Review: Social Suicide by Gemma Halliday

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. . . .

If you have ever heard me recommend some books or even talked to me for more than 10 minutes about them then you would know that I loved Deadly Cool. It was witty and the characters were sarcastic and hilarious. The action was not lacking and the mystery had me hooked. To say the least, I read it in one sitting. That was sadly not the case with Social Suicide.

Instead of go on about what I disliked I am just going to make a quick list about the points that brought the novel down for me:

1. The whole concept of this second book seemed a bit strange...Twittercide? I mean, I understand that it is supposed to be a fun mystery but they were throwing that term around as if it were a real thing. That just didn't work for me.

2. New characters were brought into the story line just to be killed off. I never really developed an attachment to the characters that became victims. And while we are on the topic of characters, I would have liked to see what Hartley's ex-boyfriend was up to in this second book.

3. Hartley just goes around finding bodies all over the place. In the first book I thought it worked but now it was just getting to be a bit ridiculous. Also, even though she is finding all these bodies, they hardly question her or suspect her.

4. Finally, the romance was kind of cringe worthy. After how the first book ended I was all for Chase and Hartley...but sadly...nothing changed between them.

I know this sounds like there was a lot wrong with the book but in the end the mystery aspect definitely was the one thing that saved the book. I was hooked into finding out who the killer was from the very beginning. Everyone is a suspect, just like in the first book and I didn't figure it out until the big reveal. If you haven't read the first book in the series, you definitely should. It can easily be said that it was one of my favorite mystery books of last year (or EVER) and can stand on it's own. I was a bit sad that the second book didn't live up to my expectations but I think I might have just been expecting too much. That said I still recommend this book to people who love fun, light reads with  a mystery aspect thrown in there.

3.5 STARS