Wish You Were Dead by Todd Strasser

1 star -- I hate it

(See? I'm making up for all those blank days by reading as fast as I can for you!)

Wish You Were Dead is a really awful book. Part of my problem is that I get my books off of Amazon recommendations. Based on previous ratings, Amazon suggests other books. Sometimes the suggestions are fantastic. Sometimes they're only so-so. Sometimes I don't know why a book was even recommended to me.

But it's my fault too. When I feel like I might have a lot of time on my hands, I grab the more interesting-looking titles from my recommended list, put them on hold at the library, and take them home with nothing more than a title in my head. Sometimes I know the author. Sometimes I think the books that the recommendation is based on are stellar, and so the recommendation can't go wrong. Sometimes the cover is what convinces me to get the book. Sometimes I just want to try something a little more unusual.

In this case, the cover reminded me of Unwind, which is an unbelievably moving book. It horrified me, but it stuck in my head, which means its fantastic.

Anyway, back to this book, I checked it out without knowing a thing about it. The title could take the story any number of ways. And it was marked by the library as "Mystery," which I don't often read, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

(Bad pun...) I took the shot for you. You can remain unscathed by the awfulness of this book. I beg of you, don't read this book.

It starts off okay, and I think the only positive thing I have to say about this book is that the author manages to make everyone a possible suspect while keeping the true criminal hidden until the end.

But it was that "Everyone's a suspect" that eventually got to me. And once that started to annoy me, I noticed every other bad aspect of the book.

The writing is not phenomenal. It's very ... average. It's like reading a high school paper. Point A. Point B. Point C. Walk the reader to the conclusion with no surprises.

The plot is ... overdone. There is nothing original in this story. It's like a mash-up of a teen angsty book with a harlequin romance with a serial killer thriller. Everything you imagine in those books is in this book.

The characters are flat and lifeless. The criminal is not believable. I don't think the author did any research when he wrote this. I don't think he researched how long people take to die without water, how antidepressants work, or how bipolar disorder works and affects people. I don't think he researched multiple-personality disorder. I don't think he thought things through.

I get the feeling that the author doesn't really remember what it was like to be in high school -- or he's completely terrible at writing from a female's POV. For example, the main character, Lucy, is enamored of the new guy. She's Miss Popular, and she loves it. All of her friends are popular, and she loves them (every single one of them... she's so nice!). But she can't get antisocial trench coat-wearing Tyler out of her head. I don't know how it was in your high school, but in my high school, popular girls dated popular guys, and if a guy they were interested in treated them like shit, they moved on. And they weren't attracted to the loner Goth kid anyway.

Beside which, three of Lucy's closest friends disappear, and foul play is suspected. And she still can't get Tyler out of her head? When your longtime best friend from elementary school disappears, right after his girlfriend (coincidentally, also a longtime friend of yours) inexplicably disappeared, and then your most-recent acquisition of a best friend disappears as well ...? I don't care how hot the guy is, you have bigger things on your mind.

And the climax of the story is one of the most ridiculous things. One of the kids is found dead, with her eyes gouged out, and the police demand all kids go home from school with their parental unit, because it obviously ISN'T SAFE OUT.

So as soon as Lucy and mum get home, mum heads off to a meeting, because surely their house is safe. And Lucy? Lucy decides to go to their hot tub, in a glass pool house, NAKED.

That's right. I know that when one of my best friends is found outside my school dead from dehydration, the first thing I think about is how relaxing it would be to sit in my hot tub nude...

And of course, scary guy comes to the glass.... and of course, scary guy breaks through the glass.... and of course, stupid girl can't even call the police.

And then it turns out that scary guy isn't actually scary. He's just trying to help (of course). And he has all the answers that no one else figured out (except for one lone girl in school who wisely decides NOT to go to the police). And it makes so much sense for Lucy to just go with him (yes, she did put on clothes first) to find the killer without leaving a note for her parents and without calling the police. Why call the police when there's a serial killer on the loose?

And THEN (were you thinking the book just couldn't get worse?) when Tyler (who showed up on his own) breaks Lucy out (but not himself), and she has a pitchfork and the element of surprise on her side, she tries to SUBDUE the (multiple-personality) killer and bully her into giving herself up. And then Lucy ACCIDENTALLY stabs the killer with the pitchfork, unexpectedly (and unwillingly) killing her.

Reading this was like reading a bad horror film. Except you laugh at bad horror flicks. You expect the heroine to grab the banana instead of the cell phone. But, personally, I expect more from a book.

I wish Lucy had been killed. She certainly didn't deserve to live. And did I mention that Tyler was a 20-year-old passing as an 18-year-old on his own manhunt to avenge his sister?

I told you... this book has every element....