The Bakersville Dozen
by Kristina McBride
Release Date: July 4th, 2017
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mystery, Thriller
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SYNOPSIS: You have four days to locate five treasured trophies. Break the rules and you all die. Happy hunting!
Back in September, the town of Bakersville, Ohio made national news when a video went viral featuring thirteen of the high school’s elite in compromising positions. Now it’s May, and every month since the “Bakersville Dozen” made their infamous appearance on the national stage, one girl has gone missing. Officials are no closer to identifying the criminal.
Bailey “Like a Virgin” Holzman is getting really fed up with the scrutiny. She just wants to enjoy the rest of her senior year and have an epic summer before heading off to college. So when she discovers a note in her locker on the last day of school inviting her on a scavenger hunt, she thinks it’s just a sweet surprise from her boyfriend trying to cheer her up.
But following the clue leads her, instead, to the first official casualty. And another sinister envelope. The killer is close, and it could be anyone. Even the people Bailey’s always trusted most—her best friend, her perfect boyfriend, or the boy-next-door she’s always pined for.
With the clock ticking, she faces a terrifying choice: play the game by the killer’s rules—follow the clues, tell no one, and no cops—for a chance to save the rest of the missing girls, or risk becoming the next grisly victim.
REVIEW: I always like reading YA Thrillers because I feel like it’s a genre that isn’t very popular right now. We’re getting a lot of contemporary romances, fantasy, and sci fi, but we’re not getting A TON of thrillers. This book had all of the suspense of a great thriller which was really nice. The author did a really good job of making it seem like anybody could be the bad guy. I feel like sometimes books either make it really obvious who the bad guy is from the start or you have literally no suspects. I also like that the reader was given a good amount of clues to the point where we could potentially solve the mystery ourselves.
At the beginning of the book I got really excited because it really seemed like the characters were going to tell the cops (they never tell the cops). But the book didn’t end up going that route which, I thought, was a shame. It feels like that would be way more original than just having the characters stumble around by themselves, but maybe that’s just me.
The characters were fine, but I didn’t really care about any of them that much. I didn’t feel emotionally connected. The secondary characters were also fine and created some depth to the story. I was going back and forth trying to figure out whether I felt it was demeaning for Bailey to reference all of the Bakersville Dozen girls by their descriptors from the video. In the end, I feel like that’s legitimately how the kids at their school would think about them from then on, so I wasn’t necessarily bothered by it.
The plot was a bit preposterous, to be honest. I’ve read some really good thrillers where I felt the plot was plausible so I know it can be done. In the end, it just didn’t feel like it was thought through to the end. The “scavenger hunt” was well-done, but the ending was just so strange. Like…the logistics just don’t seem plausible.
Overall, I thought this book was pretty good. Thrillers is a section of YA that is lacking so I’m excited to see new books coming out in that genre.
Overall Rating: 3
Language: Moderate
Violence: Moderate
Smoking/Drinking: Moderate
Sexual Content: Moderate
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kristina McBride has published three novels for young adults – THE TENSION OF OPPOSITES, ONE MOMENT, and A MILLION TIMES GOODNIGHT. Her fourth novel, THE BAKERSVILLE DOZEN, will be released July 2017.
Kristina is a former high school English teacher and yearbook advisor, as well as an adjunct professor at Antioch University Midwest and Wright State University. Kristina has a thing for music, trees, purses, and chocolate. You might be surprised to learn that Kristina was almost kidnapped when she was a child. She also bookstalks people on a regular basis. Kristina lives in Ohio with her husband and two young children. You can learn more at www.kristinamcbride.com.
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Note: I received this book free from the author/blog tour in exchange for an honest review.
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