головой. Всё это на фоне расследования загадочной смерти ученицы. Только из-за поэтому стоит прочитать книгу
poppyendlesstbr's review against another edition
2.0
read in 2020
A waste of my time, the beginning was promising, but then the style and the clichés and hollowness of the whole plot made this such a chore to finish.
A waste of my time, the beginning was promising, but then the style and the clichés and hollowness of the whole plot made this such a chore to finish.
fatima_alabed's review against another edition
5.0
amazing book so much thriller in it O cant imagine how manythings has turned inside my head while reading the ending left me hanging as if im waiting g for the next episode to be aired
really we are in urgent need of the second book
the characters were really full of emotions i could imagine them for sure feel them fall for them
ivy had me thinking of every part of me when i was in school how we have to work hard to reach things even if we were broken
Audrey taught me even if we were reach the pain we share with anyone is the same nothing can change the way you feel
it talks abiut friendship and how it is built through the hardships
loved that book totally best start of the year
really we are in urgent need of the second book
the characters were really full of emotions i could imagine them for sure feel them fall for them
ivy had me thinking of every part of me when i was in school how we have to work hard to reach things even if we were broken
Audrey taught me even if we were reach the pain we share with anyone is the same nothing can change the way you feel
it talks abiut friendship and how it is built through the hardships
loved that book totally best start of the year
naoloumay's review against another edition
3.0
13 year old me would have been drawing magpies on herself with sharpie, 27 yr old me thinks teenagers need to make better choices, communicate better, and that the school may be right in locking phones away.
emaxan's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
celineafroditi's review against another edition
4.0
Whenever I see the word 'murder', my interest is peeked and 99% of the time I WILL read the book. I actually found this book in the back of my bookshelf from a few years ago, and although I believe it's intended for YA, I quite liked the book and the plot. Some aspects were easy enough to guess, but even so I gained a little satisfaction knowing I was right.
slrtwps's review against another edition
3.0
I didn't realise the similarities between this book and Truly Devious—mysteries set in boarding schools that carry out over multiple books—until I started reading it so it was a funny coincidence that I picked this one up while I was struggling through TD. I also wasn't aware that this was going to be a series and I wouldn't have any answers by the end of the book, and I didn't love that.
I picked this up because I still occasionally watch Zoe on YouTube and was curious if I would like this one better than the Girl Online series. I did, but not as much as I'd hoped I might. One for Sorrow was easy to read and got me back into reading, compared to Truly Devious which only contributed to my slump, but the further into the book I got, the less I was enjoying it.
Things that bothered me:
→ Minor things like dialogue and word choices. The first page has the police all "Snap-facing or Insta-booking" but they know what a boomerang is. The use of the word "trackies" felt weird and didn't sound right in the context it was used.
→ They aren't allowed phones during the school week but freely admit to having all heard the podcast in which they would have needed phones to do so, and no one seems to notice or care.
→ The ridiculous confrontations that were almost always the result of Ivy jumping to conclusions and blaming someone without any proof.
→ The Mr Willis/Lola thing was obvious from chapter 19 (actually earlier but I didn't make a note of it until then) and it was so incredibly frustrating to read chapters 41-43 where they're trying to figure out who the older guy is, as if he hadn't just practically outed himself by asking to speak to Clover before the podcast where she talks about the older guy.
→ A teacher locked a student in her room and no one questioned it? I don't know if it would necessarily be illegal but it feels like that shouldn't be allowed.
→ The podcast transcripts weren't long enough for more than a few minutes of content and they rarely contained anything of substance. The one with an interview with Lola's brother is just a paragraph of him talking about who she was and then it's over. There was also no need to drag the whole thing out over multiple podcasts, especially when she thinks she knows who did it.
→ Seriously, Ivy jumping to conclusions drove me nuts and the fights and confrontations between these girls were absurd.
→ The friendship between Audrey and Ivy was platonic instalove. They hate each other for over half of the book, and then in one page and a few paragraphs they are best friends.
→ I didn't understand the big deal in Teddy texting them both (how was it "playing two girls off against each other"?) or why Audrey expected Ivy to want to "stab out her eye with a stiletto heel" for texting a guy she didn't know Ivy had a history with. The whole plan to set him up and blackmail him was silly.
→ So many conveniences to the discoveries. Clover just happened to leave sheet music (the one thing that could implicate her) in the yearbook she talked about in the podcast? A teacher slamming the door to lock a student in her room somehow magically dislodges a secret hidey-hole for Audrey to find?
→ In chapter 36 Audrey mispronounces Samhain but Araminta says it in chapter 28 when reminding them of the party, I don't recall any time she would have seen it written down in order to mispronounce it.
→ The "resolution" with Mr Willis made no sense. They confront him with a blurry photo and he agrees to leave the school. She then burns the photo as if that isn't the only thing they have to hold over him and make sure he actually goes. They just took his word that 1) he had an alibi and 2) he would actually leave the school. I didn't understand her confidence in the idea that he was just going to leave based on that and that he wouldn't teach anywhere else. I didn't understand why they were okay with letting a predator go, or why she burned the photo even if all of that was true. I wouldn't be surprised if he's back in some capacity in the next book(s) because it was all too easy.
→ The pacing was inconsistent, the story dragging at times and then everything happening all at once in the final two or three chapters.
→ The end was abrupt, ending in the middle of a scene. I didn't like the full-book-cut-into-parts-for-publishing feeling of Truly Devious and I didn't like it here either.
***END SPOILERS***
After saying all of that, I don't think it's necessarily a bad book and I probably would have liked it way more if I had read it when I was younger when certain things didn't bother me as they do now. I think it's a decent book for its audience, but it had the potential to be better. It kept me interested enough to finish it and I'll probably read the next one when it's out (I really wish I'd known it was going to be a series so I could have waited until they were all out to read them, I hate having to wait).
Review Date: November 18, 2020
I picked this up because I still occasionally watch Zoe on YouTube and was curious if I would like this one better than the Girl Online series. I did, but not as much as I'd hoped I might. One for Sorrow was easy to read and got me back into reading, compared to Truly Devious which only contributed to my slump, but the further into the book I got, the less I was enjoying it.
Things that bothered me:
→ Minor things like dialogue and word choices. The first page has the police all "Snap-facing or Insta-booking" but they know what a boomerang is. The use of the word "trackies" felt weird and didn't sound right in the context it was used.
→ They aren't allowed phones during the school week but freely admit to having all heard the podcast in which they would have needed phones to do so, and no one seems to notice or care.
→ The ridiculous confrontations that were almost always the result of Ivy jumping to conclusions and blaming someone without any proof.
Spoiler
***SPOILERS***→ The Mr Willis/Lola thing was obvious from chapter 19 (actually earlier but I didn't make a note of it until then) and it was so incredibly frustrating to read chapters 41-43 where they're trying to figure out who the older guy is, as if he hadn't just practically outed himself by asking to speak to Clover before the podcast where she talks about the older guy.
→ A teacher locked a student in her room and no one questioned it? I don't know if it would necessarily be illegal but it feels like that shouldn't be allowed.
→ The podcast transcripts weren't long enough for more than a few minutes of content and they rarely contained anything of substance. The one with an interview with Lola's brother is just a paragraph of him talking about who she was and then it's over. There was also no need to drag the whole thing out over multiple podcasts, especially when she thinks she knows who did it.
→ Seriously, Ivy jumping to conclusions drove me nuts and the fights and confrontations between these girls were absurd.
→ The friendship between Audrey and Ivy was platonic instalove. They hate each other for over half of the book, and then in one page and a few paragraphs they are best friends.
→ I didn't understand the big deal in Teddy texting them both (how was it "playing two girls off against each other"?) or why Audrey expected Ivy to want to "stab out her eye with a stiletto heel" for texting a guy she didn't know Ivy had a history with. The whole plan to set him up and blackmail him was silly.
→ So many conveniences to the discoveries. Clover just happened to leave sheet music (the one thing that could implicate her) in the yearbook she talked about in the podcast? A teacher slamming the door to lock a student in her room somehow magically dislodges a secret hidey-hole for Audrey to find?
→ In chapter 36 Audrey mispronounces Samhain but Araminta says it in chapter 28 when reminding them of the party, I don't recall any time she would have seen it written down in order to mispronounce it.
→ The "resolution" with Mr Willis made no sense. They confront him with a blurry photo and he agrees to leave the school. She then burns the photo as if that isn't the only thing they have to hold over him and make sure he actually goes. They just took his word that 1) he had an alibi and 2) he would actually leave the school. I didn't understand her confidence in the idea that he was just going to leave based on that and that he wouldn't teach anywhere else. I didn't understand why they were okay with letting a predator go, or why she burned the photo even if all of that was true. I wouldn't be surprised if he's back in some capacity in the next book(s) because it was all too easy.
→ The pacing was inconsistent, the story dragging at times and then everything happening all at once in the final two or three chapters.
→ The end was abrupt, ending in the middle of a scene. I didn't like the full-book-cut-into-parts-for-publishing feeling of Truly Devious and I didn't like it here either.
***END SPOILERS***
After saying all of that, I don't think it's necessarily a bad book and I probably would have liked it way more if I had read it when I was younger when certain things didn't bother me as they do now. I think it's a decent book for its audience, but it had the potential to be better. It kept me interested enough to finish it and I'll probably read the next one when it's out (I really wish I'd known it was going to be a series so I could have waited until they were all out to read them, I hate having to wait).
Review Date: November 18, 2020
kmcneel's review against another edition
lighthearted
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
Good idea but execution is mediocre. No idea why there are two books. Thin plot could easily be resolved in one
arami_heartilly's review against another edition
3.0
Glad I read it and I want to read the next one but it also felt a little lacking in some areas.
I like the main characters and the school but some parts towards the end felt rushed and a bit all over the place. Still. Glad I read it.
I like the main characters and the school but some parts towards the end felt rushed and a bit all over the place. Still. Glad I read it.