The Bitter End
Teen & Young Adult Fiction About Death and Dying; Teen & Young Adult Thrillers and Suspense; Teen & Young Adult Mysteries and Detective Stories
Random House Books for Young Readers
October 15, 2024
eBook, Audiobook, Hardcover
352
When a winter storm traps eight teens in a remote ski cabin, they find themselves stranded with a killer—who may be one of their own. From the acclaimed author of The Ivies and Pretty Dead Queens comes a YA thriller that will make your blood run cold.
The trip of a lifetime might be the death of them all.
The students of LA’s elite Warner Prep can’t wait for their Senior Excursion—five days of Instagrammable adventure in one of the world’s most exclusive locations. This is not your average field trip.
Which is why eight students can’t believe their bad luck when they end up on a digital detox in an isolated Colorado ski chalet. Their epic trip is panning out to be an epic bore . . . until their classmates start dropping in a series of disturbing deaths. The message is clear: this trip is no accident.
And when a blizzard strikes, secrets are revealed, betrayals are exposed, and survival is at stake in a race to the bitter end.
Imagine a game of Clue crossed with the high-school slasher vibes of I Know What You Did Last Summer. Then cast the scene with a bunch of wildly rich and spoiled Gen Z influencers.
That is the backdrop of Alexa Donne’s young adult thriller, The Bitter End.
The story is a classic closed-circle mystery. A rented shuttle drops eight high school students from Warner Prep and their guidance counselor at as isolated mountain cabin in Colorado. The teens are there for a digital detox retreat at the request of their parents (or so the reader is led to believe). They forfeit their cell phones. There is no TV and no internet. Nothing but snow and mountain-fresh air. Oh, and murder.
The killings start in the early hours after drunken games of “Oh the Humanity” (Donne’s version of Cards Against Humanity) and “Never Have I Ever” the first night. The characters throw down cards and make backstabbing claims that surface old rivalries and betrayals from a party they all attended three years before.
The Bitter End is a reminder to be careful who you pretend to be
and what company you keep…online and off.
(from Alexa Donne to the reader at the beginning of the book)
Donne tells the mystery in two timelines. We read flashbacks of the party from each teen in the third person. In the present, however, we see the events unfold through the eyes of only three of the teens: Willa, Delaney, and Piper. Suddenly, the high schoolers are stranded without power, without adult supervision, and without a clue as to why they are all there. The body count rises.
This story really makes you believe that any of the characters could be the killer. They are, simply put, that unlikeable. Or perhaps that flawed. The teens all have motive for violence, and you can see them falling apart in front of each other.
Donne writes a thriller with plenty of bitterness, duplicity, and page-turning drama.
That might be where this story fell short for me. I like heroes in my stories. I don’t mind twists or cliffhangers. Epic drama? I’m here for it. But maybe I don’t like teenage drama as much as I thought I would before I picked up this book. It was difficult for me to find a character to root for in this story.
The Bitter End is a twisty thriller that is a good fit for any reader who is itching for a fast-paced, young adult/teen murder mystery to keep them company this winter.
A Mountain Top Murder Mystery for the Digital Age
Celeste is a woman who is unwavering about certain things in life; three of those being books, cats, and cold brew coffee. If she can enjoy all three at the same time, it’s going to be a good day. Her favorite genres are fantasy or sci-fi romance, historical romance, and historical fiction but every few books she likes to mix it up with contemporary fiction, a good psychological thriller, or an inspiring memoir. She has a busy schedule working full-time for an online university but she makes sure to unwind each day with stories, either by reading to her elementary school-aged daughter or tucking herself in bed with her Kindle or the latest book she picked up at a local book store.
