Monday, June 8, 2015

Review: Nearly Found

NEARLY FOUND
Nearly Gone #2
Elle Cosimano
Young Adult/Mystery
384 pages
Kathy Dawson Books/Penguin
Available Now
Source: ALA Midwinter

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
After Nearly Boswell starts working as an intern at a crime lab, a girl from her trailer park turns up dead. Then the corpse of a missing person is discovered, buried on a golf course, with a message for Nearly etched into the bones. When Nearly finds out the corpse is the father of Eric, a classmate of hers, she starts to worry that the body is connected to her father's disappearance five years ago. Nearly, Reece, and Nearly's classmates--Vince, Jeremy, and Eric--start a dangerous investigation into their fathers' pasts that threatens Nearly's fragile romance with Reece, and puts all them in the killer's path.

MY THOUGHTS
Nearly Found reunites us with math and science whiz Nearly Boswell as she manages to land herself in the middle of murderous trouble once again, the events of the previous book coming back to haunt her in a way she never imagined possible. While this second installment flows well and puts forth a solid mystery, it does magnify some of the issues–primarily with how Nearly goes about solving the case–that were easily overlooked in its predecessor, resulting in a few more moments of frustration than we might have hoped for going in.

It’s to be assumed that when a teenager inserts herself into a murder investigation and puts the burden of proof squarely on her own shoulders we’re going to have to suspend disbelief in a few areas and just roll with the fact that reporting any threats or evidence to the police is likely not going to be first on the list of things to do. While going with the flow was fairly easy to do in book one, Nearly takes keeping secrets and withholding evidence to an entirely new level in this story, her actions causing an outraged yell to rise in our throats as she continually makes things worse for herself. She even goes so far as to steal evidence from the lab at which she’s interning, and though a few consequences are mentioned in passing, in the end she gets a free pass on her highly illegal evidence tampering.

Frustrations with the degree to which believability is stretched aside, Ms. Cosimano knows how to keep us turning the pages, desperate to uncover who’s behind the new science-based threats and who we might lose along the way. As mentioned previously, things do wrap up nice and neat for Nearly despite the extremes to which so goes in the course of her investigation, but for readers like myself, an ending in which we’re left with very few questions is far preferable to one where we have no answers at all. While not as strong as Nearly Gone, Nearly Found is still a thoroughly entertaining read, and I look forward to whatever Ms. Cosimano is going to gift us with next.

Rating: 3.5/5


Find Elle:
This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review
I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

32 comments:

  1. Even if it's not as good as the other book, this one sounds quite well done. It's the first time I hear about it but I think I could like it too.

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    1. I will definitely be reading more by this author Melliane:)

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  2. I'm still unsure if I should start this series. But the crime lab set-up is a quite intriguing

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    1. I really enjoyed the first one, this one was just a touch more frustrating with the way she handled the case. Still a solid read though!

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  3. I was reading that spam message so I lost my train of thought, lol

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  4. Like you, I would be incredibly frustrated with Nearly's behavior in this one. Investigating is fine, but withholding or even stealing evidence is pushing it a bit far. I remember really wanting to read the first book when it first came out and I still fully intend to. Hopefully I'll like Nearly enough to continue to the second.

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    1. It was easy to understand her reasoning for staying away from the police in the first book, but deliberately hiding things from them in this one was a bit much for me. Still, I love her writing style:)

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  5. Oh, that would definitely be frustrating to me. A lot frustrating. It sounds interesting though.

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  6. It seems like it was easier to go with the flow in the first book than in this sequel. That's incredibly frustrating as a reader, Jenny. Despite that, i'm still happy you ended up enjoying this one enough. Lovely review!

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    1. It definitely was, some things were just a touch too over the top in terms of believability, but the mystery did keep me guessing:)

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  7. It feels as though Nearly nearly dug herself a hole there (I bet this isn't the first pun that's made on her account) :P I, too, can give some slack to protagonists and characters for unbelievable plotlines, but it seems a bit too much in this case, though, as you said: it makes the pages turn faster. I'm glad you found yourself still enjoying this and it turned out to be a thrilling read :)

    Siiri @ Little Pieces of Imagination

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    1. She writes a good mystery Siiri! I just couldn't quite deal with all the evidence tampering. Nearly would have been in a world of trouble in reality, and I would have liked a consequence or two to have come to pass:)

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  8. I'm glad that you enjoyed this one despite some of the frustrating turns here and there and the lack on consequence that some of her actions had... that doesn't sit too well with me either!
    Great review as always!

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    1. Thanks Pili! I loved the first book, which was what partly added to the frustration. I really wanted to love this one too. It was entertaining overall though:)

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  9. I loved the first book but for some reason passed on this. I'm kind of kicking myself now for that but, maybe eventually I will get to it. I love that even though parts weren't always believable, that is still kept you turning the pages.

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    1. I think if you know about the evidence tampering going in, it maybe won't be as frustrating:)

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  10. I still have to pick up the first book, which I will, because the premise is really interesting. I expect a memorable character :) Great review.

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  11. Hm... I think I'll have to be in a specific mood for this one. I can ignore things, stretch believability but only when I am in a mood to do so. I do think I may add this one to the wishlist just because it does sound entertaining in the end.

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    1. It was much easier to go with the flow in the first book when she wasn't deliberately thwarting an investigation in quite the same way. Still, I had fun reading it:)

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  12. I highly recommend the first one Heidi!

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  13. Hmm. This sounds interesting (did I somehow miss book 1??) and definitely up my alley if I need a break from historical romance.

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  14. I think with books like this you have to suspend your disbelief in order to enjoy them. I'm always up for a good suspense/mystery story. I'll see if my library has these.

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  15. I don't do well with a large suspension of belief, so I'm not sure this series is for me, but I'm glad to see you read this sequel since I definitely remember seeing the covers around quite a lot. Thanks for such an honest and helpful review, Jenny! :)

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  16. I'm typically very generous when it comes to impossible plot lines, so no biggie. I haven't read Nearly Gone, though, but I'm a fan of this kind of trope.

    Lovely review, Jenny!

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  17. I agree with Joy - near impossible plots are easy for me to forgive in the genre when I'm being thrilled. I have book one on my TBR :)

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  18. I enjoyed the first book but I can imagine I'd have similar issues you did. Those stupid decisions always tend to really frustrate me. I have a copy so we'll see what I think when I'm able to pick it up.

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  19. even if this might not be the most believable, this series has been on a radar for a while. I still need to get book 1 though.

    Great Review!

    Michelle @ Book Briefs

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  20. Well the premise sounded interesting. It's too bad it didn't deliver as much as promised.

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