This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life in Books.

one didn't work for me at all. I hate writing less than favorable reviews. If I am not enjoying a book, I will usually not finish the book and don't spend any time writing a review for it. This was one of those books that kept me reading and things were heading towards a generous 3-star rating before I got to the last parts of this book.

This book is told through journal entries from a group of high school students. It took me a while to really remember what was going on in each of the kid's lives. The two male students were a little more distinctive but the three female students tended to blend a bit in my head. I did eventually get a better feel for each of the characters and it helped that their lives started to become more connected as the book progressed.

My biggest problem with this book is the ending. I should really say the lack of an ending. I have read books that end in cliffhangers and while it is not my favorite, I have learned to deal with it. This was worse than a normal cliffhanger. This felt like someone ripped a book in half and only gave you part of it. There was no resolution whatsoever when this book came to an abrupt stop. Instead of making me want to rush out and grab the next book in this series, I am completely turned off from this series.

I am not recommending this book to others. I liked the concept of following this group of students through their journal entries but considering the fact that there is no resolution when the book comes to an abrupt stop, I found it to be a very unsatisfying read.

I received a digital review copy of this book from the Little, Brown Books for Young Readers - Poppy via NetGalley.

Initial Thoughts
Why did I even read this? This was not good. I thought about giving up at one point but decided to push on. I should have stopped while I was ahead. It took me a while to really get a feel for each of the kids and I wouldn't say that I really liked any of them. I probably would have rated the book 3 stars if it wasn't for that ending. Or I should say the lack of an ending. The book just stopped without resolving anything. This was worse than a cliffhanger because we finally got just a little bit of action and then there was no more book. I won't bother reading the next book in the series.

In one word, disappointing.

I could not connect with the characters, never mind the age difference they just were not any way appealing to me.

The concept sounded like it would be worth checking out despite the very negative reviews this book has garnered and in some aspects it was and in too many others it was not.

Upon having finished the final nail in the coffin was the abrupt out of the blue ending, to my mind it does not even qualify as a cliff hanger more like from one sentence to the next it was finished with no idea on the readers part why.

Glad this was available on digital library loan, certainly will not continue with series as it just did not strike my fancy as something that would click any better going forward.

I'm going to link back to my last progress update on this book, as I don't feel I have all that much to add to it, even twice+ as many pages later.  The things that didn't make sense as of page 151 still didn't make sense on page 335, and the punning/wordplay only grew more obnoxious.  The epilogue called back to the prologue by hoping that this middle installment had provided more resolution than it predecessor.  Well, okay--I'll give it that. 

 

I didn't hate the characters, for the most part.  It was kind of interesting to read their perspectives on one another and see how many erroneous assumptions they made.  But the whole conceit of the book--that one of the "Phoenix Five" (most outstanding freshmen of the year) leaked their private journals to reveal that they are all "pretenders"--didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.  Mostly, they didn't strike me as being more "pretenders" than the rest of the school population (with the exception of Jagger--see my linked update).

 

Anyway, I will most likely pick up the final book in the trilogy when it becomes available at my library, just to fulfill my own morbid curiosity as to how things turn out for the characters.  (Although I had received the first book through NetGalley, this second book was just a loan through my public library.)

I temporarily know what page I'm on.  Okay, so here is an example of the painful wordplay that characters in this book engage in.  Sheridan has decided that Duffy should be nicknamed "the Encryption" because of the "mixed messages" she thinks he's sending her.  Yeah, hi-freakin'-larious!