Chasing Truth by Julie Cross (2016)

When Eleanor Ames arrived at Holden Prep, she was leaving behind her old life---a life that was full of cons and crime. At first, it seemed like that life had truly left her. That is, until prom, when her date, Simon, died after the dance. Immediately, the FBI rule his death a suicide, but Eleanor doesn’t remember Simon showing any signs that hinted at that. Still, she tries to put Simon’s death behind her, until Miles shows up. Miles is tall and mucled, and more importantly, seems to be deeply interested in Simon. Except, Miles’ connection to Simon seems unclear. Nonetheless, Ellie is desperate for a partner to investigate with, and Miles is available. Plus, there is an undeniable attraction between Ellie and Miles, and it seems like no matter how far they stray from each other, they always end up together. As they diver deeper and deeper into the case of Simon, the question goes from why Simon killed himself to who killed him. And whoever killed Simon is out to get them next.

I went into Chasing Truth expecting great things. It has a great rating on GoodReads, and the premise sounded really intriguing to me. I had also previously read Cross’ novel Tempest, which is about time travel, and enjoyed it. The one thing that was definitely turning me off about Chasing Truth was the cover, which just looks horrible. But, I was determined to keep an open mind. However, in this case, the book was as bad as the cover.

First I want to talk about the plot, which as I said before, I was excited for. In my experience, I’ve found that in mystery novels, the plot can either break or make the “ultimate reveal”. This time, it broke it. I found that as I went through the book, there was an overwhelming amount of leads with a lot of detail that wasn’t laid out in a clear way. Countless times I became confused as to what was going on, and couldn’t follow all the conspiracy theories. It especially became frustrating when, in the last fifty pages, and absolutely new theory, that didn’t relate to any of the other theories, became the main focus. I recognize that in mystery novels it’s important to have an element of surprise, but this one was too far fetched. I also found the writing to be difficult at times. Some sentences didn’t make sense, even if I read them over and over.

The characters were also a huge flaw. For being the main character, I felt like I didn’t know Ellie at all. Yes, I knew Ellie’s past, but I didn’t know her personality. Usually, by about half way through the book, the reader can recognize patterns about characters, but I couldn’t find one about Ellie. Concerning Miles, I think he presented to be a very typical bad boy. I also thought he was extremely disrespectful toward Ellie, which automatically gave me a bad vibe about him. There wasn’t a whole lot of dynamic to him, and I could never pick out him from a set of characters. In general, there was also an overwhelming amount of characters. They were fairly hard to keep track of, and it almost seemed as if some characters had popped up out of the blue.

The last thing I wanted to point out was the romance, which was very spontaneous. Most of the time, it didn’t even feel like it was a part of the plot, and other times it felt like it was all the book was about. Honestly, I think the romance was simply be there so it could be said Chasing Truth had a romantic aspect.

Ultimately, Chasing Truth was definitely not one of my favorites, and I don’t think I’ll be picking up the next book in the series.

Two Stars