Book Review: Get Dirty by Gretchen McNeil

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Get Dirty
Don't Get Mad #2
Author: Gretchen McNeil
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Mystery
Released: June 16th 2015
Review Source: Balzer & Bray

  

The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars in Gretchen McNeil’s witty and suspenseful novel about four disparate girls who join forces to take revenge on high school bullies and create dangerous enemies for themselves in the process.

Bree, Olivia, Kitty, and Margot have nothing in common—at least that’s what they’d like the students and administrators of their elite private school to think. The girls have different goals, different friends, and different lives, but they share one very big secret: They’re all members of Don’t Get Mad, a secret society that anonymously takes revenge on the school’s bullies, mean girls, and tyrannical teachers.

When their latest target ends up dead with a blood-soaked “DGM” card in his hands, the girls realize that they’re not as anonymous as they thought—and that someone now wants revenge on them. Soon the clues are piling up, the police are closing in . . . and everyone has something to lose.

It breaks my heart to say this, Get Dirty fall short of the mark. I loved how easy and fast paced the first one was read. However, this one took me a while to get into.

While reading the story, I had issues remembering the names of the characters. I kept repeating their names and I tried to keep up with their POVs but IT.WAS.HARD. I just couldn’t focus, at all. Everything blurred. At one point I had to skimmed through. Even though I had these issues, I kept seeing the murderer's name everywhere. Which was such a bummer when I read this is the person causing all the mayhem.

Get Dirty picks up right where Get Even left off. The gang are trying to stay strong and find ways to pinpoint the killer. But little by little, they see a pattern - everyone they “get even” with, are either hurt or dead. And every evidence is pointing to DMG. As they become desperate, they start adding members to the group, even those they shouldn’t. It was only a matter of time for their lack of judgment—and their lack of ability to make judgments—finally caught up with them.

At the end, everyone suffers but they learn a great lesson. Not everything is black and white. There are reasons for actions and no one has the rights to make judgments. Worst, make things more complicated than what they are. What DMG was doing was not an act of “get even” but just another act of bullying. Two wrongs don't make a right. Bullying a bully is also wrong. I liked the message of the story.

Although the story is slow and the mystery wasn’t my liking, at the end of all - it holds a great message - this is what I loved.