Dead Girls Talking

De: Megan Cooley Peterson

Narrado por: Lauren Ezzo

The town of Wolf Ridge calls him The Smiley Face Killer. Bettina Holland calls him her father.

Everyone knows Bettina’s father was the one who murdered her mother a decade ago. It’s the subject of podcasts, murder tours, and even a highly anticipated docuseries. But after growing up grappling with what that means, a string of copycat murders forces Bett to answer a harder question: What if he didn’t?

Old-money Bett must team up with the only person willing to investigate alongside her: bookish goth girl Eugenia, the mortician’s daughter, who everyone says puts the makeup on corpses. Can this “true crime princess” unmask a murderer who’s much closer to home than she ever imagined?

Gritty, gripping, and propulsive from moment one, Dead Girls Talking is a ride for listeners who love to see girls get their hands dirty as they claw their way to the truth. Peterson’s knife-sharp thriller cuts deep, with a wicked sense of humor, a wire-taut atmosphere, and a deadly serious approach to bigger issues of justice and female anger.

©2024 Megan Cooley Peterson (P)2024 Spotify Audiobooks

Enthralling

I was so fortunate to receive an ARC of Megan Cooley Peterson’s upcoming YA novel DEAD GIRLS TALKING. The audiobook aaa even better. LIAR’S DAUGHTER, Peterson’s YA debut, is one of my favorite books in the genre so I had ridiculously high expectations for DEAD GIRLS TALKING which were exceeded.

If not for Bettina’s father’s imprisonment for her mother’s murder, Bett’s life would be considered one of privilege. Living in her maternal grandparent’s mansion, complete with house staff and drivers, Bett might seem to have an ideal life, but she resents the mandatory biannual custodial visits to the prison to see her father. When copycat murders begin happening, Bett must face the very real possibility of her father’s innocence, that her father could be an awful man who wasn’t her mom’s killer, or even that she misjudged him due to her grandparents’ influence.

From page one DEAD GIRLS TALKING had all the *feels* that grabbed me by the heart and the stomach. Bett it’s always likable and her decisions aren’t always good ones, but she’s always easy to root for.

The plot went in directions I didn’t anticipate and I wasn’t close to predicting the ending. Even if I had guessed the ending, I would have enjoyed the book just as much.

Not very twisty

While I enjoyed the storyline overall, I feel like the ending was pretty obvious. I figured out the culprit early on, but I had fun fitting the new details into my theory as they were presented.