BOOK REVIEW – Nearly Gone

Nearly Gone by: Elle Cosimano – #1 in the Nearly Gone series!

AGE GROUP: 14 and up// GENRE: Fiction/ Mystery// AMOUNT OF PAGES: 386// RATING: 4.75/5

YA BOOK

summary

Nearly Boswell is a teenage girl living in a trailer park with her mom and very little money in Washington, D.C. Nearly has an unusual ability that allows her to feel others’ emotions when she touches them. Although she appears abnormal with this psychic ability, Nearly leads a very ordinary life: she has two best friends that are unaware of her ability and she is competing for a chemistry scholarship against one of her best friends which is her ticket out of her current life. However, she also has an obsession with reading the personal ads in the newspaper which is the beginning to the first of many cryptic riddles.

There is a new riddle in the newspaper every Friday and each lead to another devastating scene: one of Nearly’s mentee’s murdered. Soon the evidence indicating the killer points directly at her. Using her math and science knowledge, Nearly is able to sniff out the killer, but will she be able to solve this mystery before she gets arrested or worse, killed herself?

review

So sorry Truly Devious but Nearly Gone has surpassed you and it is now my favourite mystery so far! IT WAS JUST TOO GOOD!

PLOT

I finished this book so quickly because I was so engrossed in it and I know I said the same thing about Truly Devious, but oh my God, this book was much more powerfully enthralling and, frankly, I liked it better!

The story line literally taught me freaking math and science concepts that I’d never heard of but it was so cool to read and learn about! The little riddles in the personal ads were so fun to read and try to figure out and then watch as Nearly slowly figured out each riddle. Elle Cosimano managed to incorporate math and science so fluently in Nearly Gone, which made for such a compelling read.

This book kept me longing for more and more until the very last page because everything is so well created and the riddles and events that happen in the book are entirely well devised.

CHARACTERS

I’ve got to say, I didn’t love all of the characters in this book to the extent that I did in Truly Devious because there wasn’t much to most of them besides their awfully intriguing pasts. However, I did like Nearly even though she isn’t very different from a protagonist that you’re able to find in basically any Young Adult book. She’s a little too brave (unnaturally so); she has good come-backs, especially for Reece; and she is a little snarky. Now, what makes her quite unique is the fact that she lives in a trailer park with very little money with her mom, and she’s got brains for math and science. I loved how Elle Cosimano created a character that was able to use her knowledge in math and science to solve these murders, instead of a character who was a natural at being a detective. Nearly used her brain and actually was capable of finding the killer.

The second main character was Reece Whelan and, well, he was quite something. In my previous review for Truly Devious I mentioned, or rather ranted, about the formulaic fantasy books that I’ve now started steering clear of. What comes along with a formulaic teen book are the formulaic characters and Reece Whelan is one of them. He’s the bad boy who you’re unable to hate or get away from because this kind of character shows up in every YA novel. So. Of course I liked him! However, he was a little different from the normal bad boy that appears in all kinds of novels; Reece is a bad boy. He served time in juvi for a while and he’s gotten into all kinds of trouble and of course he’s dangerous, yet of course Nearly finds him alluring.

WRITING

Elle Cosimano’s writing wasn’t something all that special. Honestly, I liked Maureen Johnson’s (author to Truly Devious) writing better because her descriptions were so beautifully written, whereas Cosimano’s writing was a little blah. I mean, the riddles in the personal ads and the riddles hidden everywhere else were extremely well thought out and well written but overall I didn’t find her writing anything exceptionally special.

OVERALL

I thoroughly enjoyed this book; it kept me up at night and I was able to finish it very quickly because it was so engaging. I loved most of the characters, I loved the plot, and the riddles were so enjoyable and fun to read! I also loved the unique add of science and math which completed this book in the best way. I am so excited to read the second and last installment in this series called Nearly Found!📚

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