Review: Premeditated by Josin McQuein

Title: Premeditated
Author: Josin McQuein
Year Published: 2013

Genre: YA fiction

Pages: 404

Rating: 4 out of 5

Location (my 2013 Google Reading map): USA


FTC Disclosure: I borrowed this book from my school library

Summary (from the inside flap of the book): A week ago Dinah's cousin, Claire, cut her wrists. Five days ago Dinah found Claire's diary and discovered why. Three days ago Dinah stopped crying and came up with a plan. Two days ago she ditched her piercings and bleached the black dye from her hair. Yesterday knee socks and a plaid uniform became a predator's camouflage. Today Dinah will find the boy who broke Claire. By tomorrow he'll wish he were dead.

Review: The description of this book totally sucked me in! Drama, revenge, and family? What more could a reader want? Josin McQuein delivered in this YA novel that is a quick read and held my attention until late into the night so that I could finish it.

This book does a good job of showing how people (teens in particular) can take things into their own hands and not think about the consequences. We've all heard stories about what someone has done to someone else and thought how good it would feel to "get back at that person for what they've done." Dinah and her two best friends, Tabs and Brucey, plot and execute a plan to ruin Brooks Walden. What I liked is that they don't physically harm him or plan to kill him, they want to ruin him socially. They have to be clever, discrete, and that all becomes difficult as Dinah finds herself attracted to Brooks.

When the twist comes at the end it's a good one and really well done. I thought I had it figured it out with about a fifth of the book to go, and I did, but not completely. The book also deals with good issues that I cannot reveal without giving away important plot points, but the author has captured the essence of family, love, hatred, crushes, and revenge very well.