Deadly Cool

Title: Deadly Cool
Author: Gemma Halliday
Rating: 3.8/5
Summary:Hartley Grace Featherstone is having a very bad day. First she finds out that her boyfriend is cheating on her with the president of the Herbert Hoover High School Chastity Club. Then he's pegged as the #1 suspect in a murder. And if that weren't enough, now he's depending on Hartley to clear his name. Seriously? Not cool. 

But as much as Hartley wouldn't mind seeing him squirm, she knows he's innocent, and she's the only one who can help him. Along with her best friend, Sam, and the school's resident Bad Boy, Chase, Hartley starts investigating on her own. But as the dead bodies begin to pile up, the mystery deepens, the suspects multiply, and Hartley begins to fear that she may be the killer's next victim.
My Thoughts: Deadly Cool starts off as normally as any high school book does - Hartley (I love her name, by the way) finds hears the rumor going around school that her brother is screwing another girl. Like most girlfriends, she goes to investigate, expecting to find Josh in bed with Courtney.


Instead, she finds Courtney's body. 


I really liked Hartley. I felt like her reactions and actions were realistic most of the time, and she was kind of a fun and easy character to read through. She was a bit too naive at some points for me, though - who meets a stranger in the dark football field alone at midnight when there's a killer on the loose? -_- (And also, she didn't seem nearly mad enough at Josh, if you ask me.) But otherwise, I liked how persistent she was in finding the real killer.


I had a problem with the side characters. Sam was hardly developed at all, and I don't think Chase was much better. We don't know anything about him other than he works for the school newspaper. (And he goes commando ;D) He was so vague about his relationship with . . . *blanks on name* Deep Blogger. Whatever her real name was. He said it was "complicated," but we know nothing else about it. Who does he live with? Who is he friends with? I really hope more is revealed about him in the next book, Social Suicide. Otherwise, I just can't buy him as the romantic interest.


I wish there was a way to tell authors that, YES, I DO WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE FREAKING ROOM LOOKS LIKE. AND THE PEOPLE. There was next to no description in this book. It was all just Hartley's thoughts and the dialogue/action. We get a pretty good description of Chase, but that's it. No one else. All I know about Hartley is her hair color. And I don't know what her room looks like, what her mom looks like, what Chase's house looks like . . . I know some people don't like to read paragraphs and paragraphs of descriptions, and neither do I, but I think something could be thrown in there! 

Overall: Deadly Cool is fast-paced, light read that I suggest for anyone who wants to be mildly amused and doesn't want to read something where you have to think about every sentence. The writing style is simple, easy, and Hartley was a refreshing character.