ALA Booklist (Mon Oct 07 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Money rocked Sydney's life once before, when the family of her friend, Brie, moved away from the downtrodden neighborhood of Thermal for a more lavish lifestyle. And it struck again, years later, when the mother of her closest confidant, Rain, won the lottery and exchanged a dingy prefab house for a mansion in Palm Springs. The class schisms that divide these three former friends only pull them farther apart as the end of senior year looms. But Sidney is not prepared for just how corrosive an effect her friends' fortunes have had on them. Kahaney has penned an intimate, suspenseful mystery that burns slowly until its surprisingly explosive ending. Underneath the surface is a commentary on the stark disparities between the rich and the poor. The reader is able to peer into each of the three friends' points of view, tracking the months before one girl's untimely death. In so doing, the author shows how the poor and rich occupy wholly different strata of society. A prescient read for young people living in economically turbulent times.

Kirkus Reviews (Mon Oct 07 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

In this thriller, two best friends find their relationship pushed to the breaking point.After Brianna's father became wealthy, Rain and Sydney felt abandoned by her as she warmed to her newfound acceptance by their more popular peers. Later, Rain also experiences a dramatic change in social class when her mother wins the lottery. This dark drama opens with a chapter from the perspective of Syd, whose sense of decency seems reliable even if her recollection of events, clouded by drug and alcohol use at a party the night before, does not. Alternating between Syd's, Rain's, and Brie's points of view, and moving back and forth in time between the present and the periods before and after the house fire that claimed the life of one of the girls, the narrative structure sets the stage for a psychological mystery that explores loyalty and jealousy. There is a fair amount of coincidence packed into this story, but the intense emotions and yearnings each of the young women feel to be accepted and worthy ground this ever shifting novel in very real ways. Some readers will spot twists before they are revealed, but there is enough left up in the air until the very end to keep them hooked. The three main characters read as White; names signal some diversity in secondary characters.A dynamic, suspenseful tale of friendship and betrayal. (Thriller. 14-18)

School Library Journal (Mon Oct 07 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Gr 10 Up Brie, Rain, and Syd grew up best friends in the stifling desert heat of their run-down California neighborhood. When Brie moves down the mountain into the better part of town, the trio's friendship falls apart. Now at the end of their senior year, they all attend a final blowout graduation party that ends up being truly unforgettable: when Syd wakes up the morning after only partially remembering the night before, she discovers that Brie was killed the previous night in a tragic house fire. Syd remembers that she had a fight with Brie and Rain the night before, but not too much more, so when the police start investigating Brie's death as a possible murder and Rain stops answering her texts, she starts to panic. Where is Rain, and what exactly happened at that party? This is a fast-paced, suspenseful, and thoroughly dramatic thriller. Told in alternating perspectives, the mystery and drama surrounding Brie's death and Rain's disappearance unfolds in a way that makes readers want to finish the book in one sitting. VERDICT This story is not for everyone; heavy teen drug use and drinking make this unsuitable for all collections, but older teens and fans of Pretty Little Liars and Riverdale will devour the dark drama. Chelsey Masterson