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    Wish You Were Dead
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    Wish You Were Dead
    Unavailable
    Wish You Were Dead
    Ebook246 pages3 hours

    Wish You Were Dead

    By Todd Strasser

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    I'll begin with Lucy. She is definitely first on the list. You can't believe how it feels to be in the cafeteria and turn around and there she is staring at me like I'm some disgusting bug or vermin. Does she really think I WANT to be this way? I hate you, Lucy. I really hate you. You are my #1 pick. I wish you were dead.

    The day after anonymous blogger Str-S-d wishes the popular girl would die, Lucy vanishes. The students of Soundview High are scared and worried. Especially frightened and wracked with guilt is Madison Archer, Lucy's friend and the last person to see her the night she disappeared. As days pass with no sign of the missing girl, even the attention of Tyler, an attractive new student, is not enough to distract Madison from her growing sense of foreboding. When two more popular students disappear after their names are mentioned on Str-S-d's blog, the residents of Soundview panic. Meanwhile, Madison receives anonymous notes warning that she could be next. Desperate to solve the mystery before anyone else disappears, Madison turns to Tyler, but can she trust him when it becomes clear that he knows more than he's sharing? The clock is ticking. Madison must uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearances . . . before her name appears in Str-S-d's blog.

    In the spirit of stories like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Todd Strasser updates the teen thriller for the techno age with Wish You Were Dead.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLerner Publishing
    Release dateAug 1, 2009
    ISBN9781512404135
    Unavailable
    Wish You Were Dead
    Author

    Todd Strasser

    Todd Strasser has written many critically acclaimed novels for adults, teenagers, and children, including the award-winning Can’t Get There from Here, Give a Boy a Gun, Boot Camp, If I Grow Up, Famous, and How I Created My Perfect Prom Date, which became the Fox feature film Drive Me Crazy. Todd lives in a suburb of New York and speaks frequently at schools. Visit him at ToddStrasser.com.

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    Reviews for Wish You Were Dead

    3.5/5

    71 ratings10 reviews

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    • 3/5
      2.5 starsWish You Were Dead tells about the strange coincidence of a mysterious bloggers wish for all the mean popular kids and the sudden disappearance of well...mean popular kids. This book...this book. I wanted to like it so bad but I just did not care about anything. The premise was something right up my alley. A mysterious bloggers wish comes true and a bunch of nasty kids get killed? Yes please! Sadly the execution fell flat. My main issue with the novel is that all of the characters are stereotypes except for the main character who is popular and as sweet as they come. She's perfect. Which is annoying when she is the only one who defies a stereotype. We have the rich bitch, the typical jock, the goth/punk/whatever and the angry lesbian. NONE OF THEM HAD PERSONALITIES. Which I partially blame on the use of the first person. The novel opens during a course of actions. Madison the main character and her goth crush are dropping off "rich bitch" Lucy when she is kidnapped. And from there the story develops. The main character does not give adequate background on characters, all we know is that "Character A" and "Character B" are friends but no longer. Why? What was the explosion that ended the relationship. My brain needs more information!Also there are so many gaping plot holes. It's like the author had an idea, got bored with it, and expected us to forget as well. The plot itself was decent. Although a bit predictable, it didn't keep me from guessing. The ending is what rose my final rating from a 2 start to a 2 and a half star. It was clever and entertaining, but that doesn't make up for the other 200 pages I struggled through.
    • 5/5
      Besides a great book to booktalk, it could be a wonderful discussion tool in examining the effects of bullying.
    • 4/5
      High schooler Madison tries to solve the disappearance of popular kids mentioned by an anonymous blogger as she herself feels stalked online. Tight murder mystery that explores the cliques and ostracism among high school students. First of a "thrillogy".

      Second book is a stand alone: "Blood on My Hands" and while it is also a mystery involving high schoolers and modern technology (in this case a cell-phone pic that goes viral), the second book feels disjointed and harder to follow as the narrative jumps from present to past in Callie's effort to find frenemy Katherine's killer.
    • 4/5
      The day afetr anonymous blogger Str-S-d wishes popular girl Lucy Cunningham would die, she vanishes. The students of Soundview High are scared and worried. Especially frightened and wracked with quilt is Madison Archer, Lucy's friend and the last person to see her the night she disssppeared. As days pass with no sign of the missing girl, even the attention of Tyler, an attractive, but mysterious, new student, is not enough to distract MAdison. When two more popular students disappear after their names are mentioned on Str-S-d's blog, the residents of SOundview panic. Meanwhile, Madison recieves anonymous notes warning that she could be next. The clock is ticking. Madison must uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearences...before her name appears in Str-S-d's blog.
    • 4/5
      This one is definitely going on the 2012 Caudill/Lincoln list at Highland. Maddie gets a series of suspicious notes as her friends disappear one by one from their extremely affluent community. The story is interwoven with blog posts, the voice of the perpetrator, first person, and third person narration. A quick, engrossing read.
    • 4/5
      Madison's friends begin to disappear without a clue. Fairly typical story where there's a few red herrings, the protagonist tries to solve the mystery on her own (or, in this instance, with a homeless guy who breaks into her house but whose story she believes once they talk), she then gets caught by the killer also, and it all comes down to the wire before she defeats the crazy and evil person. The parents in the town are very caring, but are only involved from time to time when convenient and they don't seem to curtail the kids' freedoms much. From my reading there's a lot of holes in the story, but I think teens who like this sort of thing will get caught up in it. A little scary and gory for younger YA readers, but they may disagree.
    • 2/5
      Wow, so where do I begin? As a writer myself, I know what it feels like to get a two star review, so I don't give them out very often, but that's the best rating I could manage for this book. Based on the summary, I was excited to read this book. It had such a good concept, and I loved the amount of suspense that the author was able to keep throughout the story.

      However, it bothered me that the story randomly jumped POVs between first person and third. It wasn't always clear which character the story was focused on, and sometimes, the focus on a character seemed unnecessary. A lot of the characters, like Lucy, Madison, and Courtney, seemed really flat and predictable. I could guess what the MC was going to do in most cases before she did it.

      The ending was rushed and summed up things that I thought should've been actually shown in the book such as the MC's online stalker admitting who he was. This is only the first book of the series, and I do wonder what other plot lines the author has in mind, but at the same time, I'm not going to make finishing the rest of these books a priority.
    • 5/5
      I found myself actually holding my breath at times while reading this book. The plot is a just so believable. The story is written in worded text, blogs with comments as well as email messages. Due to the strange login names you don't know who the people are until the end of the book. This is definitely a thriller and a mystery.

      Students in a high school in an affluent area are disappearing. What do they have in common? They are the most popular kids, with money, looks and fame. Unfortunately they are not very nice to those outside their group.
    • 3/5
      Just about all the notes I want in a teen thriller: revenge, comeuppance, red herrings, and a bit of torture. Characters are distinct from each other; readers can tell apart even the background characters (though some of these are still fairly one-dimensional). Strasser’s writing is still more functional than lyrical, but the gripping plot will keep readers turning pages late into the night anyway.
    • 4/5
      Todd Strasser is known as a writer of juvenile fiction (some of his books are sitting in my son's bookshelf as we speak), but this book is geared more toward the teen/young adult reader. Since I'm just a kid-at-heart, that means me too :).Madison is a popular high school student. Most of the teens at Soundview HIgh School come from well-to-do families, and she hangs with the "in" crowd, some of whom might fit right into the movie "Mean Girls". Madison's friend Lucy is one of them.Madison is a volunteer at "Safe Rides", which is a place teens call if they need a safe ride home. One evening, Madison and a mysterious new guy in town named Tyler pick Lucy up and drop her at home after Lucy and her boyfriend Adam have an argument at a party. Lucy insists that they go on without waiting for her to go inside. The next morning, Madison finds that Lucy never made it inside the house. She has gone missing and no one has any idea why or how.Meanwhile, an anonymous blogger named Str-S-d posts THIS the day before Lucy goes missing:Str-S-d:I’ll begin with Lucy. She is definitely first on the list. You can’t believe how it feels to be in the cafeteria and turn around and there she is staring at me like I’m some disgusting bug or vermin. Does she really think I WANT to be this way? I hate you, Lucy. I really hate you. You are my #1 pick. I wish you were dead.Madison feels a lot of guilt for not following the Safe Rides rules, one of which is to ALWAYS make certain that the rider makes it into their house. She is also troubled by a cyberstalker who goes by the name PBleeker, who continually leaves messages criticizing her for hanging out with only the "popular crowd". Then two more of her friends go missing in the space of one week, right after being mentioned on Str-S-d's blog.Who is Str-S-d? Who is PBleeker? Why does Madison keep receiving warnings that she may be next? And who is Tyler? Where does he really come from and what does HE know about the disappearances? Who will be the next to disappear?This book is a great, fast, read. It is full of twists and turns and will keep you guessing almost until the very end. Once you start, you will quickly be pulled into the story and it's characters, as we've all been one or the other in high school. I lent this book to a friend, and SHE also couldn't put it down. She (an admittedly slow reader) finished the book within the space of a week and wanted to know what other books were available by Todd Strasser. As this is the first in a trilogy, you'll want to get in on the ride at the beginning.