Review: Prep School Confidential by Kara Taylor

In this breathtaking debut that reads like Gossip Girl crossed with Twin Peaks, a Queen Bee at a blue-blooded New England prep school stumbles into a murder mystery.

Anne Dowling practically runs her exclusive academy on New York’s Upper East Side—that is, until she accidentally burns part of it down and gets sent to a prestigious boarding school outside of Boston. Determined to make it back to New York, Anne couldn't care less about making friends at the preppy Wheatley School. That is, until her roommate Isabella’s body is found in the woods behind the school.

When everyone else is oddly silent, Anne becomes determined to uncover the truth no matter how many rules she has to break to do it. With the help of Isabella’s twin brother Anthony, and a cute classmate named Brent, Anne discovers that Isabella wasn’t quite the innocent nerdy girl she pretended to be. But someone will do anything to stop Anne’s snooping in this fast-paced, unputdownable read—even if it means framing her for Isabella’s murder.

My Review:

Prep School Confidential is a fun mystery novel that kept me turning the pages to find out what would happen next.  I enjoyed every page of it, and I wanted to know who the culprit of Isabella's murder.  That really kept me from putting down this book.  I look forward to reading the next book in this series so I can read about Anne solving another mystery.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD

The friendship between Anne and Isabella seemed like a good one, until Isabella was murdered, of course.  Isabella was welcoming to her new roommate, and Anne liked her too.  When they first meet each other, they spend the first evening in their room watching Les Mis.  That scene made me like both of them, because I love Les Mis, so any characters who love it too are awesome in my opinion.  Unfortunately, this friendship was unable to continue developing due to Isabella's murder after Anne had only known her about a week.

The mystery element of this book is done so well, and I loved it.  I've been getting really into some YA mysteries lately, and I'm going to continue to try to find more of them to read.  Anne does a lot of interesting detective work in this one.  The police aren't finding out who killed Isabella, and she thinks that she can figure it out.  As Anne tries to figure out who killed her roommate, there are several red herrings.  She suspects several people of the murder, and they all seem like they could have been the one who did it.  Anne has to do quite a bit of rule-breaking to get to the bottom of this mystery.  She breaks school rules definitely, but she manages to find out who the murderer is.  The culprit is surprising, and not someone I would have suspected.  When some more of Isabella's secrets come out, it makes more sense.

There are two boys in this book who are possible love interests, and I am not sure which one I want Anne to end up with.  Brent is a good guy who is popular at their school.  Anthony is more of the bad boy type who goes to public school instead of the boarding school.  Isabella was his twin sister.  Anthony and Anne are connected because they both care about solving Isabella's murder.  Brent also helps Anne with some stuff when he finds out what she is doing.  I'm hoping we see more of both these boys in the next book.  Maybe I'll have a better idea of who I prefer once I read more about them.

If you like YA mystery, read this book.

Katie