Natalie D. Richards is one of the best authors I’ve ever read from! Her first novel, Six Months Later, is a phenomenal Young Adult thriller. Excellently written and terrifyingly creepy, Six Months Later is sure to mess with your head. After reading a handful of other thrillers over the year, Six Months Later still holds a place in the top 5 of my all-time favorite psychological suspense novels. In fact Six Months Later and Megan Miranda’s Hysteria are the books that possessed me to keep reading in the thriller genre. Besides being a scary page-turner, SML (Six Months Later) also had a killer love story, and the hunk of the story, Adam, makes me extremely happy. Like looking-at-a-picture-of-Theo James-and-Ansel Elgort happy.
Like, a-leprechaun-who-finds-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow happy. I love Adam so much that little elves in the woods who make cookies out of people’s love cookies stalks just doubled
…….Okay…..I’m done now.
So as one might expect, I am ecstatic to now be reviewing Natalie D. Richard’s second YA thriller, Gone Too Far.
Keeping secrets ruined her life. But the truth might just kill her.
Piper Woods can’t wait for the purgatory of senior year to end. She skirts the fringes of high school like a pro until the morning she finds a notebook with mutilated photographs and a list of student sins. She’s sure the book is too gruesome to be true, until pretty, popular Stella dies after a sex-tape goes viral. Everyone’s sure it’s suicide, but Piper remembers Stella’s name from the book and begins to suspect something much worse.
Drowning in secrets she doesn’t want to keep, Piper’s fears are confirmed when she receives an anonymous text message daring her to make things right. All she needs to do is choose a name, the name of someone who deserves to be punished…
After reading Gone Too Far, I had to take a moment on my couch and just breathe. I couldn’t even begin reading another book because I had to finish letting Gone Too Far’s perfection soak in. As I dived into the beginning chapters, I totally realized I was setting myself up for some real OTP disappointment. I immediately got attached to the idea of Piper and Manny getting together. They seemed like they’d be cute. But as I progressed, I threw that idea right out the window because man Nick is so perfect. How does Natalie do it?? How does she come up with these AMAZING guys? And, why can’t I have one in real life??? Although, it was a bit typical to have the misunderstood jock be Piper’s (the least expected girl to end up with a guy “as popular and hot as Nick”) saving grace. With that being said, I still liked Nick. I still thought they were the cutest freaking couple ever. And, I seriously need a 3D printer to make a Nick for myself. Something else I really enjoyed about nick’s was that he didn’t have some pitiful, dark backstory, or a mysterious, unknown-to-all past that leads him to being a sexy player that has secretly always loved our protagonist. He was just normal. They were a normal couple who fought about mostly normal things. It made them more realistic and appealing because the reader can relate to their relationship. Theirs is a definitely a certain beauty to making your characters as normal as possible. Not that I can claim to say guy characters with dark, mysterious, and or pitiful pasts don’t intrigue me to keep reading.
Page 43 is where the scariness officially set in for me. I remember a nervous shiver even shot up my spine. However, it wasn’t until about 100 pages in that I reached the point in which I couldn’t put the book down. I will say it would have been a wise choice to add a bit more detail to the life Piper had before the events in the novel started taking place. Maybe a bit more about her home life or past friendships and relationships. Maybe more flashbacks? Just more of the things that help the reader connect to her on an emotional level. That way the reader can have a better experience and more emotional responses to everything that happens to Piper. The lack of introduction to Piper’s life made her a bit bland and dull in the beginning. But, by the end of the book I had more appreciation for Piper and felt more for her character, it was just a very slow development in that area. I will also admit that Piper was impulsive and acted too much on her emotions, giving her a sick sense of justice when she first encounters the evils and tries to avenge those she believes to be wronged. But again, by the end of the story, she has grown as a person and has a better sense of behavior towards all that seems wrong on the surface.
Other than those two things I don’t really have more critiques for the book. Natalie’s books have great principles too. In Gone Too Far our protagonist learns to look beyond surface level, that nobody is perfect, some truths are just ugly, and actions have consequences. That may sound cheesy, but aren’t those lessons everyone learns and has to accept at some points in their life? And, Natalie writes them in such a way you don’t find it at all boring. It’s the way Piper learns all of this too that helps her character arc. It reminds me of Victoria Scott’s characters (who I believe to be some of the best in literature today) who start out flawed and almost unlikeable because of their cluelessness, but develop into something you love and admire.
I tell you, Natalie D. Richards is a genius. Sometimes an evil one…..but….aren’t all authors? Also, Natalie has been a really great friend to me since I first interviewed her after the publication of Six Months Later. So here’s a shout out to you Natalie! I would read anything written by her and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with in the future. If you are into realistic thrillers her books are worth the try! Personally, I liked SML better than Gone Too Far. Not to say that I didn’t like Gone Too Far (because clearly it was close to perfect), but just in my opinion I don’t think any thriller will exceed SML. …….Or Adam. But Nick is a close runner up to Adam. 😉
As a special edition to this post I am including the link to my old blog that features and interview with Natalie D. Richards over Six Months Later!
http://bexbookaddictions.blogspot.com/2013/10/interview-with-natalie-d-richards_30.html
