This book certainly went above and beyond my expectations!.
Full of twists and turns, and moments that make you feel shocked to the core. 
The characters were believable and realistic, to the point in which I found myself feeling as though they were close friends of mine, and in turn truly caring out the outcomes for them all.

The storyline is rather dark, but it has so much going on, it is without a doubt one of the best YA novels I have read for quite some time.

I really love a good mystery and this book was really good. 
If you liked one of us is lying then this book is just what you need.
Great characters and a great storyline. I read this in one sitting, I just couldn’t put it down.

I read this book in August and forgot to pop my review in until now. I was so engrossed and consumed by finding out the answers that I forgot I was reading. 
It was a on the edge of your seat read and you’re invested from the start.

Ok, I'm going straight in here. I'm split. I mean proper split. On one hand I really enjoyed the book. The plot was good, characters are well thought out and likeable. At times it's extremely gripping and fast-paced. Overall everything you want in a book right? On the other hand, it didn't go anywhere fast, I didn't like that we were given narrative by both Monica and Jen, the Rayburn sisters. This taking us from present to five years prior with Jen before her death. I honestly thought we would find out more by having Jen with us, but that wasn't so. To me she was pretty pointless and I soon found myself wanting to skip her and carry on with Monica. 
Here's where it gets tricky. This is a book that any spoilers given would absolutely destroy your enjoyment in reading it. So it's hard for me to say why I has an issue with a certain “victim”. I don't know how laws work in the US but in England that book and it's laws made no sense at all. And I know this is fiction and I shouldn't let it upset me, but isn't that what reading is all about? Let's just say some victims or survivors as I would call them could get a bit or pretty pissed off with that. I know I did. See, very cryptic of me, but I needed to give my full reasons. I will discuss this with anyone who wants to go into with me though. My inbox is always open.

Overall, the book is good. It is one I would actually recommend to you. Like I said good plot, great characters, and the best part about it one fantastic twist that comes out of nowhere with an absolute bang!

⭐️⭐️⭐️

3/5

The Cheerleaders is the first book by Kara Thomas that I’ve read, and after enjoying this one so much I will definitely be reading more from her in the future. Thomas managed to mix emotion with mystery very well in this book, and I was kept wondering right up until the end.

I think the main standout of The Cheerleaders was the characterization of, well, the characters. The main character, Monica, is going through A LOT. At the start of the book, she has an abortion, and in addition to that she has also lost her sister and her sister’s best friends from the cheerleading squad. Oh, and she was in a student/teacher relationship with her teacher. I know, it’s a lot to unpack.

In my opinion, Kara Thomas did a great job of handling all of those things. While I do think the abortion was left forgotten, Monica had so many other things going on that it was almost understandable that she was distracted from it.

I have seen some reviews say that the student/teacher relationship was handled poorly, but in my opinion it seemed quite realistic? So we have a grieving teenage girl who blames herself for what is happening to and around her, and she really struggles to accept the idea that she’s the victim. But, she IS the victim, and the text clearly implies this.

Anyway, as for the actual mystery of what happened to the cheerleaders, I thought it was very interesting. Sure, you have the slightly unrealistic part where a teenager solves a crime, but isn’t that the case with all YA thrillers? I don’t think it would be that interesting if the teenagers deferred to the adults all the time, and the target audience probably love imagining solving these cases.

Like I said, I was kept hooked the whole time and because Thomas did such a great job with the main character, The Cheerleaders packed in a lot of emotion that is normally lacking in thrillers, particularly YA ones. I’m definitely going to be reading the author’s backlist and reading whatever they come out with next.

This was my first Kara Thomas book. I really enjoyed it. It was suspenseful, well written and well paced. 

I'd read from her again.

Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

The premise of this book is fantastic and really appealed to me. I  found the beginning half of the book quite slow and although I liked Monica as a protagonist I found it a bit difficult to get into the investigation plot. I also didn’t really respond to Jen’s earlier chapters. However after the midpoint I found this book really compelling and read the second half in one sitting. The third act of the book was particularly tense and page turning. The character of Ginny was excellent and i enjoyed getting her point of view at the end. I also thought the final Jen chapter and the conclusion of the Jen/Ethan subplot was really emotional. Overall I really enjoyed the book and rated it 4/5 on Goodreads - I would read other books by this author and recommend this title to senior students.

"There are some things not everyone has to know."

I didn't think this book would keep me in suspense. But apparently it was a pretty good thriller. I don't remember reading too many YA thrillers, maybe 2 books so far, mostly because I am a fan of adults thrillers and because I never saw this side of the YA world. I always read YA fantasy or romance nothing else. But I was wrong to choose just these 2 genres of YA because these books can be really intense and catchy. 

Kara Thomas proved me that YA thrillers can be deep and dark with secrets that you wish never knew. Because.. let's say it: This is the reality! The cheerleaders shows a different part of high school where everything can happen. Good or bad. Sadly in the book is the bad part. You can find death, drugs, suicide, sexual assault. It is not a cheesy read! 

Four cheerleaders are dead and the sister of one of them is the only one who fight for the truth. And I love how Monica never gave up on her sister. When everybody tried to forget about the crime, she tried her best to find the real answer. This is all I can say because if you are a fan of thrillers then this should be on your wishlist.

Thank you NetGalley for this eArc in exchange for an honest review.

“If you do it, I’ll say whatever you want.” She’ll tell everyone it was self-defence.

CW for ‘The Cheerleaders’: Death by suicide, abuse & neglect, statutory rape, abortion, anxiety attack, reference to graphic violence/murder/car accident, reference to sexual assault.

There are no more cheerleaders in Sunnybrook, but that doesn’t mean anyone else is safe.

I wasn’t too sure about The Cheerleaders at first. It seemed like it wasn’t treading new ground, and that the ground it was treading was going to be problematic tropes you sometimes see in YA. BUT, no, if you give this book a little time, it carefully subverts your expectations and calls out problematic behaviours.

It does a brilliant job of balancing the expectations of the YA murder genre (it CAN’T be a coincidence that all five girls died) with being realistic, and also respectful of the genuine issues around death by suicide. Aside from some conclusion-jumping at the beginning that is slightly unrealistic in its accuracy, overall The Cheerleaders is really clever about the way it ties the mechanisms together.

I thought the book was also good about representing authentic teenage girls and their friendships — such as the weaponisation of the word ‘whatever’ between two of the girls, the sudden bonding between Monica and Ginny. I loved Ginny – she was smart, sensible, candid, introverted, and just a tiny bit morally ambiguous. Would recommend this book for fans of Courtney Summers and Karen McManus.

I liked the beginning section of this but i just didn't like this towards the end overall. The story was progressing well but it took a turn that didn't work for me. The premise had so much promise but the execution was lacking for me.

This is a vaguely interesting story, but it lacked suspense, or a good ending. It suffered from having far too many stereotypical characters (the coach, the bad girl, the misunderstood emo guy) that were very hard to remember and the themes of teen pregnancy, drug use and sexual relations with older men were never fully explored.

The flashbacks to Jen didn't add anything to the story, I felt that it should have given us many clues and show a spiral to what happened to her. I should have felt sad, because Jen and 4 other girls were the ones that died, but I can't even remember 3 of them and Susan I only remember the name of.

Up until 80 percent into this, I thought this was a really solid story, slowly bringing all the pieces together to solve the puzzle of what happened to the 5 girls that died 5 years ago. But after 80% I really started to notice that the pieces I got weren't adding up to anything.

The ending finished the story off with a villain reveal I did not expect... because it was kinda stupid. Monica works it out after stumbling on the most random piece of evidence ever, before finishing the story with a plot twist that was utterly bizarre. I left feeling quite disappointed.

The Cheerleaders picks up 5 years after 5 cheerleaders died in different ways and follows Monica as she tries to piece together the clues to find out what actually happened to them whilst also dealing with personal issues.

The book is not bad, I actually liked the writing style and the tone of the book. The book is darker than your typical YA mystery novel both in the content/themes of the book and also the atmosphere of the book. I liked the main character; Monica was well written especially her emotions and struggles as she goes through a lot whilst uncovering the mystery.

I just did not like the mystery aspect of the book. Monica solves/discovers things way too quickly and she finds a lot of stuff out throughout the book but not much time is spent on each ‘reveal’ and so there is no build-up of suspense/tension and things are discovered and then dismissed too quickly. Throughout the book there are a few chapters from Monica’s sisters perspective which I did not like, especially because the resolve for her sister was rushed and so we get this perspective to understand her sister and yet her story feels unresolved, it feels kind of pointless in the end.

I also found that the side characters were not developed enough, Monica’s relationships with the side characters were all bland and so I did not care for any of them. I also found the main reveal disappointing, it was very cliché and the rushed and I thought it could have been built up a bit better to make it more shocking. There are also other things that happen in the book which I do not think were addressed well or enough which was disappointing.

2/5

An intriguing concept with a satisfying payoff, The Cheerleaders is a YA novel that teases and entertains throughout.

Synopsis: Something dark happened in Sunnybrook. 5 years later, the horrific deaths of Sunnybrook's cheer team are long-solved and the suspect dead, so why does something still not feel right?

This is a 'whodunnit' we care about solving. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader captivated but never fatigued. Additionally, the POV switches from Monica in the present day (the teenager trying to solve the town's mysterious deaths) to her dead cheerleader sister in the past. This switching of POV's keeps the narrative fresh and adds nuance to the story and to one of the victims. The story is well-paced in this respect; I kept meaning to take a break at the end of a chapter but found myself continuing on. There were plenty of hints at what really occurred 5 years ago throughout that make sense at the end a-la Agatha Christie and there is a payoff, just not the kind of payoff you expect...

The main characters are interesting and realistically teenage enough that we *want* to know what happened to them. However, some of the side-characters are dull and not fully-fleshed out (the mother in particular). Heavy topics: unwanted pregnancies, drug use, suicide etc. are constantly brought up to give the narrative depth and are mostly deftly handed. This is a book that doesn't coddle the reader.

Yet, this would have been a stronger mystery/detective novel if there was more actual investigating. For a character that is desperately trying to solve a crime, there wasn't much of an investigation. Most of the story plays out like this: A speaks to B, B tells A a clue, rinse and repeat.

There's always something fascinating about putting the shiny, bright, idealised American Cheerleader at the centre of a dark and twisted plot. I did enjoy The Cheerleaders and was invested in knowing what truly happened all those years ago in not-so-sunny Sunnybrook, but I would have enjoyed it much more if the investigator of these crimes did some more sleuthing.

Firstly, I really enjoyed this book. I'm really enjoying reading YA mystery thrillers and this is one of the better ones that I have read! The concept is intriguing straight away. I love it when a book presents to me a mystery and then tells me that more people may know the truth than you first think.

The Cheerleaders also deals with some pretty heavy topics, and is not the light read I had expected it to be from the cover. There was so much within the book that was both realistic and relatable; I really found myself connecting with both Monica and her sister throughout. 

It was a super easy read and I found myself not wanting to put this down as I just had to know what happened next! So many YA mystery stories can be cheesy, but this one was honestly the complete opposite. 

Thank you to both Macmillan Childrens Books and NetGalley for my copy of this title.

This is a solid thriller mystery - I didn't give it higher than three stars purely because I didn't care about the characters too much and there was nothing too standout different about it. However it was compulsive enough reading for me to finish it and I really liked the ending which slightly subverted the genre in that it wasn't all neatly tied together. It was cleverly done and for teens who won't yet have read too many crime/thriller mysteries yet it is good so I will still be recommending it for year 10 plus.

One of the best YA mysteries I’ve read. I loved the characters and the intricately planned plot. Everything came together quite quickly in the end for me but it kept me entertained until the final page so I can’t knock it.

This book was OK.

Marketed for fans of Karen Mcmanus I thought this one was a poor comparison. Like I say it was ok, but thats all.

This book was such a thrill to read! I loved the twists and the turns, it left me gasping throughout. I would highly recommend this if you enjoyed 'One of Us is Lying.'

Thank you to Netgalley, Macmillan and Kara Thomas for providing this to me in exchange for an honest review.

This book was incredibly gripping to me. Five years ago, five cheerleaders died, two in a car accident, two in a murder and one by a supposed suicide. There is a mystery surrounding their deaths that Monica (a sister to one of the cheerleaders) shake. Slowly as the novel progresses Monica tries to uncover the truth behind the deaths, and in doing so uncovers a lot of uncomfortable truths. 

The mystery aspect was brilliant, although slightly predictable in some places, some twists took me completely by surprise and make you second guess other things. The story line did have me hooked and I finished it very quickly, the switching between Monica's present and her sister's past five years ago added more to the story, coming at the perfect time and always leaving more questions than answers. 

I also loved the ending, I found it perfect in a lot of ways. The novel is a lot darker than I was expecting for a YA, but that made me like it more as it was intriguing and dealt with some really dark issues. However, I did think that the police not being able to solve certain things or notice discrepancies in the reports due to emotional blindness wasn't too realistic. Also throughout the novel the depiction of grief was incredibly moving, although I really didn't like some of the decisions that Monica made and found her character quite annoying I think that her actions can be explained by grief. Ultimately I think that this is a really good YA mystery.

“All the house is doing is existing, not bothering anyone. It’s exactly the type of thing that offends my mother.” 
— Kara Thomas, The Cheerleaders 

Give me a O, give me a M, give me G. What does that spell? OMG! This book was such a fun read. I really have a love for all things YA murder mystery. 

The Cheerleaders follows the five deaths of the Sunnybrook High cheerleaders. Two died in a car accident. Two more were killed by a neighbour. And one committed suicide. 
Five years later, Monica (sister to Jen, who committed suicide) is determined to find out the real story. Her sister would never have taken her own life, and something else doesn’t sit right with her about the other cheerleaders’ deaths. 
Monica won’t stop until she uncovers the real story. 

This was such a fun read- albeit a bit dark- but I really enjoyed it. There is just something fascinating about there being multiple murders/deaths in a book— to figure out how/if they connect. 

My only note is that I couldn’t follow all the characters. As this book goes from present day (Monica) to five years prior (in Jen’s pow), I found it a trifle disorienting. This is only because of the side characters though. Both Monica’s and Jen’s friends read, and acted, pretty much the same to me. So I had a hard job distinguishing them.   

But the plot line itself was great, and I loved Ginny (Monica’s friend). She’s this little shy girl with a dark side. Awesome, right? 

Thank you so much NetGallery and Macmillan Children's Books for this readers copy! 

Read. Be happy. Stay safe.