A review by wardenred
Perfectly Preventable Deaths by Deirdre Sullivan

dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

We’re so close to nature here. Lots of hidden life. And hidden death.

Wow. This book turned out to be way creepier than I expected.

It started mild enough: two twin sisters move to a mysterious little town as a result of their mother's second marriage, and then one gets obsessed with an older guy who is clearly bad news while the other struggles to figure out all sorts of things: what to do about her sister's destructive romance, what to make of this strange new place, how to figure out her own sexuality. There's also witchcraft. Dark and disturbing things happening in the local woods. Promises of more creepiness to come.

For the first 2/3 to 3/4 of the book, the story mostly stays rooted in the regular confusing teenage experience, with some mystery/witchy stuff added in for flavor, and it does the job rather well. Maddie's struggles are relatable. Lon, the older guy, is clearly a creepy abuser whether there's anything supernatural about him or not. The twins' family relationships are compelling.

Then, in the final part, the author decides to deliver on all those dark and disturbing promises, and my, does she go all out. There were several scenes there, in rapid succession, that made me physically cringe. I wish I was more thorough about checking the trigger warnings going in. 

I mostly like the conclusion everything worked up to, but that last part was honestly jarring. It didn't come out of nowhere; it did flow quite logically out of all the earlier foreshadowing. But I felt like some of it was sort of too much for a young adult book somehow. 
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