The Perfectionists by Sara Shepard

In Beacon Heights High, Nolan Hotchkiss is king. His charm, wealth and good looks are deceptively seductive, and many are the students whose lives and reputations have been ruined by it. All while Nolan continues to reign, unquestioned and undisrupted. Until now, that is.

Mackenzie, Ava, Julie, Caitlin and Parker seemingly don't have much in common. Each has their own friends, dramas and goals. But one thing they do share: they all have a deep hatred of Nolan Hotchkiss. And they all think it's about time he paid for what he's done. They come up with the perfect murder - a hypothetical murder, of course. It's all wishful thinking ... until they wake up one morning to find that their wish has come true. Nolan has been killed - in exactly the way they planned. The thing is, they didn't do it. So who did?

This is my first Sara Shepard book - I did watch Pretty Little Liars which I immensely enjoyed, and this had the same sort of feel. It was all typical high school until a classmate died and someone was trying to frame the girls for it! Not always entirely clever, some stupid teenage decisions made, but still very fun and gripping story. It told of 5 girls bonded by their hatred of top-dog Nolan so they plan a little revenge at his party. Quite harmless, just taking compromising photos, but then it seems someone killed him right after. The girls all had their reasons for despising him, all of them reasonable but some more serious than others. 

Nothing was revealed straight away, which was both a really good writing style and incredibly annoying! Each of the girls reasons for hating Nolan was revealed one by one, along with their home lives, their secrets and their fears. I really liked getting to know them all; they were scared and a little selfish but they held together to protect each other, which was commendable. 

The other side of the story was of course the murder. The girls were understandably terrified that they would be blamed for it and so have to clear their names by finding the real killer. Much like Pretty Little Liars, there were lots of misleads and creepy people that may or may not be the murderer or just a pervert. It was very fun to guess and of course have all my guesses turn out to be wrong! All in all, I really enjoyed this, and I can only hope that the answers will be revealed in the next book!

Published 2nd October 2014 by Hot Key Books. Thank you to the publisher for my copy in exchange for an honest review.