"Mean Girls meets Donna Tartt's The Secret History with a little bit of Riverdale mixed in. So yeah, it's epic."--HelloGiggles
"In People Like Us, Dana Mele delivers the Gossip Girl meets Pretty Little Liars young adult novel you've been waiting for."--BustleKay Donovan may have skeletons in her closet, but the past is past, and she's reinvented herself entirely. Now she's a star soccer player whose group of gorgeous friends run their private school with effortless popularity and acerbic wit. But when a girl's body is found in the lake, Kay's carefully constructed life begins to topple. The dead girl has left Kay a computer-coded scavenger hunt, which, as it unravels, begins to implicate suspect after suspect, until Kay herself is in the crosshairs of a murder investigation. But if Kay's finally backed into a corner, she'll do what it takes to survive. Because at Bates Academy, the truth is something you make...not something that happened.
Debut author Dana Mele has written a taut, sophisticated suspense novel that will keep readers guessing until the very end.
Dana Mele is a Pushcart-nominated writer and a work at home mother. A graduate of Wellesley College, she is a former actor, lawyer, musician, and briefly, associate producer. She prefers tea to coffee, snow to sand, and stars to sunshine, and she lives in the Catskills with her husband and toddler. This is her first novel.
“This juicy prep-school thriller has queen bees, super-cliques, and hints of
PLL and
Gossip Girl. But if you think you’ve got every plot turn figured out, think again: the drama is just getting started.”—
Seventeen Magazine “[A] whirlwind, fast-paced YA mystery. . . Not only will Mele’s gorgeous, melodic writing have you entranced, but the layered mystery of it all will have you scrambling to turn the pages to see who-dun-it.”—
Buzzfeed"Steeped in scandal and profound tragedy, this is a dark and thrilling look at female friendships, the pressures of scholastic success, and mental health . . . A classic and frightening tale of betrayal and mental illness told in a fresh and contemporary way, this book is difficult to set down for even a moment. It is an intricately designed, beautifully written, and extraordinarily chilling story."
—School Library Journal
"Mele creates a cast of sharp-edged, prickly students; the fluid sexuality of various characters is handled well, and themes of betrayal and bullying are front and center. An eerie, unsettling thriller with deadly consequences."
—Publishers Weekly
"Mele . . . weave[s] a tale of mystery, intrigue, and revenge in the style of Jay Asher’s
Thirteen Reasons Why (2007), but with its own twists to keep readers on the their toes."
—Booklist
"The characters and their relationships are nuanced, especially sexually fluid Kay, who has intimate encounters with males and females. This blend of predictable prep school elements with unpredictable suspense makes this a fizzy read for fans of the genre."
—Kirkus Reviews
"This is a fun, dark whodunit with loads of twists and turns to keep readers guessing."
—VOYA
"A . . . sophisticated read that is fast-paced and surprising to the last page."
—School Library Connection
