Abandoned by Booklikes

Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.

Not too much to say here. I will echo what other reviewers have said. The parts of the book focusing on the protagonist's childhood were great. When it moved to her as an adult the book felt off in some way and I just didn't want to keep reading further. I finished this around midnight last night since I was up fuming about the debates that were on. I think there is some promise in Walters writing, it just needs to be tightened up a bit. I thought the way that some of the characters talked to each other was weird too in some places. One of the worst parts of getting a book via NetGalley and downloading it to your Kindle is that you can't upload your notes on the book. I am too lazy to post the writing that I went what at a few times. Some of the sentences made me hard pause and wonder what the heck the author was trying to say.  

"Dead Girls Club" follows Heather Cole. She and her friends back in the early 90s formed a club that was obsessed with telling stories about serial killers, death, etc. They were pretty much the hosts from Stay Sexy, Don't Get Murdered before that became a thing. The girls in the group become obsessed with a woman they call the Red Lady. When Heather's best friend Becca starts talking about the Red Lady and how she's real Heather doesn't believe her. Then Becca ends up being killed. Fast forward decades later and Heather is now a child psychologist. Heather has never told anyone what happened to Becca, but now Heather thinks that the Red Lady is out there stalking her and leaving her creepy clues about what happened with Becca. 

I really can't say much about the characters. Though this book isn't written in medias res it should have been. We just get kind of pushed into the book and I felt a little lost at first. I didn't know who was who or what anyone was doing. I had to re-read sections so many times to even make sense of who was speaking sometimes.

Heather being a child psychologist was kind of laughable cause she seems to have no empathy (at least I didn't think she did) for children or the ability to relate to him. She's married to a bland dude whose name I am totally blanking on. Two of Heather's younger friends, Gia and Rachel are also kind of bland in the present, but not in the childhood portions. 

So the writing is so weird to me. Walters writes the sections dealing with Heather in her childhood so well. Then it moves to the adult portion and it was just not working for me at all. The "Then" and then "Now" format seems to be a thing in a lot of thrillers written in the past few years and I wish that it be utilized a little more judiciously. Sometimes writing in that style can make the novel great when you get a third act twist or something. But this just bogged down my reading enjoyment. Also fair warning since this came up the other day, this is written in first person present tense. It doesn't bother me as a reader, but I know it bothers others, so thought I bring that up. 

The flow wasn't great jumping back and forth between the "dead girls club" and present day Heather. I felt myself getting so confused while reading this ARC cause there were not clear spacing between paragraphs so that just made things worse for me. I am sure when it's published that will all get cleaned up.

The ending had a lot of plot holes I thought but at that point I was just glad to be done. A good first effort. I wouldn't re-read this in the future though.