Fetch Your Copy Dead To Me Originated By Mary McCoy Formatted As Textbook

Dead To Me, ayearold girl named Alice finds her sister Annie, who ran from home four years ago, in a hospital.
Annie is still alive, but she's beat up so bad that she looks like she could die any second, Alive decides to risk her life to discover who did this and finds out some shocking things along the way that she never would've guessed before.


Dead To Me is definitely not in my top ten favorite books, but I still enjoyed uncovering all the dirty secrets with Alice.


There were a lot of things that McCoy could've done to make this more engaging for readers, For one, she could've made it clearer who's on who's side, I often for confused about that as I was reading, Especially towards the end.

I totally thought this would be better than it actually turns out to be, I'm kind of disappointed. Classic noir think Chinatown or LA Confidential meets YA as good girl Alice tries to solve the mystery of how her wayward older sister ended up beaten and unconscious in the hospital.


Noir is all about the dark, seedy underside of things, and I do love me some moral ambiguity, but perhaps because this was YA, this felt a little less dark than most noir I've read or watched.
There was one character Jerry who was intriguingly hard to pin down, but some of the others felt a bit typecast: the plucky heroine, the loyal best friend, the sleazy, womanizing villain, the brassy bad girl with the heart of gold, etc.
I also wished we'd been able to get to know older sister Annie a bit more, because she was a more interesting character to me than Alice.
While I liked the the voiceover quality of the narration, in a book it can result in a bit of a tellnotshow feel.
Then again, that's pretty much the noir style: the worldweary detective tells you a story about how one day this dame walked into his office.


On the plus side, it's a nice girl power story with zero romance, some good action scenes and some really nice plot twists.
It's also something completely different from the typical YA fantasy/historical fiction/contemporary, If you're in need of something fresh and unique, give it a try! Enter sitelinkhere to win a hardcopy of Dead To Me!

Dead To Me begins with the Gates sisters in the hospital.
Theyre both together now, after having been apart for four years,

Except, Annie Gates is barely alive, almost comatose, as she lies on the hospital bed, with no one but her younger sister Alice Gates beside her.
And Alice, though relieved at her sisters presence in her life after four long years, is afraid but ready to know who put her sister in this state.


And there starts her journey, where she navigates Hollywood and its web of lies, deceit and betrayal to bring justice to her sister.


Or is it really her sister who needs to be brought justice

In keeping with the blurb, Dead to Me definitely has the dark, edgy vibe that noir novels have add that to the Golden Age of Hollywood, and youve gotten yourself a total hit.
As far as mystery novels go, this book was amazingly good, You think you know who the culprit is, atpages in, but you really, really dont, Would it be really cliché if I said that this book kept me guessing and guessing and guessing until the very end

Pfft, whatever.
Because it totally did.

Alice was completely my type of protagonist, She was brave and smart, but she was also young and inexperienced, Unfortunate for her, let me tell you, but it made for excellent reading and kept me hooked until the very end.
I found myself growing more and more fond of this little rebel, who was trying so hard to be everyones favorite and keep everyone happy.
In spite of this, I was very sympathetic to her plight which is rare, for me and I constantly found myself rooting for her and wanting her to get out of every situation unscathed.


And believe you me, readers, there were a lot of situations, Alice struck me as the kind of person whom trouble finds and solots of trouble, But she came out of them mostly victorious and frequently unscathed, so yay!

Something else I appreciated The “Who run the world Girls Girls!” theme that this book had.
I loved that! I loved that little Alice, who was expected to imitate her older sister and be all prim and proper and something she was not, matured in the course of this book to become a person of her own.
Sure there were a lot of shitty stuffs that happened along the way but woah, if it didnt make me clutch my Kindle that much tighter!

I had my issues with the book too.
For starters, I really liked Annie and I would have loved to see more of her, Of course, a lot of information about what shed been up to all this time had been given, but Id have liked to see what she was like with Alice right then!

Now that I think about it, Id like to have seen why exactly she left.
I got the gist of it but with so many theories floating around it wouldve been greatcoming from Annie herselfto know her motivations for leaving.


Secondly, the end of the

novel, A bit too anticlimactic, considering it was set up fantastically, but Ill deal because of the writing,

And oh yes, the writing, Mary McCoy has done an amazing job with Dead To Me, She got the whos Hollywood vibe pat down and she did an excellent job of keeping me intriguedand as a reader who knows close to nothing about the era, it was fascinating to learn about it, while also feeling like Id been in that era forever.


Definite, definite recommendation, y'all :





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I was provided a free ecopy of this book in exchange of an honest review.
This did not in any way, however, influence the content of this review,
.stars! courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick amp Dirty: Such an actionpacked read filled with pageturning mysteries and family dramas.


Opening Sentence: When I saw my sister in that hospital bed, she was different from how I remembered her.
Shed changed her hair. Her cheeks were leaner. And someone had tried to cave in the side of her head with a baseball bat,

The :

After four years of zero contact, Alice comes face to face with her older sister, Annie, only to find her broken at the hospital, fighting for her life.
Since Annies disappearance, Alices life changed for the worst she distanced from her parents and her friends and became a distrusting, skeptical girl.
Deep down, she always hoped that the sister she played spy games with would return and their family would be whole again, but with Annies changed reappearance, its clear that fantasy will never come true.


I very much enjoyed this book because despite the crazy circumstances, Alice felt so real, Shes not cut out for this mystery, its far too dangerous for her but shell do what she can to help, even if it means using her childhood detective skills to save her sister.
Along the way, Alice finds pieces and people from Annies new life, forcing her to realise that the beautiful older sister she had has changed to someone almost unrecognisable.


I would never have gone so far as to say that our parents loved her more than me, but it was clear they considered her more promising.
Where Annie was “beautiful” and “smart,” I was “cute” and “clever, ” Annie was charming I was pleasant, Annie danced ballet and tap and took voice lessons, and I backed her up on the piano, And we both went to those awful parties,

The hurt Alice feels at not being part of Annies new life is palpable but throughout the mystery Alice travels her own journey of selfdiscovery.
Shes no longer the adorable little sister who used to sing at her parents parties,

Alices courage in the face of danger and the constant twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat.
I doubted most of the characters agendas because it was clear they all had secrets, Alice didnt know any of them well enough to trust but at the same time she had no choice but to trust them because she needed all the help she could get.


I loved that Alice was no Sherlock Holmes, shes bumbling her way along, trying to piece clues together and making so many mistakes it would be funny if it wasnt terrifying.
Despite her flaws, its clear how much Alice loves her sister and that shell go to any lengths to make Annie proud even though she envies these broken girls who her sister cares so much for the girls Annie chose to care for whilst leaving Alice behind.


Clearly, Annie had been wronged and Im aware that she went through some unimaginably hard times, but I still detested her for Alices sake.
She didnt want Alice mixed up in her new life because of the danger it posed, but it was because of her that Alice was left so vulnerable.
Annie was trying to protect Alice but she forgot that Alice needed a sisters love more, and I guess I hated Annie for this.


“Jerry doesnt have friends, He has a cabinet full of broken dolls like your sister, And he acts like he wants to fix them, but the truth of it is, Alice, I think he likes them broken.
”

There was a sadness to this book that I find hard to explain, Annies reunion with her family and Alice managing to bring justice for all the girls that fell prey to Donahue should have been cause for a happy occasion but although it is a victory, its one that came with a lot of pain.
An excellent thrilling read, with an almost Nancy Drewlike mystery, I look forward to reading more from this author,

Notable Scene:

“This was never about you, Alice, ”

She said it as kindly as you could say something like that, I could tell she tried to make her voice gentle, but her words still cut me because I knew they were true.
Terrible things had happened, and because of them, my big sister had disappeared, That she could have been more careful with my heart and her promises was the least important thing about it,

FTC Advisory: DisneyHyperion/Hachette provided me with a copy of Dead to Me, No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review, .