I’m gonna start this review off by saying that I am a native Louisianian. Not from New Orleans, but from a small town in the South that has very very different traditions for Mardi Gras. So, when I started reading this book, I already had the cultural background that Worley was describing on the pages, but minus the debutante stuff. 

I’m not gonna lie, this book creeped me out more than once. Was it the sexist culture and nature of this story? Maybe. Cult vibes? Again, maybe. But I’d say I was sufficiently creeped out by the end and not at all satisfied with the justice that was “served”. 

I’ll start with something easy to review. The setup of this novel was kind of wonky in my opinion. There are four different point of views, but you mainly only read three different ones for Piper, Vivian, and April. Well, Piper and Vivian’s POVs were so similar that if I didn’t pay attention, I forgot who I was reading about and that was a problem. If you’re going to have that many different POVs, they at least need to be characters who have differences that are easily recognizable in their voices when writing. I often found myself flipping back to see which POV I was actually reading and that took me out of the story a lot. 

As far as the characters go, Margot and April were my favorite. Unfortunately, you only get to know Margot through subtle flashbacks and what April says about her character. She was the type of bold character that you automatically fell in love with and wanted to help (she reminded me a lot of this short story I read once called We All Know About Margo and all you want to do the whole time is fight for the girl who deserved better). Just those little tidbits, though, had Margot built into a better character than Vivian was. Piper was definitely more developed, but I felt like Vivian specifically fell flat. Don’t even get me started on Lily (also kind of a Margot situation where you hear about her in flashbacks and read about her once or twice). The villains from this story, too, seemed so… I don’t know if unrealistic is the word I want to use, but like, they had no depth? None at all. And sometimes they felt childish in their reasonings. I don’t know how I feel about that in particular. 

The story and plot itself was really fun to follow. I loved the mystery behind it and all the threatening messages and strings you had to follow. That was probably my favorite part about the whole book was the way the plot was so expertly woven. I loved every minute of it and the story itself was so satisfying except for the villains behind it (like I said, they felt more like little boys with play things than like actual villains who have depth and trauma that may be their reason for their brutality). I also really really could have done without the last chapter. It felt like it was just added for shock value and actually made the ending less satisfying.

Overall, I loved Margot (and desperately wanted justice for her) and I loved April. The plot was *chef’s kiss* the perfect mystery. The villains, though, fell flat, and the POVs were so confusing at times that it lost me. Rating this, I’d say 3.75/5 rounded up for all my social platforms. A fun read for sure!

Source: Advanced Reader Copy from Netgalley

(P.S. You can read this book for free by signing up for a free trial of Audible, which gives you two free audiobooks of your choice!)