Review: You'll Be the Death of Me by Karen M. McManus

Author: Karen. M. McManus

Publisher: Delacoutre Press

Publication Date: November 2021

Ivy, Mateo, and Cal used to be close. Now all they have in common is Carlton High and the beginning of a very bad day.

Type A Ivy lost a student council election to the class clown, and now she has to face the school, humiliated. Heartthrob Mateo is burned out--he's been working two jobs since his family's business failed. And outsider Cal just got stood up.... again.

So when Cal pulls into campus late for class and runs into Ivy and Mateo, it seems like the perfect opportunity to turn a bad day around. They'll ditch and go into the city. Just the three of them, like old times. Except they've barely left the parking lot before they run out of things to say...

Until they spot another Carlton High student skipping school--and follow him to the scene of his own murder. In one chance move, their day turns from dull to deadly. And it's about to get worse.

It turns out Ivy, Mateo, and Cal still have some things in common. They all have a connection to the dead kid. And they're all hiding something.

Now they're all wondering--could it be that their chance reconnection wasn't by chance after all?

I have been reluctant to write this because this author has blown me away with every other thing she has written.  I was really looking forward to You'll Be the Death of Me.  Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations.  It was "OK".  I loved the premise of Ferris Beuller's Day off with murder.   I also liked the use of  the multiple perspectives that kept the story moving and didn't really cover old ground.  

That was about it.  I didn't like any of the characters.  They were generic and stereotypes.  Ivy was way too over the top.  Maybe I'm just seeing it through an adult lens, but losing a student council election is not the end of the world.   The "podcast" was ridiculous and made the whole thing too comical.  This may be a bit spoilerish, but I detested the relationship that Cal was in and that there were zero consequences in the end for it.  That is never OK, especially when it is a student/teacher relationship.  18 or not.  I was disappointed that it was included in this book.  The mystery wasn't very hard to figure out, even with the red herrings thrown in here and there.  The ending was the most disappointing part.  I still love this author, and it's not overly bad, I just expected more.