Deadly Little Secret: A Touch Novel by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Summary:

Some secrets shouldn't be kept...

Up until three months ago, everything in sixteen-year-old Camelia's life had been fairly ordinary: decent grades; an okay relationship with her parents; and a pretty cool part-time job at the art studio downtown. But when Ben, the mysterious new guy, starts junior year at her high school, Camelia's life becomes anything but ordinary.

Rumored to be somehow responsible for his ex-girlfriend's accidental death, Ben is immediately ostracized by everyone on campus. Except for Camelia. She's reluctant to believe the rumors, even when her friends try to convince her otherwise. She's inexplicably drawn to Ben...and to his touch. But soon, Camelia is receiving eerie phone calls and strange packages with threatening notes. Ben insists she is in danger, and that he can help--but can he be trusted? She knows he's hiding something... but he's not the only one with a secret.

From the best-selling author of Blue is for Nightmares comes a story of paranormal romance that's sure to be a thrilling and chilling teen favorite. (from Amazon)

Review:

Deadly Little Secrets was a suspenseful, scary, and funny book that I enjoyed a ton. The whole premise of this book was interesting and well developed, I thought. I liked how Laurie Faurie Stolarz based this on how a stalker was following Camelia around and on the ridicule and hate Ben got on his psychometric ability( the ability to tell different things by touch). I had never heard of psychometric before. So, it was interesting to see what it was all about and how it affected Ben's every day life. Also, the whole stalker part of the story was, as said above, scary and always kept me on the edge of my seat wondering who it was.

In Deadly Little Secrets, Laurie also adds the stalker's diary to the story. I thought that without this, you wouldn't really get to see how twisted and sick this guy was and it added to how great this book was.

Even though I enjoyed this book, I had quite a few problems with it.

For one, throughout the story Camelia never went to her parents to tell them how a creepy guy was not only following her around, but leaving her presents from stores, putting creepy pictures of her in her mailbox, and kept harassing her over the phone. I mean come on, maybe if she ACTUALLY told her parents, what happened in the end would not have. Though, I guess you would probably loose some of the suspense and mystery to the book. Adding to this, her friends actually knew she was in trouble, but did they stick by her and help her? No, they gave her an ultimatum saying that if she would not stop obsessing about Ben and the stalker dude and didn't ask them about their own stupid problems, I must say, that there was not any point in hanging out with them. What kind of friends are those? Come on! If this had happened to me, I know my friends would have helped and convinced me to tell my parents.

Second of all, I felt that Camelia was not as developed of a character as she could have been. Sometimes, it seemed like she had no feelings or thoughts to what was happening, instead she just told the facts. Though, she was still fun to read about.

Lastly, the ending of this was the kind were you want to throw the book across the room because of how cliff hangerish it is. Though, I guess it was Laurie's way of making you want to buy/read the sequel, Deadly Little Lies.

I know that I have three paragraphs on how annoying this book was at times, but it is still a ok book that I suggest to all. Also, I can't wait to read the sequel, Deadly Little Lies, because I want to know what happens next.

Grade: C+/B-

This book is now out in hardcover, you can find out more about it here.