A Good Idea
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
In this “chilling mystery” (BuzzFeed), two best friends’ plan to reunite at college is interrupted when one of them disappears.
“Sharp as a fistful of broken glass, dark and twisted as the woods at night, A Good Idea is rural noir at its creepy, literary best.”—Laura Ruby, National Book Award Finalist and Printz-winning author of Bone Gap
“A discomfiting, gripping mystery with plenty of sharp edges.”—Kirkus Reviews
Can the right kind of boy get away with killing the wrong kind of girl?
Finley and Betty’s close friendship survived Fin’s ninth-grade move from their coastal Maine town to Manhattan. Calls, letters, and summer visits kept them close, and in the fall of their senior year they both applied to NYU, planning to reunite as roommates. Then Betty disappears. Her ex-boyfriend Calder admits to drowning her, but his confession is thrown out, and the entire town believes he was coerced and Betty has simply run away. Fin knows the truth, and she returns to Williston for one final summer, determined to get justice for her friend, even if it means putting her loved ones—and herself—at risk.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The summer after her senior year of high school in New York City, Finley returns to her Maine hometown certain that the drowning death of her best friend, Betty, was murder. As Fin searches for the truth, she must untangle Betty's lies; confront the young man, Calder, who confessed to but wasn't convicted of the killing; and face her own demons and deceptions. Bisexual Finley is a strong and troubled heroine, exploring her own identity through a new relationship with a girl named Serena, their shared link to Betty, and an intense and disastrous pull to longtime friend and lover, Owen, who has started dealing drugs to keep his family afloat. Against this dramatic backdrop, Fin must reconcile how far she's willing to go to protect the people she loves with the small-town politics that allow Calder and his father, the mayor, to do the same. The result is a powerful look at moral gray areas and the fluidity of forgiveness. Moracho's (Althea & Oliver) characters are realistically and heartbreakingly flawed, and her fast-paced, windy narrative presents new wrinkles at every turn. Ages 14 up.
