Z’s Reviews > She Started It > Status Update

-missed opportunities to do 4v1 team-up or literally ANY deduction considering Annabelle is not only leader but also is “smart” and they mentioned it TWICE
-no character development

2*, too many missed opportunities that I think a good editor and honest feedback would’ve helped address, straight plot with no nuance nor development with a few twists that are either obvious or anticlimactic, not for adult readers

+prologue
+quick, easy beach read
-lack of distinction b/t characters, no complexity nor nuance, just outlines of a trait
-extremely predictable (idc if I can guess where it’s going, but it was so glaringly obv I thought it couldn’t possibly be what I was thinking and then it was!)
-diary entry didn’t read as one

but I do think that this author needs to take stock in a good editing team and work on their craft with character devlopement and plot progression. Hopefully, in the future they work on something I get to enjoy much better. Some problems could be ignored if it were fun which it wasn't. Unfortunately, this was not for me. I would rec this to a reader new to thrillers or possibly a YA crowd with mentioning the TWs.

Nitpick, but Poppy’s diary entries of her time in school had descriptive scene setting and included dialog, so it just came across as an italicized version of the actual book rather than an emotional diary of Poppy’s young inner monologue.

I know this was a debut so ofc there is always room to grow

Not much happened until way into the book and then it just felt repetitive: clue from the past is brought up on the island then we switch b/t 4 characters (where I get lost) to discuss why they shouldn’t believe this was intentional, then cue the flashback diary entry where we find out it’s obviously intentional -_-

The summary promised twists/secrets which either weren’t surprising or were petty drama that did not develop anyone. The prologue also notably gave away Annabelle lives and the fact that Poppy’s body was never found on the island and Annabelle is set up to be such an intellectual in PSYCHOLOGY I was like huh?? Girl. The twist was evident early on so the wait to get to it felt rly long despite a shorter book length.

Not to mention they are ADULTS now, so there’s another missed opportunity to discuss that when they were hs kids they made some huge mistakes and terrible decisions and even though they are different now they still have to take accountability for what they’ve done. But nope. None of that happened. It read as straight with no nuance nor development.

I still don’t understand why they went if they weren’t wracked w guilt, there is no way all-expenses-paid was bait enough to visit the kid they bullied after 10 years no contact. Having to fight for apology and still being targeted would’ve been a cool premise as the bad ppl are being targeted but we only slowly learn why they are bad as the story progresses so our loyalties would sway with more info

At one point I really thought they would work together to go against Poppy which is not only thematically parallel to their hs experiences, but would actually be more interesting and in-line with their poopy personalities to fight against someone we were "rooting for” (which obv we didn’t root for Poppy, and obv they didn’t team up though mentioning it not 1x but 2x to no avail).

With 4 POVs we see their own perspectives and yet we don’t actually see them try to figure out what is going on, they either dismiss it or argue to themselves or each other that it is not what it obviously is. No figuring out, no clue-finding, no deduction… The summary comparing it to And Then There Were None is insulting