Just Finished Reading … Impostor by Jill Hathaway

Impostor
by Jill Hathaway
To be published by Balzer + Bray

Source: ARC sent by publisher for review




Connect with the author: Blog : Twitter.

Summary (adapted from Goodreads:) Vee Bell’s gift (or curse) of “sliding”—slipping into the mind of another person and experiencing life, briefly, through his or her eyes—has been somewhat under control since she unwillingly witnessed the horrific deaths of her classmates six months ago. But just as things are getting back to normal, Vee finds herself in stranger and stranger situations with no memory of getting there, she begins to suspect that someone she knows has the ability to slide—and that this “slider” is using Vee to exact revenge on his or her enemies.

My take: I've always loved mysteries. As a kid, I watched Scooby Doo and read Nancy Drew. In the summers, I worked my way through shelves of my mom's old Agatha Christie books. I'm always looking for great new YA mysteries.

I really enjoyed Slide, the first book in this series. You can read my review here.

While Slide was definitely a mystery -- with main character Vee convinced that mysterious "suicides" at her school are actually murders and trying to solve the crimes by sliding into the consciousness of the suspects, Impostor starts out as more of a creepy suspense story.  When Vee finds herself at the side of a road in her father's wrecked car with no memory of how she got there, she's convinced that there's another "Slider" out there -- someone who is sliding into Vee's consciousness and making her do his or her bidding. Creepy! Problem is, Vee doesn't know who the person is or what their agenda could be. But then, when a seemingly harmless revenge prank against a fellow student does turn to murder, Vee's unsure who's to blame. Could she have been the killer when she was being controlled by this other slider?

As in Slide, Impostor features plenty of suspects and tons of weird happenings. Jill Hathaway excels at fast-paced plotting and twisty writing. In Impostor, I was never sure what was going to happen or who to suspect. There are also a few romantic complications for poor Vee, which had me chewing my nails, as Rollins - with his leather jacket and his zine -- is one of my favorite YA book guys.  As in Slide, the killer seemed to come a bit out of nowhere. But I liked the fact that the mean cheerleaders in Slide were given a lot more emotional depth in this book, and I loved the new developments in the relationship between Vee and her sister Mattie.

I have really enjoyed this series and am excited to see what happens next. There's a revelation near the end of Impostor that suggests that things might get even more interesting for Vee in books to come.