Gretchen McNeil

{My thoughts} – Dee Guerrera has a hidden past. She has secrets that she’s trying to hold onto. Secrets she’s only told a handful of people. Secrets she’s terrified of sharing.

Dee is convicted and sent to live on Alcatraz 2.0 where she will live an ordinary but not so ordinary life. The objective of Alcatraz 2.0 is to serve justice to all those individuals that had committed heinous crimes. Dee swears from the very beginning that she is innocent and that she doesn’t belong there. When you think about it though, who would admit that they actually belonged in such a horrible place?

This book is filled with twists and turns that are unbelievably interwoven within each other. There is so much faced paced information being thrown at the reader and so much happening that when you get to certain points of the book you start to think, what? No, that can’t be? What is going on? This book was extremely difficult for me to put down. I think it is by far the best book I have read in awhile.

I kind of want to say this book is a cross between The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard. If you have had the pleasure of reading either of those series, I am certain you are going to enjoy this book as much as I did. I am now counting down the days for the second book to be released.

I don’t think you should read this book if you can not handle gory details, some f the description within it’s pages is mind-boggling. However, it is effective in placing the reader within the imagined realm of the story.… (more)

If you have read "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie, then you can pretty easily tell what will happen in this novel! The setting and main idea is the same: a group of people are invited to an island, and one by one, they start getting killed. In this case 10 teens come expecting a party but things turn sour pretty quickly.
Despite the fact that I was able to predict the main occurrences (a large part of this is surely because I have read the similar Agatha Christie novel) this was an entertaining, suspenseful, and crafty little read. Meg, the main character, is very likable: she defends her friend even when it's not easy, is pretty quick to piece things together, and makes really none of your "predictable horror film female" choices (like going off to make-out in the woods or something similarly stupid).
The writing style is good, although there are a few cliches scattered among the more well-crafted pieces. McNeil is good with really drawing the reader into the story and presenting clues, characters, and happenings in an effective way.
While "Ten" is nothing super-duper-spectacular (and could use a better title), I found it a great read for a story day and will certainly be reading another Gretchen McNeil book in the future.… (more)

* I got this review from the publisher*

I really loved this book. I felt like this book remidned me of all the elements i loved from PLL and it was fast pace read. It was a book that deviated from normal thriller elements and had a main character that i did not adore but also did not hate and she was character the grew on me throuhgout the read. This book was really hard to put down and i was unable to predict the twist. It was a super quick read and loved the pacing of this read. If you enjoyed PLL or i Killed zoe spanos this might be a fun read!!… (more)

* I got this review from the publisher*

I really loved this book. I felt like this book remidned me of all the elements i loved from PLL and it was fast pace read. It was a book that deviated from normal thriller elements and had a main character that i did not adore but also did not hate and she was character the grew on me throuhgout the read. This book was really hard to put down and i was unable to predict the twist. It was a super quick read and loved the pacing of this read. If you enjoyed PLL or i Killed zoe spanos this might be a fun read!!… (more)