Review: The Dead List

The Dead List
By Jennifer L Armentrout

Publication Date: April 25, 2017
Date Read: October 29, 2020
Genre: YA – Thriller
Source: Bought
Format: Paperback
Pages: 316

From Goodreads:
It’s Ella’s senior year of high school and she and her best friend Linds plan to make it the best year ever. At Brock Cochran’s end of summer pool party, the girls vow to have as much fun as possible before they head off to different colleges next fall. But when Ella is mysteriously attacked on her way home from the party, everything changes. Ella’s carefree senior year plans disintegrate as she finds herself at the center of an attempted murder investigation.

Ella tries to move on, but her attacker isn’t done yet. He shows himself in the form of horrifying signs and symbols: a clown mask strewn on her bed, a dead bird in her backpack, a shadow moving past her window in the night. And as the weeks pass, it turns out that Ella isn’t the only one being tormented.

With the help of an old flame, Jensen Carver, and her friends and family, Ella tries to attain some sense of normalcy, but she can’t seem to shake the feeling that there’s a dark pattern hidden in the killer’s every move. Suddenly, even those in her innermost circle seem suspicious. In her seemingly safe West Virginia town, Ella starts to wonder who she can trust.

“You’re the first girl I’ve ever fallen in love with, Ella, and you’ll be the last girl I ever love.”

The Dead List has been on my radar for years. It was one of the very first books offered to the JLA ARC team back in 2017 when it first started. Back then I passed on it as it has my greatest fear in it… clowns. Fast forward three years and I finally plucked up the courage to read it. I am so glad that I finally gave it a chance and read this one. It was fast-paced and left you guessing right to the end.

The Dead List follows Ella, a high school student who finds herself as the victim of some hideous crimes. She is attacked when leaving a party and barely escapes. After her attack, more and more girls go missing and there’s creepy signs that the culprit is after Ella. Can Ella find who the killer is and can she do it before she becomes the next victim?

I’m a big fan of YA thrillers. I really enjoy them, but I’ll be honest, I’m a total baby and get creeped out really easily. There were a few times in The Dead List where I had to put the book down for a while to calm myself down a bit, mainly because there was a clown mask and as someone with coulrophobia I was slightly terrified. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be though and other than those specific scenes I thoroughly loved this book. It was amazing.

One of the things I love about thrillers is I love to guess ‘who dunnit’ and see if I’m right. Right from the start I guessed the culprit correctly. This didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book as it just made me more excited to find out if I was right. The Dead List is thrilling, exciting and heart-meltingly romantic. I loved the romance in this one, Ella and Jensen are 100% couple goals! I loved every moment of their romance and their relationship.

The Dead List is a fantastic YA thriller. If you love this genre, I can’t recommend this one enough. It’s perfectly creepy, the perfect read for Halloween (which is when I read it). I loved every moment of this highly romantic thriller. I probably won’t read it again, you know because… clowns. But I am so glad I finally read it.

“I want to be that guy – the one that when your phone rings, you hope it’s me. The one who holds your hand in the hallway and at lunch. The guy who gets to hold you. I want to be the one who get to touch you. I want to be yours!”