Nearly Gone Review (The Unofficial Version)

I have to say, I was really dreading reading Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano, which is the book I needed to review for SLJ this month. I don't usually do thrillers/horror, and the cover is more than a little bit creepy. But I absolutely loved it. Usually for my SLJ books, I'll wait to post my review on the blog until they're published, but I thought this book was so good that I would do an unofficial review of it here too. The book doesn't officially come out until March of 2014, but I wanted to throw it out there anyway to hopefully help it gain a little early exposure. 

Nearly Gone Summary:
Bones meets Fringe in a big, dark, scary, brilliantly-plotted urban thriller that will leave you guessing until the very end.

Nearly Boswell knows how to keep secrets. Living in a DC trailer park, she knows better than to share anything that would make her a target with her classmates. Like her mother's job as an exotic dancer, her obsession with the personal ads, and especially the emotions she can taste when she brushes against someone's skin. But when a serial killer goes on a killing spree and starts attacking students, leaving cryptic ads in the newspaper that only Nearly can decipher, she confides in the one person she shouldn't trust: the new guy at school—a reformed bad boy working undercover for the police, doing surveillance. . . on her.

Nearly might be the one person who can put all the clues together, and if she doesn't figure it all out soon—she'll be next.

Nearly Gone Review:
I was definitely reading outside of my genre with this book, which can definitely be a good thing, but I don't usually like being scared when I read (especially late at night when my husband is already asleep), but this murder mystery thriller had the perfect balance of tension and moments of easiness. And it wasn't especially scary at most points in the book. It was just good.

There were quite a lot of characters introduced at the beginning of the novel, and I had a little trouble keeping all of the side characters straight, but it definitely made the story stronger in the end. After all, if you're trying to figure out who the killer is, and you only have three options to choose from, it's not as fun. And by the end of the book, I definitely didn't know what to think.

The writing was incredibly eloquent, and I thought the author did an excellent job of nailing the descriptions and the dialogue. And she had a really good balance between the two, which is something that I struggle with as a writer. I also loved Nearly's character, but didn't really care for the two best friend side characters. Which was most likely done intentionally by the author to cast suspicion on them. And it if was intentional, it worked wonders, because throughout the entire book I was thinking it was one of them who was the killer. But I won't tell you if I'm right or wrong. If you're looking for a really gripping read that will keep you up late at night pushing through to the end, then definitely keep an eye out for this one when it comes out in March.