Review – Everything You Want Me to Be

Everything You Want Me to Be by Mindy Mejia

Published January 3, 2017

Atria Books

 

 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

High school senior Hattie Hoffman is good at being good. The good student, good child, good friend, good actress, etc. So when she’s found brutally stabbed to death after her opening performance at her high school play, no one can believe it. The question on everyone’s mind is…

Who killed Hattie Hoffman?

The story is told from three points of view—Sheriff Del Goodman, Hattie Hoffman, and the new English teacher, Peter Lund. Just like any other small town, Pine Valley has its share of secrets. The story is told from the three perspectives back and forth over the last year. Showing us everything that happened leading up to Hattie’s death and the aftermath.

Local Sheriff Del Goodman is a friend of the Hoffman’s so he is even more invested in finding out what happened. He finds it hard to look his good friend Bud, Hattie’s father, in the face as he tries to find who is responsible for this horrific act.

Hattie felt like she spent her life playing parts, molding herself into being what everyone wanted her to be. She was tired of being what everyone else wanted her to be. Playing all those different roles can be exhausting. Whether it was pretending to be fearless to ward off an older brothers teasing when she was little to pretending to be interesting in football or the other things her friends were interested in.

Deep down she just wanted someone to like her for who she really was. She kept putting on the show waiting for her real life to begin one day.

I am going to stop there. Not because I don’t have a lot of thoughts about the book, but I just feel like saying much more than I have, would lead to spoiler territory. In this case, with this book, it almost does feel like the less you know the better. I was glad I didn’t know much more than this before I started reading.

I thought this was a great read…an easy and entertaining read with some great twists and turns that made it hard to put the book down. I liked having no idea what was going to happen. Then all of a sudden I was positive I knew what happened! Oh I thought I was such a smarty pants…. but I was so wrong. This novel had complex characters that were able to bring out many different feelings in me as I read.

“Everything You Want Me to Be” is a compelling psychological thriller. Surprising and suspenseful with a strong character driven plot. I really enjoyed it and I am looking forward to more from Mindy Mejia.

Thank you, NetGalley and Atria Books for providing an advanced readers copy of this book for me to read in exchange for my honest review.

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