Okay, so this book is one hell of an emotional roller coaster. It tugs on you, like a dangle or a hook, that feeling you get when you're scared at something  but can't help yourself to peek and see what's underneath. I think this is what the book is. 

At first though, I wasn't expecting anything big, because I think that the first book is clearly established one of the most unexpected plot twists I may have read so when I read the second book, I could understand somehow if it wouldn't live up to the first book. It did, but I realize it like after fifteen chapters in. So, be warned and SPOILERS AHEAD: 

Basically, following the first book, Pip has been somewhat established as a crime/mystery solver not just in her town but across the country. Of course, with fame comes a bunch of haters, not just people from the internet but also people in her town. So, diving into this book, I kept thinking what would be the next mystery that Pip will be solving and then it presented itself. One of her friends, Connor Reynolds, (who initially in the first book seems to have a crush on Pip) has an elder brother (who is on the same year as Andie Bell, Sal Singh, Naomi Ward, Nat De Silva and Max Hastings) named Jamie has gone missing after the memorial for the death anniversary of Andie Bell and Sal Singh. To be honest, I wasn't that invested in the first few chapters in, as it slowly unfolds and somehow I kinda believed that they are not looking for a missing person but perhaps a body. But like when the chapter where it was 3 days since Jamie has gone missing comes up, I felt this rush inside me like how Pip felt she needed to wrap things up as the more time she can't solve the mystery, the more high the stakes that Jamie may not be a person they'll be looking but perhaps a body. Also, I love the inner turmoil in Pip's, because she learned, in this book, that there is such a vague and questionable area between right and wrong. That there might be right actions for a bad cause and wrong actions for a good cause. Also, Pip had accepted herself, that this obsessive and a bit rash as she was during the mystery solving, this is in fact a part of the real her. And that's alright. She has grown. 

So back to the story, like Pip, even I as a reader do not know what is going on and how the disappearance of Jamie Reynolds had come to be. Like, they kept digging things about Jamie that contradicts his personality and how they knew him. I kept thinking who would want to hurt Jamie, and how could you connect that. Also, a bit of an additional, it also fucking frightened me when they are trying to catfish this Layla Mead, that they chatted "Hello Pip, you are getting close :)" with a smiley thing at the end like you can't help but think if they were being watched as of that moment. 

I wouldn't explain or narrate a lot of the things that have happened in the book as I was taken by surprise too as it soon unraveled in the last few chapters. I also genuinely thought that Jamie had died somehow and couldn't even grasp the connection of what the hell is happening. Of course, it wasn't until like the very end that the mystery had soon unfold, what was the cause and what the hell is happening. And to be honest, I don't have any idea that it would have come to that conclusion. Like, I don't know, but even I couldn't see what was happening until the very part of the book, the same time it dawned on Pip, what the mystery is about and what really is the mystery unfolding in her very eyes. 

I wouldn't spoil you on that part, what was the mystery is about, because it was so hauntingly disturbing in a way that questions your morality. I just felt dumbfounded somehow, or maybe the mystery is meant to be narrated that way. 

Anyway, I want to talk about Pip relationship with Ravi because they are indeed one of the best and healthiest relationship I may have read in the YA genre. Ravi has always been supportive of Pip (as she was even back on book 1) and calls out Pip when she seems to have strayed. It reminds me of this scene from a korean drama I have watched that to be able to stay good and true, you need atleast one to keep you on the right path, even just atleast one person who will tether you to do the right thing. 

Also love the character build-ups of the following: Cara Ward, Connor Reynolds, Jamie Reynolds, Nat De Silva and Stanley Forbes. But especially particularly on Nat De Silva. 

If you remember, Nat De Silva has been one Pip's POI for the murder of Andie Bell and because Pip had created a podcast surrounding the Andie Bell murder case. Though, Nat had hated Pip because of this, it was also their hatred for Max Hastings that had brought them closer together. And thanks to Nat, Pip had been closer to solving the missing Jamie mystery. I kinda understand Nat's anger or hatred on Pip and the way she explained it to her makes sense as a character and I love, love it when women help each other. 

Although, like Nat and Pip, I fucking hate it that Max Hastings, a serial rapist had gone free, just because he has money and power. And as much as I hate it, it is true that justice is blind sometimes, not everyone who are sentenced are actually criminals and not everyone who roam free are actually innocent. 

All in all, this story is getting better and better but also so disturbing somehow that I felt bad for anyone suffering to the same sufferings as some of the people they could relate to in the book. But that's what books should be, like art, it should comfort the disturbed and disturbed the comfortable. But in the case of this book, we have to accept that life is like that sometimes. We win and we lose. But despite the losing, we have to stay vigilant and stay hopeful, that good things will come to people who do good, and bad things follow bad peple.