The Cheerleaders

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Chloe, Brittney, Pippa, and Ava talk with Forrest Parker, who just happens to have photos of all the dead bodies of the cheerleaders who were murdered on his work laptop? Something is not right with this teacher. He freaks the girls out, and they quit the team. Well, everyone except Ava, who seems into it? Ava gets transcripts and works with Dillion to learn what happened ten years ago. Throughout the whole book I was straight-faced and uninterested. Monica gets a bit of information here and there in every chapter, and not once was I excited. I tried so hard to get into the mystery groove, but I was so bored sometimes I had to rewind the audiobook as my mind simply wandered to other things without me noticing. I didn't even try to guess the ending, that's how done I was. What are the odds that five girls from the same school, all friends, would die within a month of each other?” There are no longer cheerleaders allowed at Sunnybrook High School. It's been that way for five years, ever since five members of the team died within a short span of each other. One of those girls was Monica's sister, Jen. Jen committed suicide after four of her fellow cheerleaders died--two in a car accident and two in a brutal murder at the hands of a fellow Sunnybrook resident. That man is dead, killed by the police. Still, Monica doesn't understand why her confident, beautiful sister killed herself. And now she's finding strange things about Jen's death that don't add up: her phone, left behind in her stepfather's desk, weird letters in his drawer, and more. What really happened five years ago? And are people done dying? This story touches some really important topics like statutory rape, suicide and abortion, but I wish more attention was paid to them. I feel like they were mentioned and that was that, the story moved on. I mean, their part of the story was huge, but they were almost… glossed over.

The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas is a young adult mystery that I’ve been anxiously awaiting having read this author before. Before I get too far into this review though I need to warn yet again that this one is going to be for the older crowd with a lot of darker content that may be disturbing to some. Jennifer’s sister, Monica, living in the shadow of her perfect sister, is trying to move on, even though her life eerily mirrors her sister’s five years ago – she’s popular, has two best friends, and is a member of the dance team (the club that replaced the cheer squad). But the past won’t let her go, and upon discovering an ominous note citing a connection between all the cheerleaders deaths, Monica starts to unwittingly look into her sister’s past. But unravelling the truth, is a dangerous game, one she just might not survive!

Monica is still hunted by questions and mystery around Jen’s death and she wants to find out what really happened. The Cheerleaders is Kara Thomas' edge-of-your-seat thriller about an eerie sequence of seemingly unrelated events that leaves five cheerleaders dead. The film was made in the summer of 1972 in the cities of Cupertino, California and Sunnyvale, California. The high school scenes were shot at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, California. The administration of Monta Vista high school claimed to not be aware of the racy elements and theme of the movie. Many of the football player extras were recent graduates of local high schools from these two cities. The red uniforms in the film representing the home team high school Amarosa High School were actual uniforms of Fremont High School in Sunnyvale, California from that same year. One of the identified extras is Carl Ekern, who later played professional football for the Los Angeles Rams. He was a student football player at San Jose State University when the movie was made. Starring Stephanie Fondue, Denise Dillaway, Jovita Bush, Brandy Woods, Kimberly Hyde, Richard Meatwhistle Told primarily from Monica’s POV, as she finds clues about the deaths of the girls, perspective shifts to Jen in the weeks that lead up to her death. Monica’s character is dynamic; she’s appropriately angsty but at the same time sincere. I thought Thomas did a good job of painting a realistic picture of a high school junior struggling to find out who she is and what she stands for, while at the same time capturing small-town dynamics.

I listened to the audiobook for this and really enjoyed it. It has a classic mystery feel and was fast-paced and compelling. I would definitely recommend the audio format. When Monica Rayburn finds her sister’s phone hidden in her stepfather's desk, she begins searching for clues about what might have led her sister, Jen, to commit suicide 5 years ago. No one in Monica’s family likes to talk about what happened to Jen, so she begins to look for answers on her own. As she begins to put the pieces together, not only does Jen’s death seem suspect, she realizes something is off about the deaths of 4 other cheerleaders. and then it had to go on and rUIN IT and it makes me so angry because this book would have been so perfect With The Cheerleaders, the only amount of mystery I got was to whodunnit and what happened. The surrounding mystery itself revolves SO MANY DAMN RED HERRINGS with just basically shit ass high school drama (jesus these 15 year olds I just can’t) and some fluff....

but, I mean, like, I thought that this was all going to be a part of Monica’s character development, and that she would eventually grow to realize that this whole situation is not her fault, that he was an adult that took advantage of a minor. but, like, silly me thinking that character development would be a thing in a book!!! like,,, what was I thinking? (okay and I swear that I’m not trying to take away from Monica’s character development because her arc having to do with depression and accepting her sister’s death is top-notch, but the internalized victim-blaming?? booooooo) A group of cheerleaders from the local high school decide to show their school spirit for their football team by sleeping with the opponents the night before the game so that they can be so worn out the opposition won't be able to play. Still, it reads like a YA novel, and I don't mean that in a bad way. We get the sense that the character is in high school, and the people in the book rings true. There's not much about cliques, no overt stereotypes. We get the teenaged attitude without the "oh my god I want to strangle the characters NOW" feeling. It had just the right amount of angst and childishness that teenagers of that age would portray. This book was amazing for the first 75 percent. Maybe a tad heteronormative, but a person can forgive. The writing style was compelling and easy-to-follow, the characters were three-dimensional and relatable, and the mystery was original and had me at the edge of my seat. It was gritty, dark, and dealt with real issues.