Pretty Dead Girls by Monica Murphy

March18 book for Poison Apple Book Club

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 "Beautiful. Perfect. Dead.In the peaceful seaside town of Cape Bonita, wicked secrets and lies are hidden just beneath the surface. But all it takes is one tragedy for them to be exposed.

The most popular girls in school are turning up dead, and Penelope Malone is terrified she's next. All the victims so far have been linked to Penelope—and to a boy from her physics class. The one she's never really noticed before, with the rumored dark past and a brooding stare that cuts right through her.

There's something he isn't telling her. But there's something she's not telling him, either.

Everyone has secrets, and theirs might get them killed." (goodreads)

It took me a couple of chapters to get a feel for this book, but once I figured out the vibe I really enjoyed it. Pretty Dead Girls was a predictable book yet did not give away the killer's identity up as easily. The decisions the high school girls made were obvious and predictable as were the consequences of those actions.

Penelope was a character I actually really liked, even her best friend Danielle (Dani) but was not fond of most of her crowd. Penelope is a really smart girl who drives on achievement and it was kind of a shame how she appeared to lose her sense of self to "fit in" with the high school mean girls. Even though she could arguably be the head of her crew, Penelope was more of a bystander. The more she spent time with Cass, Pen would let her guard down and let loose, letting herself be natural until she caught herself and shut out. How people thought of Penelope and who she socialized with was a little too important to her. Cass was a mystery for most of the novel and even though I really wanted to like him, like Penelope, I couldn't trust him or rule him out as a suspect. Cass has a interesting family history that I wish could have been explained more, and just as sketchy of a personal background.

I want to talk a little about the killer, without giving away the identity of course. I was a little confused by the clues the author was trying to give. Directly before the "murder" of the first victim, the victim was into males which we learned later on in the book, and before things got violent she asked the killer if this was a date, giving me the impression the killer was male. However, later in the book, the killer refers to herself as female. This was a minor thing but led to a confusing reveal. The killer chapters were amazing and I wish we got more of them. I love when an author puts chapters from the killer in there without giving away who they are.
At first, I was a little disappointed in the identity of the killer, and I don't want to go too much into that without giving anything away. However, once the "reasoning" and backstory all came out it started to fit and make more sense. I was then happy with what went down and who it was. The motivate was a very real situation and I cannot wait to discuss it with everyone else who is participating in the read this month!

Pretty Dead Girls was very high school drama with a killer hunting down Penelope and her mean friends. If you are fans of the TV show SCREAM and Pretty Little Liars I highly recommend checking out this book. This is not a series, everything wraps up nicely at the end and this was not dragged out too long. Although I would never be against a few more murders!

My Rating: 4/5 Stars