The Other Lola by Ripley Jones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Other Lola is a follow-up to the 2023-release, Missing Clarissa. These are YA-Mystery stories following two main characters: Blair and Cam.
In Missing Clarissa, Cam and Blair investigate the disappearance of popular cheerleader, Clarissa Campbell, who went missing from their small town of Oreville, Washington, 20-years before.
It starts as a project for their high school Journalism class and ends up being a viral podcast, as well as a life-endangering pursuit of amateur sleuthing.
At the end of the Clarissa case, Cam and Blair had sudden fame, but with it, a lot of unwanted attention. They vowed to never do it again; to stick their noses in where they don’t belong, to make a podcast, none of it.
Then they meet Mattie, a Freshman at their high school. Mattie shows up on the literal doorstep, begging for the girls’ help with an unsettling family situation.
Mattie’s sister, Lola, disappeared mysteriously five years ago. The thing is, Lola has returned. She’s not talking about where she has been all these years, and Mattie is convinced she’s an imposter, but no one else believes Mattie; not her mother, not her brother, Luke, no one.
Blair and Cam, Blair in particular, are moved by Mattie’s story. They seem so passionate about it. It couldn’t hurt to help them out, could it? Look into it a little…
Before they know it, the two are neck deep in another dangerous investigation, but with secrets between them, how will they ever be able to get to the bottom of someone else’s twisted family drama?
I was intrigued by this initially, and did enjoy following Cam and Blair during the investigation. For me, it wasn’t quite as compelling as the first book, but yeah, still a solid story.
The audiobook has great narration and I would recommend that format. I was able to fly through this story and I did find that the narrator helped to keep me engaged, even when I was rolling my eyes a little bit.
I felt like, and I could be misremembering, but for me, personal issues for Blair and Cam took much more of a front seat in this one than the first book. In a way, this almost felt like a straight YA Contemporary story, with a slight mystery happening in the background.
By this I mean, the mystery almost took a back seat to Cam and Blair’s interpersonal dramas. With this being said though, I do really enjoy both Cam and Blair as characters and I love their friendship.
So, it’s not like I was disappointed with those aspects of the story, it just seemed more difficult to get as invested in the mystery surrounding Lola because of it.
Additionally, there were things at the end that I found unsatisfying; that just didn’t make sense. I am mainly referring to the events following the big reveal, so sadly, I can’t comment more without giving the ending away.
Overall though, I still enjoyed Cam and Blair, their friendship and the idea of two smart high school girls taking on the world and solving mysteries. That’s a fun concept, which is fairly well executed within these stories.
There are hints that there could be more with these characters in the future. I would be interested in picking up future books, if that turns out to be the case.
Thank you to the publisher, Wednesday Books and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with a copy to read and review. The Other Lola is available now!!!