Lena’s Reviews > The Anniversary > Status Update

This book largely covered the story of Jules and Quinn. When the book begins, they are both in high school, and essentially have a crush on each other, despite Quinn being a nerdy kid and Jules being super beautiful and popular. In their town in Nebraska, there is the story of a serial killer named Mayday, because the killer always kills on May 1. Unfortunately, on 1 May Jules is raped, but is not killed by the Mayday killer. She unfortunately developed PTSD from it and drinks and uses drugs to cope. As she gets older, she becomes a supermodel and is all over Europe doing her modeling.

On the same day in May, unfortunately, Quinn punches, a kid who ends up cracking his skull. He spends time in prison and then goes to the military afterwards. During his time in prison, his mother is killed when somebody beat her to death with a hammer. His brother George has a developmental disability, so he ends up in a long-term care facility. Quinn sustained an injury while he’s fighting in Somalia and ends up coming back to the states where he joins a private investigation firm. Quinn‘s uncle, who is the brother of his mom, stays in his life and provides him some support and guidance as he is growing up. Later in the book, however, Quinn’s brother George ends up, passing away after he goes to hospice.

While working at the private investigator firm, Quinn discovers from one of his mother‘s coworkers that she was investigating someone at her workplace that had done something really bad. He does some research and ends up, finding in his brothers belongings, the file that his mother hid containing some of the information that she had collected. His mother had worked essentially as an executive assistant at a potato chip factory. As this is happening, unfortunately Jules sister Claire gets abducted by the Mayday killer.

Basically, a lot of stuff happens, and Jules and Quinn end up, connecting as they are getting older and essentially fall in love. However, in short, we find out that Quinn‘s uncle Pat is one of the Mayday killers. What his sister, or Quinn‘s mom, were investigating was the fact that a bunch of girls had died on the delivery routes that Pat, who was working at the potato chip factory, went on. He was a delivery driver for the company and a lot of the routes he was on coincided with women dying.

Jules, who after modeling went on to create a nonprofit for missing and exploited children, had thrown a gala where they were celebrating and trying to raise funds for the nonprofit. She ends up, giving an award to Quinn. Pat, Quinn‘s uncle shows up. When they go out to the bar afterwards to celebrate everything, Jules overhears Pat, laughing and talking into immediately that it was him that raped her and was likely the Mayday killer. Pad abducts jewels and takes her to some remote World War II bunker that Quinn’s uncle Pat had taken him too when he was younger. Quinn, as well as Jules, two friends that also were kidnapped by the Mayday killer, all go searching for her, and Quinn discovers that it was the uncle Pat that was the serial killer. He has a vague recollection and memory of that remote World War II Bunker. He ends up going there and alongside the other two friends, squabbling with the uncle Pat. They end up lighting Pat on fire and driving away.

One peculiar part about all of the murder cases, though is that a lot of women reported that while they were being raped, they felt like another individual was in the room. There was also information that Pat likely had a partner in the abductions rapes and killings. It’s important to know that one of the details about Quinn‘s mom‘s murder was that she was seen talking to a man in a suit prior to her death. Basically in summary what they end up discovering is that the FBI agent that was helping Jules and her friends to find a Mayday killer was the accomplice for Pat committing the rapes and murders. It turns out that he was severely abused by his own mom as a child, and his mother‘s date of death was May 1. It turns out the FBI agent was working with Pat to commit these heinous crimes. Jules and her friends end up setting him up in a sting operation. So at the very end of the book, he confesses to the crimes and he’s picked up FBI agents.

At the very very end of the book, we discovered that Quinn and Jules had gotten married and had two children. Quinn becomes a famous and well-known storybook author. They end up, naming their children after Quinn’s brother George, as well as his best friend from the army, who passed away. They named the girl after Jules sister who was never found. The book ends on a very lighthearted and happy ending with the two star cross lovers getting married and having a family of their own.

Overall, this book was very engaging, and I was hooked from the very beginning. Rather early on, I had a feeling of who the killer was, because there was so many extraneous characters and details that were added into the book that didn’t seem to fit quite well. Despite being a predictable ending overall, the story was engaging as mentioned. One important thing is that the ending definitely locked the punch that it could’ve had, because there was so much lead up to the ending. However, the very ending of the book was very cute and wholesome. Overall would recommend the book.