All the Pretty Things by Emily Arsenault

When I receive an ARC, I do my best to read the entire book, out of respect for the author. I made it to the halfway point on this one, then stopped.

My favorite thing: I love the setting of an amusement park in a smaller town, and it is well-crafted. It brought back memories of the park I used to go to as a kid (Knoebel’s Grove in Elysburg, PA). This is a fantastic setting for a YA mystery!

My least favorite thing: the characters don’t seem real enough, which - for me and many readers - is, like, THE MOST important thing, right? For example, if a character’s father is an immature, chauvinistic *insert expletive here,* then I want the main character to acknowledge it, at least in her own thoughts. Or the narrator. This is what allows the reader to believe the narrator and the story. If it doesn’t happen, we suddenly see the facade and realize that everything is contrived and made up.

Ugh, I hate being negative because I know how hard it is to write a book. There is so much potential here, there really is, but I think it needed stronger editing before it was published.