Dead Girls Society by Michelle Krys

Standalone. Delacorte Press (Nov. 8, 2016) NetGalley

You are cordially invited to participate in a game of thrills and dares. Tell no one, and come alone. If you dare.

Hope is sick of everyone treating her like she’s breakable. Sure, she has cystic fibrosis (basically really bad lungs), but she’s tired of being babied by her mom and her overprotective best friend, Ethan, not to mention worrying about paying for her expensive medication and how she’s going to afford college. And she’s bored with life in her run-down New Orleans suburb.

When an invitation arrives from a mysterious group that calls itself the Society, Hope jumps at the chance for some excitement. This could be her ticket out. All she has to do is complete a few dares and she might win some real money.

But the Society isn’t all it seems . . . and soon Hope finds that playing the game isn’t a choice—it’s a requirement.

Cystic Fibrosis has been getting a lot of attention in recent years. I'd never heard about it until Bates Motel or Foreverland, one of the two. I like being aware of diseases like this because if books, movies, shows, and people bring it out to the forefront more people will care. Hope has this illness that basically gives her a shorter life span. Her mother is super protective of her so basically she's been shut in her home since the last time she's gotten real sick. Then, suddenly, comes this e-mail that dares her to come to this spot. She's going to be playing a game. What she doesn't know yet is the lengths to which the Society will go to make sure she and other girls, all different, stay playing the game. No cheating, no leaving, until the game is finished or the Society will make sure you are punished.

From this cover and from the way the characters were written this felt very much like a middle grade book to me but it's geared toward YA. I felt like I was going to feel it was MG before I read the story so that didn't throw me off too much. The mystery is what ended up throwing me off. I hadn't anticipated how much I would need to know who was behind everything and why. The growing suspense had me flying through Dead Girls Society. Thankfully, the reveal and reasoning was satisfying.

It took me a while to get to know everyone's names but they became memorable when things started hitting the fan. All of the girls, save Hope, had been blackmailed to play the game. It seems like the Society has been keeping tabs on these girls. Hope really was the only one who wanted to figure out who the person/people were behind everything because nothing felt right. I like how the girl everyone think is weak, including herself, ends up being the most daring of them all.

Hope likes a boy. A boy who just happens to be her best friend. I didn't really care for this part of the story so I mainly ignored it. I did like the other love interest more. As a whole though, the mystery blew this part of the story away.

The mystery and suspense kept me guessing in Dead Girls Society. I think that the story could have been written more like it was a YA book to bump everything higher in my opinion. I enjoyed how everything was resolved and Hope's deducing skills. That cliffhanger at the end was killer!