Social Suicide by Gemma Halliday
pages: 227
released: April 2012
publisher: HarperTeen
cover love: ♥♥♥♥

Twittercide: the killing of one human being by another while the victim is in the act of tweeting. Call me crazy, but I figured writing for the “Herbert Hoover High Homepage” would be a pretty sweet gig. Pad the resume for college applications, get a first look at the gossip column, spend some time ogling the paper’s brooding bad-boy editor, Chase Erikson. But on my first big story, things went . . . a little south. What should have been a normal interview with Sydney Sanders turned into me discovering the homecoming queen-hopeful dead in her pool. Electrocuted while Tweeting. Now, in addition to developing a reputation as HHH’s resident body finder, I’m stuck trying to prove that Sydney’s death wasn’t suicide. I’m starting to long for the days when my biggest worry was whether the cafeteria was serving pizza sticks or Tuesday Tacos. . .(from Goodreads)

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 9/7/2012 ON BOOKSLIKESTARS.NET

Review:

After reading Deadly Cool last year, I was eager for Social Suicide to be released so I could jump back in with Hartley, her BFF and Chase on their new high school mystery case. This time Hartley is on the prowl to solve the twittercide (murdered while tweeting) case of Sydney Sanders. Everyone believes that Sydney killed herself but Hartley, with the help of her friends, is determined to prove them all wrong.

As much as I loved the first book, I didn’t feel the same way about Social Suicide. It had its cute and funny moments but it wasn’t nearly as entertaining as I thought it would be. I still loved Hartley, she’s a great character. However the plot was still cliched but worse, at times because some of the evidence, clues and other situations around this mystery seemed very far-fetched. I thought there’d be more romance growing between Chase and Hartley but it only ended up with a spark, if any. I felt like the author should have kicked it up a notch in this second installment, between Chase and Hartley and the plot. I know it’s supposed to be a light, fast read, I just expected it be a little better. I don’t know if there’s going to be a third book next year but if there is, I’ll give it a shot. Hopefully, it’s better than this one.

2.5