I received this book for free through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Maggie was looking forward to a great summer vacation before her final year of high school, prepared to spend the break with her boyfriend, Joey, and a group of friends. But then, on a long weekend during the last few weeks of her junior year, everything goes very wrong. Maggie's friends had jumped off the large cliff into the water below many times. But this time, Joey's jump is his last, when he smashes onto a rock which delivers a fatal blow to his head. Maggie was at the top of the cliff with him, about to jump. But now she can't remember anything that happened up there. Clue by clue, Maggie begins to piece together parts of Joey's life that he hadn't told her about when he was still alive. As Maggie digs further into Joey's secrets, she begins to wonder if she ever really knew him at all when he was still living. And as her memories prove stubbornly difficult to retrieve, she begins to wonder if she'll ever know the events leadings up to his death, either.
This book was a lot sadder than I'd expected it to be. Based on the summary, I thought it would be a mystery story based around a death. Instead, the story was about the death, with not as much mystery as I'd been hoping for. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, because I did. However, be prepared for some depressing scenes. Maggie does a lot of reminiscing about her time dating Joey, which makes the death sadder for the reader as well as for Maggie. I always enjoy a good amnesia story, as long as it's well-written and plausible, which this was. The reader knew a bit more than Maggie about what happened at the top of the cliff before Joey fell, from a scene at the beginning of the novel, but the whole truth isn't revealed until the very end of the book.
I found the relationship dynamics between Maggie and her friends fascinating. The dialogue seemed very realistic, and every character was three-dimensional. If anything, I found Maggie's friends better depicted than Maggie herself. It seemed as though all Maggie ever thought about was losing Joey and getting back her memories, and I didn't feel as though I had any sort of grasp on her actual personality at all. That's part of what made this book more depressing: it seemed as though Maggie's inner voice was just permanent despair. Even the short moments of levity were tainted by it. Her character was still realistic, and felt like a real person going through something painful; however, I think that even in real life, there will sometimes be moments where you temporarily forget your sadness. This never seemed to happen with Maggie.
I found the ending of the book a bit predictable, but still enjoyable. The mysteries behind Joey's death and lies were fully solved, although they caused a significant amount of pain and turmoil along the way. There were some unexpected revelations throughout the body of the book, although I still figured out the truth long before Maggie did. Whether she was in denial or just ignorant, I don't know, but I always find it a bit irritating when it takes the main character so long to discover something that seems so obvious to the reader. I felt as thought the ending was wrapped up in the best way possible, considering all the drama Maggie had had to deal with throughout the story. It wasn't a perfectly happy ending, but then, a joyous ending would have destroyed the message the rest of the book had been trying to build. I appreciated the way the finale was written, even if I was expecting it.
Although it wasn't the exciting mystery I'd been hoping for, this novel was still very interesting and full of heart. The character interactions were quite accurate, which is something I especially appreciate because most writers can't seem to get their teenaged character to act like a real, regular teen. Kristina McBride succeeded, however, which helped to draw me into Maggie's world. I would give this book a rating of four stars. It was on the short side, and as much as I keep saying it was sad, it's not to the point of crying-in-public, so it's good to read anytime. I would recommend this novel to readers who enjoy stories involving memory loss, well-written characters, and mysteries surrounding a death.
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