Gilt Hollow

Gilt Hallow I originally requested this book because the title made me curious and when a book sparks my interest I have to crack it open! I am not a young adults book fan its never been my cup of tea, that being said I liked this book. I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thanks to Zonderkidz-Books and NetGalley as always thank you.
This book was very well written I love a great mystery this almost had a haunted feeling to it which made me want to keep reading. Lorie Langdon's small town of Gilt Hollow seems to be a nice town for all who live there but we find out very quickly there are many lies, secrets, and threats that could shatter this small town along with Willow and those she loves. Willow Lamott grew up inseparable from Ashton Keller. Willow continued to stand up for Ashton when his friend dies at a favorite watering hole with Ashton taking the responsibility while his three friends blame him for pushing Danny off the cliff. It is after spending four hellish years in juvie that a changed Ashton returns to Gilt Hollow to find the real killer. I could not put down this suspenseful mystery with the town and high school hating Ashton, causing Willow to question her feelings for Ashton, all the while confiding to him about threatening texts and notes. I kept on reading to try and piece everything together before the end and I loved it. Lori does a good job with her descriptions and clues to you will keep guessing until the end. All and all this was a 4 star fabulous read for me if you are looking for an innocent sweet read for your teen this is the book to let them dive into hands down!

It was a little over the top but I suppose most YA thrillers are like that. Overall, it was an okay book. When I picked this up I desperately wanted to like it, I hoped it was good and sadly I'm left disappointed. The writing isn't terrible, the characters weren't intolerable - mostly overdone tropes, but the overall plot is what needs work. We don't really find out what's going on until the last 20 pages, and I mean that in a bad way. Typically in stories you're given enough hints to somewhat piece things together, but with this I felt like everything was dumped towards the end. Looking back at it, I can see how it makes sense but the reasoning for one of the deaths just isn't explored enough and felt like it was plopped in front of me just so there would be a reason to begin with. I found the “reveal” scene boring and hoped

Some of the characters were just there for convenience or filler - they ultimately served no purpose. Our main female character, Willow, was unbelievably stupid at times. The choices she made just didn't make sense to me, and she was way too trusting. Our “villain” was barely explored wish is what's really disappointing. I assumed that if there's a villain who's terrorizing our main characters and harming others, they'd be fleshed out and given traits but that's not the case in this book. I'm not sure how I feel about Ashton, I think he's great at times and annoying at other times ¯_(ツ)_/¯

It was well written and the characters weren't too bad but had the plot actually been really thought out and well planned (in regards to the end too), this would've been a great book. Sadly it's only a 3/5 for me.