One Moment: Review
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Young Adult
Review:
When I read the synopsis for this one, I expected a really good mystery. Maybe a few twists and turns — something completely unexpected. After the first chapter I had my suspicions on what was probably going to happen, and sure enough, in the end, that’s exactly what the deal was. There was no surprise at all.
When we first meet Maggie, she’s hanging out with her friends over Memorial Day weekend. They’d attended an epic party the night before and Maggie is making plans to “seal the deal” with Joey — the love of her life. Maggie finally works up the nerve to dive off the cliff her friends have been diving off. She’d tried before, but chickened out. Joey walks her up to the cliff, and they plan to jump together. But then she sees that he is wearing a bracelet and she knows she’s seen it somewhere before. Right before the jump, Maggie realizes who it belongs to and the next thing she knows she’s scratched and bloodied, cowering at the top of the cliff and people are screaming below her.
The rest of the book deals with Maggie trying to piece together what happened during those few moments between when she planned to jump and when Joey was found dead.
I felt like I was tricked a bit by the synopsis. It really sets the book up as a mystery, but I didn’t feel like it was at all. It’s more of a contemporary novel about a girl struggling with the loss of her boyfriend and how she deals with the secrets she uncovers about who he really was (which was also no real surprise). I felt that the whole memory loss plot point was totally unnecessary, and that it was only thrown in to lengthen the story.
The good thing about the book is that Ms. McBride’s writing flows well and she paints vivid pictures and creates a cast of (mostly) likable characters, even though I did feel that some of them were a little unsure of who or what they wanted at times. All in all this is a descent read, and I’m sure plenty of readers will like the watered down mystery and Maggie’s journey of discovery. For me, it was just okay.
