Get Even (Don't Get Mad)

Had I known this was part 1 I'd never have picked it up but given how many times the author had the same scene as nauseum just with different characters should have been a clue. Here's my new club: NBTB. Not buying the book.

What a fun, light-hearted mystery! McNeil's writing continues to grow. The characters are well-developed and the mystery drawn well enough to keep me guessing. I read it within a day and immediately started its follow up GET DIRTY. If you are looking for the book equivalent of Veronica Mars, this is it.

Gretchen McNeil's Get Even is the first in her duology Don't Get Mad. I recently picked up Gretchen's books earlier this year and was eating them up! Now most of you know, I'm a paranormal reader and while 2/3 of her previous books had paranormal elements, they all had a nice "thriller" sense to them. And while I may be a big chicken with thriller movies, I love a good thriller read! And Gretchen McNeil provides excellent thrilling reads for fans!This story is pretty different from her previous ones, in that we have more than one narrator. It's still third person, but multiple third person from our four members of Don't Get Mad (DGM). Kitty, Margot, Olivia, and Bree are all completely different teenagers from different circles, yet one school project joined them together to stand up for the little man. Their group puts bullying to shame and it's their goal to publicly humiliate bullies and get a sense of justice for the victims. We see their work in progress in the first chapter. They keep their "club" a secret for obvious reasons. It's highly known at school that DGM means trouble.It's not long before the girls are working towards a new "case" even though it goes against their rules, and sure enough something bad happens. Their intended target is murdered. The school falls to chaos with the news. Teachers are pointing the finger at DGM, but the girls are innocent, not that they can say. But the weird doesn't stop there. Someone knows about them. For someone is sending each of the girls mysterious notes and pictures that will try to tear the members of DGM apart!I was surprised by how easy this was to follow along with. When I saw that there were four main characters, I'll admit, I was a bit hesitant that I would be scrambling to keep up, because the plot sounded so intense with a murder mystery along side a secret organization. But it wasn't all that hard. You see each of our heroines all come from different social circles at school and they all have their own lives and problems to deal with. It's only with their group DGM where they find anything to connect themselves to one another.Bree is your resident rebel at a school of Catholic students, Olivia is the drama over-achiever, Kitty is the athlete over-achiever, and Margot is the smart one. Yet all of them have issues that they are trying to deal with. And I thought the issues Gretchen assigned to them were all very real. These are issues that teens deal with in high school and I applaud how she handled them in a realistic way, yet wasn't overly preachy or showy. Like saying "here's my character with eating disorders". She exhibited the mantra: Show, Don't Tell, very well here! Kudos, Gretchen!The mystery buildup was very good too! Sadly with the duology, there's no answers here. And I was wondering how Gretchen would wrap it up. And I have to say, I wasn't expecting the twist! I will say, a bit begrudgingly, that the cliffhanger isn't too killer. It won't leave you screaming in agony like some cliffhangers have been known to do--believe me, I've screamed quite a few times in the past! But it's still an ending that leaves you wanting to know what happens next asap! And since I read this as an ARC, my torture begins over 3 months earlier! I feel the agony rising already!And I must say that I enjoyed each of the girls' romance exploits. Margot's touched my heart a bit, since she had her own self-doubt issues, but of course another character's "theories" had me wondering something. It seems Margot has gotten more than one boy's attention! There's drama between Kitty and Olivia and one boy as they both are in love with him. And then there's Bree who has her own crush on a rock star, while she remains to be a bit clueless as to who's crushing on her. But as I said, I enjoyed these romantic interludes for they were all pretty sweet!Bree is definitely my favorite character. Perhaps because she's the "rebel". She doesn't conform to any social role really. She's just Bree. She's got a nice snarky attitude that I adore in my heroines. And of course she played a huge role with the mini-cliffhanger, so I am left reeling with what will happen next in this duology! Gretchen McNeil is an author you cannot pass up! Buy her books today!!Overall Rating 5/5 stars

Great read!

Not what we wanted going to send it back.

I'm not easily won over by fiction, but I loved this book. Yeah, there was some cheese and you had to suspend some disbelief, but I couldn't put this book down. I'm dying to read the second book to see how it ends, but I found myself guessing at every turn. I thought the pacing was great, the high school drama was believable, and that the story flowed brilliantly. It actually took me back to my old high school days and got me wondering what a story like this would have looked like there.

Received product as described. Swift delivery. Highly recommended!

ok

The strangest thing has happened here: this book is plainly ridicolous in most part, but I liked it anyway.The Pretty Little Liars' ugly little sibling.