**Disclaimer: I received an eARC of The Thrashers by Julie Soto through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this opportunity.
The Thrashers by Julie Soto is a young adult mystery novel. It revolved around a character named Jodi, and her best friends as they enter their senior year of high school. Unfortunately, it won’t be the year that they dreamed of. The book is set to be published on May 6th, 2025. I rated it 5 stars on Goodreads.
Here’s the summary from Goodreads:
Either you’re in or you’re out.
Welcome to the Thrashers, the elite friend group at New Helvetia High.
They’re everything everyone wants to be.
Jodi Dillon was never meant to be one of them. Julian, Lucy, Paige, and the infamous Zack Thrasher are rich, sophisticated, and love attention. Jodi feels out of place, but Zack’s her childhood best friend, so she’s in.
Then Emily Mills, who desperately wanted to be a Thrasher, dies—and the whispers about the Thrashers begin. As Emily’s journal surfaces, detectives close in, and Jodi faces an impossible choice: betray her friends or protect herself.
But as eerie messages and strange occurrences escalate, it becomes clear—Emily isn’t done with them yet.
A twisty thrill-ride of unforgettable drama and suspense that “encapsulates the vulnerability of adolescents playing adult games” (Ali Hazelwood) from USA Today bestselling author Julie Soto, The Thrashers will keep you up at night desperate to read just one more page.
This book was SO good in my opinion. As of late, most of the young adult mysteries that I have read have been disappointing me, and I just wanted something fun and exciting. The Thrashers totally fit that bill. I really enjoyed the premise of the book, with Jodi feeling on the outskirts of her friends and also dealing with the repercussions of Emily taking her own life.
Jodi’s particular perspective of someone being on the outskirts of a friend group is something that is really relatable to me. I have been there, and so I am definitely predisposed to relate to that kind of character and empathise with them. There were other aspects of Jodi’s story that I didn’t relate to as much, but on the whole she was an incredible empathetic character. She was very well-developed, and I found her motivations and actions understandable.
The execution of the story was fantastic. I thought that it would be mostly written in Jodi’s perspective, but we also got some snippets from Emily. The novel opens and closes in her perspective, which added a very unique flavour to the story. We also got excerpts from the journal that was the basis of the case against Jodi’s friends. It really helped to bring Emily to life as a character.
I ended up listening to an audio ARC of the story, and I found myself wanting to do nothing but listen to it. I wanted to know what was going to happen next, and what would happen to the characters. They each had great depths to them. What I didn’t expect at all were the supernatural elements that were included. I don’t want to say too much here, but they were definitely a fun twist.
On the whole, I found this to be a super compelling, super interesting mystery. I highly recommend it.
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