Tell Me What Really Happened by Chelsea Sedoti
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Five friends go into the woods, only four make it out alive. You may think you know this story, but I assure you, you’ve never heard it told like this!
In this story we’re following five high school friends, Nolan, Petra, Maylee, John and Abigail. It’s a sort of Breakfast Clubby set-up, with each character falling into a particular stereotypical role.
Maylee is the Queen Bee of the group, a wannabe influencer, snapping shots of herself whenever and wherever she can. It’s her idea to go on this ill-fated camping trip.
Petra is Maylee’s best friend, a smart girl, who tells it like it is. She’s the only person who doesn’t bow down to Maylee. Petra loves her, but she’s not going to be steamrolled by her.
The other campers include Nolan, Petra’s step-brother, an outcast with a penchant for cryptid lore, who always manages to say the wrong thing; Abigail, the poor girl-next-door, who isn’t really part of the group, and John, Maylee’s boyfriend, the jock with a heart of gold.
The trip begins with stress and ends very much the same way, x10. They’re at each other’s throats from the start and it’s clear that something is going to go wrong.
The shining star of this book is hands-down the format. Told strictly through police interviews, I was blown away by how much tension Sedoti was able to create with that.
Each chapter begins as a question asked by the investigators. The subsequent meat of the chapter is the various players answering that question.
Most interesting to me was how that initial question, at the header of each chapter, is the only question revealed, but you can feel the characters filling in subsequent questions.
I’m not quite sure how else to describe it. It’s definitely something you need to experience for yourself. I was super impressed with how clever this was.
Sedoti not only set the entire stage, but filled it in just by flawlessly placing answers to a few questions. It had to be perfectly arranged in order for it to flow well and make sense. I think she did a phenomenal job with that.
Overall, I found this to be a very fun read. It was grand how this unique format could create such a super quick and tense read. The characters drew me in. They felt believable and genuine in their distress.
It’s not a groundbreaking story as far as the plot goes. Sadly, I even sort of felt like the conclusion was a bit anti-climatic in comparison with the build-up. Nevertheless, this was still a very engaging reading experience and I would definitely recommend it to fans of YA Thrillers.
Thank you so much to the publisher, SOURCEBOOKS Fire, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I was impressed with this and look forward to picking up more from this author!