Review: Social Suicide by Gemma Halliday

Title: Social Suicide (Deadly Cool #2)
Author: Gemma Halliday
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release date: April 24th 2012
Pages: 277
Genre: Contemporary YA; mystery
Source: Bought
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Twittercide [twit-er-sahyd]: the killing of one human being by another while the victim is in the act of tweeting.
Call me crazy, but I figured writing for the Herbert Hoover High Homepage would be a pretty sweet gig. Pad the resume for college applications, get a first look at the gossip column, spend some time ogling the paper’s brooding bad-boy editor, Chase Erikson. But on my first big story, things went... a little south. What should have been a normal interview with Sydney Sanders turned into me discovering the Homecoming Queen-hopeful dead in her pool. Electrocuted while Tweeting. Now, in addition to developing a reputation as HHH’s resident body finder, I’m stuck trying to prove that Sydney’s death wasn’t suicide.
I’m starting to long for the days when my biggest worry was whether the cafeteria was serving pizza sticks or Tuesday Tacos...

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I loved Deadly Cool, so I knew Social Suicide would be another fun read. And I did enjoy it, but I also had some issues with it, so I didn't love it as much as Deadly Cool.

Hartley's humor was the best part of Deadly Cool, and I loved it again in Social Suicide. She's unique - I can't think of any other YA characters like her. There's just something about her dry, sarcastic sense of humor that works really well for me. I love how these books don't take themselves too seriously - they'll never be classics people will analyze and discuss forever, but they're special in their own way. The writing is in no way literary, but it's definitely well-done. The way Gemma Halliday writes is unapologetic - she's not afraid to put something like *shudder* in her book, and I loved that. The style is how real people think, and it's hilarious!

I loved getting to find out more about the characters I loved in Deadly Cool. The SMother is back, and she's trying online dating! That whole concept is hilarious (yes, I will be overusing the word 'hilarious' throughout this review - there's just no other way to describe these books!), and I loved reading about how Hartley deals with it. I also loved Sam, Hartley's best friend - these two have a great friendship. And, of course, there's Chase, the love interest. He doesn't play too important a role, which surprised me. The romance never takes center stage, and Chase and Hartley's relationship doesn't move much further than in the first book, but I actually liked it that way.

But. The mystery, I didn't love. And that's because it's the exact same thing as in Deadly Cool. Yes, the victims and the suspects are different people, but the set-up is exactly the same. The order in which everything happens is just like in Deadly Cool, so it's always obvious what's going to happen next. It wasn't terribly original in Deadly Cool, but I didn't mind because I loved the rest of the book so much. But having the same set-up again in Social Suicide annoyed me a little. I also enjoyed this mystery less than the first one because I figured out who the killer is early on - I thought that was pretty obvious. I've heard a lot of people say, though, that they were surprised by the ending, so I guess that was just me. (Which is weird, because I'm usually the last person to figure out stuff like that.)

Again, logic isn't exactly these books' strong suit. A lot of this stuff would not work in real life, and there are quite a few details that don't fit together. But in a way, I feel like it doesn't even matter, because that's not what these books are about.

I didn't love the mystery in Social Suicide as much as in Deadly Cool, but I still really enjoyed this book. I love the humor and the characters, so I was entertained throughout. It's a quick and fun read, just like the first book. And even though I didn't love Social Suicide as much as Deadly Cool, I know I'd keep reading this series for the humor and characters alone. Does anyone know whether there will be more books in this series?