Title: Suicide Noted from Beautiful Girls
Publication Date: July 7th, 2015
Author: Lynn Weingarten
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Genre: YA
Pages: 320
ISBN: 148141853X
Source: Library
Rating: 
Synopsis (from Publisher):
Synopsis (from Publisher):
They say Delia burned herself to death in her stepfather’s shed. They say it was suicide.
But June doesn’t believe it.
June and Delia used to be closer than anything. Best friends in that way that comes before everyone else—before guys, before family. It was like being in love, but more. They had a billion secrets, tying them together like thin silk cords.
But one night a year ago, everything changed. June, Delia, and June’s boyfriend, Ryan, were just having a little fun. Their good time got out of hand. And in the cold blue light of morning, June knew only this—things would never be the same again.
Now Delia is dead. June is certain she was murdered. And she owes it to her to find out the truth…which is far more complicated than she ever could have imagined.
Sexy, dark, and atmospheric, Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls will keep you guessing until the very last page.
Lynn Weingarten is an editor and New York Times bestselling author living in Brooklyn. Her fourth young adult novel, Suicide From Beautiful Girls, was published by SimonPulse in the US and Egmont/Electric Monkey in the UK. It was on The New York Times bestseller list for five weeks, is a YALSA Teens’ Top Ten book for 2016, was on Vanity Fair’s list of Best Books for July, Paste Magazine’s list 10 of the Best New YA Books For July, The Guardian’s list of 5 of the Best in Young Adult Fiction, Amazon UK’s list Best Books of The Month: Young Adult. It has been/will be translated into Spanish German, Russian, Turkish and Portuguese.
Her previous books include Wherever Nina Lies (an ALA Top Ten Popular Paperback for Young Adults, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, a YALSA Teen’s Top Ten Nominee and a Sequoyah Book Award Nominee) and The Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers (One of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Teen Books of 2011).
In the past, Lynn edited books and developed ideas for Alloy Entertainment. She is currently Creative Director of Dovetail Fiction, the YA arm of Working Partners.
I'm still processing how I feel about this book. And it's difficult to write a review without giving any spoilers because so. many. things. happened.
June's (ex) best friend committed suicide by fire. Or was she murdered? June is determined to find out what really happened to Delia on New Year's Eve with a little help from Delia's boyfriend...until he proves to be a little cray cray. Delia had left June a voicemail just before the deed was done to tell her something important, but June didn't pick up and now she's living with the guilt. However, there's a voice yelling in the background who doesn't want June to know whatever it is Delia is trying to tell her, and the questions just keep snowballing. In a Young Adult version of "whodunnit," Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls will definitely keep you on your toes and spinning in a million circles a minute.
I loved the pace of this novel. Lynn Weingarten did a great job of keeping the pages turning. Once you felt like you finally had answers, you'd be thrown with a plot twist sandwiched between more plot twists. I had a difficult time knowing who exactly I could trust right along with June throughout the novel. It's another one told in two different timelines between the past and the present so we learn about June and Delia's relationship as we go along, and what ended their friendship to begin with.
There were some inconsistencies that made the storyline unbelievable, like the fact that June investigated Delia's death more than the police did, or that Delia some how magically knew she was pregnant by a guy she had met the week before. The character development was also sub-par. Delia was pretty messed up, and I wasn't a huge fan of how much of that was romanticized. I was waiting for a message somewhere offering some light at the end of the darkness, but instead it all just ended up being glorified. June didn't have a whole lot of depth to her, other than her aspirations to Nancy Drew her way into finding answers. And their relationship was extremely toxic.
The ending. I won't give it away, but what the what? I mean really. What?
Although this is a Young Adult novel, I will warn the reader if you're concerned about having clean language and themes in your books, this is definitely not for you. There are several mature elements from the language to drug use to (light) sexual content.
Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls was a light, breezy read that can be finished within a day. If you're looking for an easy book to fly through, this could be a good choice if you can overlook the toxicity of the content and language. I would say, go ahead and give it a chance. It wasn't horrible, but it definitely wasn't my favorite.
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