The Hanging Girl by Eileen Cook; Review by Emily Shunk

The Hanging Girl

Written by Eileen Cook

Review by Emily Shunk

Skye dreams of moving to New York with her best friend. She's told Drew before that she can go. She'll scrap together enough money from her job as a fake psychic to move to New York City. When it's coming down to it, Skye doesn't have anywhere close to the amount of money she needs. She lived on the bad side of town, where there are McDonald's instead of Panera's, and gas stations instead of supermarkets. She nervously engages in a plan... one which if she fails could get her thrown in jail and she'd never get to move to new York with her best friend from childhood. 

With seemingly no warning, golden-girl Paige is kidnapped. There's little evidence, and the police can't seem to find her. With plenty of pressure to perform, Skye goes to the police to tell them she can help them find Paige. With a made up vision, plenty of lies, and all her hopes and dreams, she has to keep her secrets a mystery and try to get out of the mess she helped create. 

I never actually finished this book. I started it in the summer, got about 7 chapters in, and gave up. With the summary, the first chapter of the book, and you know- the suspenseful title and cover- I thought it would be a fantastic plot. Right off the bat- the plot is brilliant and seems so shocking and juicy. It is anything but that. *slight spoiler ahead- you've been warned. Although I seriously don't recommend this book so I don't care*. After the first chapter- or maybe midway through the second- I could already tell that Paige was the 'mastermind' of this whole plan. The suspense and foreshadowing wasn't that cleanly cut, and so it was suspenseful and dull when it was finally revealed. As a book of the mystery genre, that was extremely disappointing. I don't think I can stress how boring this book is in English words. So instead, I'll convey it through a keyboard smash. asiohdaopep awdopai opidsdaopdi. I feel like that was much clearer. Anyways, it was incredibly boring and not at all deserving of the mystery title. 

As well as that, the writing was some of the worst writing I've seen in a published book. She frequently repeated the same sentence throughout several different chapters as if she forgot she wrote that part already. The sentence was some variation of a comparison of the two towns- chipotle, fast food, McDonald's vs Panera, farmers markets, and bubble tea stores. It was a good comparison the first time, then it got extremely annoying after maybe the third time. The voice is fairly good, but the sentences often don't make that much sense. As well as that, the characters are cliche and dull. They're all 2D characters that have no sense of complexity. I do not care that Paige has a father with too high expectations- I have thousands of other- far better- stories that have those same characteristics. As well as the repetition and dull characters, the writing is just rough. It's like the author had no idea how to write a mystery, randomly had a good idea, and executed it terribly. 

I don't think I can stress with words how annoyed I was with this book. I really don't think it was worth the time I spent reading it. I would not recommend this book- at all- to any person on the face of this earth. I give it a 1/10. I quite frankly don't know how it was published. While I am quite clearly extremely disappointed with this book, I do feel like I have to acknowledge that I never finished the book. I got about halfway, and gave up. While I do feel like that's a fair judgement- if you can't get through the first 10 chapters then it's probably not a good book. But I digress. I cannot officially say it is a terrible book- as I have not finished it. Regardless, I do not recommend it. I urge you all to pick up a different book next time you're at the library.