That Weekend

April 12, 2021
Thomas (The Cheerleaders) delivers an edge-of-your-seat thriller replete with unexpected twists and moments of soapy melodrama. Claire Keough, 17, does not remember the 36 hours between settling into a Catskills cabin with best friend Kat Marcotte and Kat’s boyfriend, Jesse Salpietro, and being left for dead on a mountainside trail with a head injury. As rescuers search for Kat and Jesse, Claire—with the help of Kat’s cousin Amos—looks for clues to explain what happened. But classmates and a tawdry journalist suspect what Claire has feared all along—that Claire’s jealousy of Kat’s perfect life and relationship drove her to kill her friends. Told from the alternating perspectives of Claire and Kat and jumping before and after the incident, Thomas creates a complicated whodunit with intricate backstories that make everyone a suspect. When the FBI get involved and Claire’s mother insists on a lawyer, Claire decides to launch her own investigation, discovering unsettling secrets as well as just how ruthless she can be. Quick-fire pacing, sharpened dialogue, and clever reveals make for an addictive read. Ages 14–up. (June)■

May 15, 2021
Her friends are missing from a camping trip gone bad and Claire can't remember anything, but she's determined to find them. After catching her boyfriend sneaking off with another girl, there's no way Claire is going to prom with him. Instead, the teen becomes a third wheel on a secret weekend trip to the mountains with her best friend, Kat, and Jesse, Kat's boyfriend. The worst Claire is expecting is having to witness too many PDA's between Jesse and Kat--especially since she has a secret crush on Jesse. When she wakes up alone on the mountain, hurt and with amnesia, that's when the real trouble begins. Kat and Jesse are missing, possibly dead, and Claire can't remember anything past their first night on the mountain. In this well-paced mystery, Thomas raises doubts about everyone, from Kat's wealthy and influential ex-congresswoman grandmother to the mountain's small-town residents to even Claire herself. When her friends' ongoing disappearance causes her mental health issues and the FBI still hasn't cracked the case, Claire begins her own investigation. The story is primarily told through Claire's first-person narration, with later flashback chapters from Kat's perspective offering more clues. The twists and turns accelerate until the final page as readers learn not just how the teens disappeared, but why. Most main characters are cued as White; Jesse is White and Mexican American. Mystery fans will welcome another shocking missing teen case. (resources) (Mystery. 14-18)

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July 1, 2021

Gr 9 Up-When Claire's boyfriend wanders off with another girl days before prom, Claire decides to ditch the dance and join a secret road trip with her two best friends. Claire is excited for a weekend getaway and determined to make sure that her BFF, Kat, doesn't learn about her own secret feelings for Kat's boyfriend, Jesse. But Claire's priorities change when she finds herself dazed, confused, and bleeding on the side of a mountain. She has no idea how she got there-and no memory of the last 36 hours. Her friends are nowhere to be found. Claire knows that the answer to their disappearance is buried somewhere in her subconscious-but she isn't sure she will like what she discovers. This is a sometimes sleepy thriller that tosses in a few unsuspected plot twists all the way to the very end. Claire carries the novel, with her mental anguish and self-doubt keeping readers invested. This does mean that when Claire falters, the plot does too-if she is spiraling down a social media rabbit hole, readers are dragged along for pages at a time. While this sometimes slows the forward momentum, her journey provides room for plenty of satisfying character development. Almost all characters are coded as white except Jesse (Mexican and Italian American) and a few minor characters. VERDICT A good addition to the teen thriller set, this will appeal to fans of Karen McManus and Kit Frick's I Killed Zoe Spanos.-Annamarie Carlson, Westerville P.L., OH

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