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    Prep School Confidential
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    Prep School Confidential
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    Prep School Confidential
    Ebook359 pages4 hours

    Prep School Confidential

    By Kara Taylor

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    "This book rocks! Scandalously delicious in the same vein as Pretty Little Liars and Revenge, with a wickedly clever plot that kept me guessing right up until the end." -- Gemma Halliday, New York Times bestselling author of Honeymoon in High Heels

    Anne Dowling practically runs her exclusive academy on New York's Upper East Side—that is, until she accidentally burns part of it down and gets sent to a prestigious boarding school outside of Boston. Determined to make it back to New York, Anne could care less about making friends at the preppy Wheatley School. That is, until her roommate, Isabella's body is found in the woods behind the school. When everyone else is oddly silent, Anne becomes determined to uncover the truth no matter how many rules she has to break to do it. With the help of Isabella's twin brother Anthony, and a cute classmate named Brent, Anne discovers that Isabella wasn't quite the innocent nerdy girl she pretended to be. But someone will do anything to stop Anne's snooping in this fast-paced, unputdownable read—even if it means framing her for Isabella's murder.

    Kara Taylor's breathtaking debut reads like Gossip Girl crossed with Twin Peaks in an enveloping start to the Prep School Confidential series.

    "A whirlwind of secrets, lies, and scandals. I whipped through the pages, frantic to discover the killer." –Jill Hathaway, author of Slide


    "Fast-paced, suspenseful and scarily believable. It will keep you guessing as you race to the end!" -- Daisy Whitney, author of The Mockingbirds and When You Were Here

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJul 30, 2013
    ISBN9781250017604
    Unavailable
    Prep School Confidential
    Author

    Kara Taylor

    KARA TAYLOR is twenty-two years old. She completed Prep School Confidential during her first semester of graduate school, in between pulling all nighters and listening to her father say writing isn’t a real job. In the past, Taylor has worked as everything from a nanny to an ice cream scooper on Fire Island, New York.

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    Reviews for Prep School Confidential

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    • 4/5
      What an intriguing novel! When I fist saw this book, I debated for a couple weeks over if I should get it or not. I can now say that I am glad I did.

      Our leading lady, Anne, is sent to a prestigious boarding school after a mishap at her old school. She was expecting a lame, prep-filled year but instead is thrust into a mystery when her roommate is murdered. Determined to find out who did it, Anne begins her search. Let me tell you, almost everyone in this book has a secret. Some dark, some petty and others deadly. Students, staff and town members alike are under Anne's scrutiny. Each step closer she gets to her roommates killer, brings one more secret to light. And they just keep coming...

      I though this would be a light, easy read but it had more depth than I thought. At fist Anne annoyed the hell out of me. She was the "queen" at her old school, got away with everything, everyone knew her, and she is seemed a bit vain and materialistic. While true to an extent, I learned there is a lot more to her. She is caring, determined and clever as well. While I have a hard time believing her wanting to investigate so thoroughly (does she hope to be a detective one day or something?) I enjoyed her search for the truth. Nothing deterred her and the scarier things got, the more deeply she had to delve.

      While there is a bit of romance of romance in the story, it is a mild part. I liked that the murder and secrets stayed as the primary focus. Although what romantic moments there are had the worst timing ever! The book's ending is a cliffy that leaves you looking forward to the next in the series. I did not expect that. When I got this, I was expecting a one shot read. Looks like Anne's new school has even more is store for everyone and I will have to keep an eye out for the second book when it comes out!

      Special Thanks to St Martin's for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book. All opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.
    • 3/5
      3.5 stars. The storyline itself was great, but I could have done with a lot less swearing. It just didn't fit the characters for me.
    • 3/5
      If there's one thing I like every now and then, its a good mystery. And this one definitely served its purpose. I like to challenge myself and see if I can come up with "whodunit" and if I can't it means that its the best of the best. I figured out who the culprit was in this one, but I still really liked it. The writing in this was one of my favorite parts. I had a bit of a heavy read last time where I was crying and upset and everything, but this one pulled me out of it. The humor in it made me laugh from the beginning to the end. Because I needed this comic relief, I enjoyed it that much more. I also liked the mystery in it. It was a little hard to decide who I thought did it because as normal, there were so many different things saying someone else did it, but I used my "CSI" and "Criminal Minds" investigative skills and I decided from there. And they all worked. The only thing I didn't like was the juvenile feel of it. It grated on my nerves the entire time. For her to be 16 she seemed as if she were 12. It kind of felt more like MG vs YA. Honestly, I would've liked it more if it was. Then I wouldn't have had to write this part of the review. :( But, overall, I liked this. It was a really great start to a new mystery series. I can't wait to continue on and see the next things that gets in Anne in trouble.
    • 3/5
      This was cute, Better than I expected.
    • 3/5
      Due to copy and paste, formatting has been lost.The best way to describe Prep School Confidential would be intense. It was intense from beginning to end. But sadly, intense doesn't mean that I loved it. I liked it's extremely action driven plot, but I found the characters to be a tad lacking.Anne herself was alright, if a tad complicated. She was really very smart, and I liked that she was as tempestuous as me. What really bothered me was the lack of development of the secondary characters. I would have liked to have known more about all of them, and for them to have had a few more appearances throughout the story. I feel like the mystery is ruled a little too much by Anne. We're limited through her vision, because all we get are her opinions. Plus she has a bit of a tendency to jump at every twig, if you catch my drift.The mystery itself was well done, though. There were so many clues, but they all pointed to different people, which kept the story interesting and entertaining. Towards the end it became obvious, though.My biggest problem was probably that Isabella (the murdered gal) didn't get to live longer in the story. She seemed like a nice type, which is why it was so disappointing to find out what she was really like. You'll never guess, believe me. This school has more secrets than a cat.All in all, Prep School Confidential was a charming, if underdeveloped beginning to what I hope will be an awesome series. Gotta love open endings, y'all.
    • 4/5
      I was excited to win an ARC of Prep School Confidential through the Goodreads Giveaway program. This book was impossible to put down! Anne Dowling, a privileged high school junior, is expelled from her exclusive Manhattan prep school after accidentally setting fire to the school auditorium, and sent to Wheatley a boarding school in Boston. Anne thinks she is in store for a dull school year until her roommate is found dead. When it seems that the murder will go unsolved Anne steps in to find out what happened. This is a fast paced novel with plenty of plot twists to keep the reader up well past their bedtime. There are so few traditional young adult mysteries that don't include a paranormal spin so it was nice to read a true whodunit. I highly recommend this book to fans of the Private Series by Kate Brian or to anyone looking for a well written mystery. This book is sure to appeal to teens and adults as well.
    • 5/5
      I had high hopes for this book ... and it happily met and exceeded my expectations. An interesting murder mystery with a snarky, genuinely likable main character -- what's not to love?
    • 4/5
      This has a premise that says that it is like Gossip Girl meets Twin Peaks, both are programs that I have watched and really like. So, I was all in, and pleasantly surprised just how good it really was. It starts with a bang. Anne has accidentally set her school on fire, and has now been sent off to a new boarding school. But this is a school for the sons and daughters of some pretty powerful people. Anne roommate is found dead, and the rumors start to fly and accusations begin of who did it.

      Anne is one snarky girl, she’s rebellious, and makes some awful choices and gets herself into some iffy situations. Anne is so indecisive when it comes to guys, I just wanted to pinch her, but she is one of those characters that I just couldn’t help to not like. Maybe it is the rebelliousness in me too. There are some secondary characters that were pretty good. Very cliche, but this is boarding school, and you have the “in cliques” and the not “not in cliques”. Of course there is a love interest for Anne, or shall I say two love interests. Both were the hot, bad boy type, but they good guys underneath it all, so either way she went, it was okay with me.

      The story revolves around the murder mystery of Isabella, Anne’s roommate. It seemed that everyone had their own ideas of who committed the murder, and with Isabella not being all that popular, it was like no one really cared who really did do it, they just wanted to gossip about, but not Anne. She tried to find the truth, and did some growing up along the way too. I can honestly say that I didn’t figure out who did do it till it was revealed, I was just having fun reading, following the clues. There was cover ups exposed, and secrets revealed. I enjoyed reading this one for sure.

      Prep School Confidential is a fun mix of self discovery, a murder mystery, interesting characters, and romance too. It was definitely one of those that once I started it, I just didn’t want to put it down. Fans of boarding school, and contemporaries will enjoy this, I know I did.
    • 4/5
      Debut author Kara Taylor dishes up murder and mystery at an exclusive boarding school in Prep School Confidential. When Anne Dowling finds herself shipped off to a new school in Boston after accidentally setting fire to her old one, she decides the best thing she can do is keep her head down, earn good grades, and try to win her way back to New York after the heat (hah!) dies down. Her good intentions are tossed out the window, however, when her new roommate Isabella turns up dead – viciously murdered on school grounds. When investigators seem to be getting the runaround from school officials, Anne decides to take matters into her own hands and uncover the murderer before he strikes again. She soon finds herself knee-deep in suspects – including her teachers, fellow students, and even her roommate’s twin brother! Can she discover who killed Isabella before she becomes the next victim?Anne is a protagonist who just felt…real. She was flawed, made mistakes, had her moments of confidence and indecision, and crushed on both good boys and bad. From the description of this book, I got the impression that Anne was the “queen bee/mean girl” at her previous school. The queen bee part of the equation was definitely in evidence, but the mean girl element wasn’t (I think I may have been reading too much into things). Anne was a girl who held on to her principles as much as possible, even standing up to authority figures when it didn’t threaten her education (due to that little fire issue at her last school, she’s on pretty thin ice). She wasn’t a goody-two-shoes by any means; she could pick a lock when necessary and stick her nose in where it didn’t belong along with the best of them. I loved that she was the type of person willing to dig deeper into her roommate Isabella’s death when it looked like the official investigation was being blocked by school officials and a killer might go free. Plenty of secrets were uncovered in Anne’s quest for justice, in some very surprising places.Prep School Confidential is a mystery, with a bit of suspense/thriller thrown in for spice. There are lots of twists and turns, multiple suspects, red herrings galore and even a cold case disappearance in the school’s past which is hinted at here and will be the focus of book two (Prep School Confidential is the first in a series). Debut author Kara Taylor muddies the waters sufficiently that the motive and murderer aren’t readily apparent, which I appreciate in a mystery. There did come a point late in the story, though, where I was a bit stunned to discover that yet another suspect had joined the mix, and I began to question where Taylor was going with a thread involving one of the original suspects. The story was teetering on the edge of “everything but the kitchen sink” territory, but managed to pull back at the last minute by eliminating several suspects in rapid succession. This kicked things into high gear for the final quarter of the book and left things on a strong note. Be assured that even though Prep School Confidential is the start of a series, this particular mystery is solved within its pages while the cliffhanger at the end points definitively towards the next mystery Anne will be investigating.Even though a couple of guys are mentioned in the book description, don’t go into this expecting a lot of romance. While Anne does end up attracted to two very different young men in the course of her investigation – rich guy Brent and town bad boy Anthony – the romance is definitely secondary to the mystery. In fact, the chemistry between Anne and each boy is minimal, which makes it more of a “tell” than “show” romantic triangle. Once again it wasn’t until late in the story when I actually felt a tentative chemistry between her and one of the guys (I can’t say who without spoiling things), but it looks like the love triangle will still be up in the air for book two.With a solid mystery at its core, a love triangle to add just a smidge of romance, and a female protagonist I can really root for in Anne, Prep School Confidential gets this YA contemporary series by Kara Taylor off to a solid start. Even though it’s not breaking any new ground, this is a nicely paced debut which provided plenty of twists and turns to keep me guessing “whodunit” all the way to the end. I’ll definitely be picking up book two – Wicked Little Secrets – when it’s released in 2014.
    • 4/5
      The Little BookwormAnne Dowling may have accidentally set fire to her school's auditorium and gotten kicked out but that doesn't mean her parents have to ship her off to boarding school. But they do and she finds herself having a decent time until her roommate is murdered. The school doesn't seem interested in finding the murderer, just on pretending everyone is safe. Not one to leave things alone, Anne goes in search of who killed her roommate and finds that her roommate is not as innocent as she appeared and that the school is covering up a multitude of secrets.Here's what I learned. 1. Don't read murder mysteries before bed even if they are YA and you think you are safe. Sometimes they are creepier than you think. 2. This is going to be a series and I'm pretty excited about that. I love a good mystery series and this one has more real elements than a lot of other YA mysteries that I have read. 3. That's about all.While I did find some parts of this book stretch the imagination a bit far, I was still okay with that. It was amazing the amount of cover-up Anne found as she searched for Isabella's killer. I guess a school as old and prestigious as the Wheatley School would have a lot of secrets. Still it is amazing the lengths that Anne goes to when trying to find her roommate's murder. I was surprised by whodunit because there were very few clues left in that direction. Usually there is at least a little foreshadowing involved. But I enjoyed the mystery and I enjoyed the characters. Anne is bold and brash and an all around cool girl. The love triangle felt a bit forced with her but the guys are pretty awesome. Between the beautiful Brent and the bad boy Anthony, twin brother of Isabella, Anne had a lot to choose from. I assume these relationships will develop further with the series. I love that her last name is Dowling and I wonder if that is a nod to the Father Dowling mysteries. I guess she is going to be sticking around Wheatley since the next book seems to follow a decades old mystery that was touch on in this book.Received for review from NetGalley