I received a digital advance reader’s copy (ARC) of Seasick by Kristin Cast and Pintip Dunn. Since this version is just a proof and not the final version, I won’t quote directly and will keep my comments general.

In Seasick, Yana has felt like an outsider at school, and in her small town, for ages, especially since her falling out with her best friend Naya a few years ago. Meanwhile, Naya has been struggling to fit in with the popular kids, all of whom are much richer than she is. But both girls have been selected as recipients of a wonderful scholarship, and are invited to join Yatesville’s exclusive society of top achievers in school. The welcome party takes place on a megayacht in the Caribbean. So Yana and Naya must not only navigate being in close proximity for the first time in years, but when their fellow students start being mysteriously murdered on board, they also must figure out who’s after them and how they can survive. And they might just need to team up to do so.

I feel like this isn’t the first time I’ve read a summery teen murder mystery right as the weather starts to get really hot. Maybe I should make this a deliberate tradition.

Anyway, I enjoyed this book for the most part. I’ll admit that it confused me for the first third of the book who was who, regarding the protagonists. Yana and Naya are just very similar names, and keeping them straight was a bit of a struggle at first. But eventually, I figured it out, and it was fine after that. Further, I also felt a lot of sympathy for them, trying so hard to belong in a predominately white, very affluent town when they are both POC and less well-off. (Side note, it was also nice to see two POC characters—one Thai and the other half-Black, half-White—as the leads of a murder mystery.) Plus, their estrangement from each other was believable, as was their gradual understanding of each other’s view of their falling out. Overall, I liked their bond.

As for the other characters, they were fine, for the most part. Naya’s boyfriend Etienne and Yana’s love interest Finn were decent characters, and the other students filled out the cast well. They sound like teens, but luckily without the authors feeling the need to use current slang. That never lands well, and is instantly dated, so I’m glad they went for more universal youthful sounding dialogue (if that makes sense). I couldn’t stand Everly, one of the very gossipy teens, but she also talks and acts exactly like real gossipy girls, if to a slightly more intense degree.

As for the actual murder mystery, it was quite intense. Once the deaths start, it feels like the pacing gets tighter, more insistent. It’s got the feeling of a claustrophobic Agatha Christie novel, in a very good way. The dynamic between characters shifts once their fellow classmates start dying, their trust in each other changing as suspicion creeps in. I’ll note that some of the murders are a little gory, so this book is probably better suited for older teens and adults, but to each their own. Beyond the murders, though, the actual investigation was full of intriguing evidence and some pretty solid twists I didn’t see coming.

I think the final showdown was fine, but nothing extraordinary. I wish that the reader had been let in on a bit more of Yana and Naya’s plan, though, so that the execution of it might be more satisfying, but that’s a minor quibble. And I also feel that the epilogue sort of rushed to wrap up everything, and I’m not sure it was entirely needed. But oh well.

In the end, though, Seasick by Kristin Cast and Pintip Dunn is a decent, fast-paced murder mystery. The setting really serves to amp up the tension, the character development is well-written, and the mystery itself is gripping. It isn’t the most astounding book in the genre, but it’s entertaining enough.

Seasick is available now!