Deadly Little Secret

Deadly Little Secret by Laurie Faria Stolarz

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Two stars might be just a little too generous, but that's me, all heart.

At the beginning of the summer, Camelia almost got hit by a car, but a mysterious boy pushed her out of the way and then disappeared without a trace. Camellia spent three months wondering about the boy, wanting to thank him for saving her life. When the new school year started, he was suddenly there, but so were the rumors that he killed his girlfriend and was exonerated due to lack of evidence. What’s worse, when Camelia tried to thank him anyway, he pretended that he never saw her before.

Camelia feels weirdly attracted to this boy, Ben, despite rumors that are getting wilder by the minute and his obnoxious behavior towards her. At the same time, she starts getting weird phone calls and presents in the mail. It would appear that someone is stalking her, but is it Ben or someone else entirely?

I think you can tell, just by reading this short description, what kind of book Deadly Little Secret is. If you liked Twilight, The Mephisto Covenant, Hush Hush, Halo and similar books, chances are, you will enjoy this series too.*
Take Twilight, replace vampire with something else (wouldn’t you like to know?), replace biology with chemistry, remove the huge paranormal family, add a stalker or two and you’ll get Deadly Little Secret.

In addition to this being one of the most unoriginal books I’ve ever read, the romance was also vastly disappointing. If there’s one thing you can count on in these books, it’s an intense romantic connection between the protagonists, and yet here, I didn’t feel that there was anything really big and special between Camelia and Ben. She was attracted to him, but I never really understood why, nor did I understand why he reciprocated those feelings.

I was incredibly irritated by Camelia’s decision not to talk to her parents and/or the police, even when her stalker started entering her bedroom, leaving presents and making death threats. When he finally came for her, I kind of felt that she deserved it, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to feel that way.

The one good thing I can say about Deadly Little Secret is that I finished it. I liked the second POV, that of Camelia’s stalker and felt that it was very convincing. I kept guessing his identity throughout the book, and even when I had a pretty good idea, I still wasn’t entirely sure. I added the second star just for that.

This is a book for teens and I believe it already has many fans (there are four installments so far), but I’m pretty sure my adult friends would be better off reading something else.



*In the interest of full disclosure: I’m actually a fan of Twilight, but I didn’t enjoy any of the other books I’ve mentioned.