Deadly Cool

Wonderfully entertaining murder mystery for teens.

Could this day get any worse? First, Hartley discovers a condom wrapper in boyfriend Josh's locker-they aren't sexually active. Then she hears rumours floating around that he's 'effing' Courtney from the Color Guard Squad. Taking matters into her own hands, she and best friend Sam head over to Josh's to confront him and get some answers. However, what they discover is far worse. Hartley, while breaking into Josh's bedroom, discovers Courtney's dead body in his closet-strangled to death with white Ipod earbuds. All the fingers quickly point to Josh and he becomes the prime suspect, but Hartley knows better. Josh may be a no-good cheating jerk but he's not a murder. Ready to prove his innocence, Hartley teams up with Sam and gorgeous goth photographer and editor of the newspaper Chase.

The best way to describe Gemma Halliday's Deadly Cool is "a wonderfully entertaining teen murder mystery with a perfect dose of humour".

I found Gemma Halliday's voice for Hartley and her best friend Sam absolutely hilarious. They both had a habit of censoring themselves with "effing" and various other words, which made me giggle quite a bit. Conversation between the characters resembled typical high school talk and gossip. It wasn't sugar coated and was raw to the teenage bone. The events leading up to Hartley's discovery of Courtney's body truly resembled that of a girl who fained ignorance to her boyfriend's deception despite the fact that she clearly doubted his innocence. Hartley was a difficult character to get used to reading. Despite her edgy personality, I found myself disliking her daftness and eagerness to leap before looking. As for her friend Sam, I felt like readers weren't given much of an opportunity to get to know her. She felt like a blank void and I found myself knowing more about dis-interesting characters like Kaylee and Shiloh. Chase was an interesting addition and I liked how his role grew from beginning to end. Deadly Cool definitely kept me on my feet. I had a very hard time trying to pin point who the murderer was, kudos to Gemma. The mystery, of course, was present from beginning to end but there was also a very small sliver of romance that definitely didn't outshine the plot's purpose. The cover was complimentary to the novel; beautiful and eye catching. As I crawled towards Hartley's discovery of the body, I began to realise what the cover image depicted. From what I presume it is Hartley's view when discovering Courtney's dead body. It's very eerie now that I think of it but it's still very beautiful and attention grabbing. Deadly Cool is a recommended read for young adults who need a mystery fix with a tiny bit of teenage drama.

6 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

<3

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Deadly Cool Fun!

I'm smiling right now. I know, you can't see me. But trust me, I am. The reason for the big smile? This book, Deadly Cool. Based on the cover, which I adore, and the synopsis, you might think Deadly Cool to be a dark, serious book. And I'll admit, there are aspects to the book that are dark and serious. Such as, cheating boyfriends, murder, and a killer on the loose. But author Gemma Halliday told the story with a droll, quick-witted tone that absolutely knocked the ball out of the park.

I'll admit, it helps that Deadly Cool was exactly the type of book I was in the mood for. Young Adult, contemporary, non-paranormal was what the reading-doctor ordered. I knew I was in for a delicious treat when I read the opening lines:

"There are three things you never want to find in your boyfriend's locker: a sweaty jockstrap,a D
minus on last week's history test, and an empty condom wrapper. Lucky me, I'd hit the trifecta."

And, thankfully, the entire book was able to maintain that tone. It was packed full with witty dialogue and laugh-out-loud situations.

Deadly Cool has an easy to read, conversational tone. I felt like I was a participant in the action. Halliday did an immense job of lending main character, Hartley, and the other teens, non-irritating, engaging voices. Well, except for a couple of the girls. But they were supposed to be irritating! There wasn't a single character in the story that wasn't spot-on, well written. The cheating boyfriend, Josh, is shockingly likeable. Like Hartley, I knew I should despise him, but I couldn't help feeling sorry for the poor guy. I suppose it helps that he is descibed as looking very much like Zac Efron. And as much as I adore Josh, I have a thing for unconventional book guys. Like Chase, Hartley's partner in crime solving. He's cool, wears black-on-black-on-black a lot, has messy hair and sly comebacks. Perfect.

Deadly Cool was a pleasant surprise. I thought I would most likely enjoy it. I loved it. I read within a few hours time, dying to know who did the deed. This book was a fun, breezy read. A stand-alone that could easily be a series. And, Wow, I hope Halliday does give us more Hartley, soon!

Favorite Quote:

"Whether it was the chamomile or the good long cry or the fact that Chase was once again speaking to
me, I had a little spring in my step as I walked to second period, only five minutes late. I might
be a leper, but I was a leper with a clue."

* I received Deadly Cool from Harper Teen, in exchange for an honest review. *

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Nxon

C ya

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Best

This is the best book ever and it has suspense comedy and drama. Has to be bought so dont wait just buy

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Loved it!

The cover:

I love this cover. It illustrates Hartley very well, and those iPod earbuds?? Oh my!! *_*

The storyline:

So, this is one kind of a book. I enjoyed every bit of it.

The beginning was great, introducing us directly to the issue while explaining things at the same time.

Hartley¿s boyfriend, Josh is the worst boyfriend I¿ve ever seen, though he did one thing only by cheating on her, this made the deal for me. The girl didn¿t deserve this and he was her first love!

I hate boys¿

Anyways, at the beginning when Hartley discovers a school mate dead at her boyfriend¿s house, every evidence points to him as the killer. However, he shows up and apologizes to her and asks her to help him find out who¿s the real killer who¿s framing him.

Throughout the book, you¿ll go through weird twists and awful discoveries that¿ll keep you reading.

One of the many things I loved about this book is that Gemma, the author, did a great job making the characters alive. There were a lot of moments when I¿d have acted the same way. It was funny to see Hartley mentally debating with herself on many things and because she¿s awesome, she always chose to help others, even if it meant sneaking out of the house at midnight!!

And because I¿m a geek, I fell more for this book, there were mentions of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Apple, Mac, Google and many more! And they were part of the story, not just mentions .

The writing was smooth, funny, fun, mysterious and very good. I just have nothing to complain about in this book!!

The characters:

Hartley is my heroine. She¿s been through a lot of things and still acted strong and brave and fought to prove her ex-boyfriend¿s innocence. She¿s honest and blonde who adores Legally Blonde!! <333

I¿ve always liked blondes despite what others might think of them, but her, I loved her!!

Josh¿.hmmm¿ Josh is an effing jerk. That¿s it. Just because his girlfriend wouldn¿t give in to him he went on and cheated on her, then came back asking her to forgive him??? What a boyfriend!!

Chase is super freaking cool. I¿ve always loved Goths for their mysterious looks, and I loved Varen in Nevermore. So Chase was no surprise to me when he offered to help Hartley investigate the murder while he kept making jokes and funny statements. He is a gentlemen with a bad driving.

Sam is the BFF. She¿s cute, funny, crazy and supportive. She¿s been all the way with Hartley.

Other characters that are note worthy are Kevin who¿s Sam¿s brother, they kept borrowing his ¿evironmental friendly¿ car. Which was funny to read because each time he asked them to fill her with some sort of oil fuel lol. Caitlyn whom I let it to you to discover what¿s going on with her.

Conclusion:

This was a wonderful fun read. I recommend it if you like laughter, mystery, thriller and social networks .

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Great Read!

This was a great mystery book!! I am a huge fan of mystery books and this certaintly does mystery books justice. First of all the mystery itself was really good. I had no idea who the killer was and it's certaintly a surprise when you find out. Every chapter keeps you wanting more and more to find out whodunit. I also love the relationships between all the characters and I think it kept the book feeling like a teenage book. The plot, charcters, and overall book was great! I can't wait to read more from Gemma Halliday. I also absolutely LOVE the cover!!!! :) PS: Be on the lookout for the second book Social Suicide!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Fun book!

This book is a really fun read. I really enjoy Gemma Halliday and look forward to reading her new book.

PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!

At my party reault one a two. Spread the word.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Stardream to ALL

*takes icekit and rosekit and darkkit back to lake result 1

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Help!

We need a med cat in 'winnie the horse' the 2nd to last result. A apprentice is kitting. Please help!

Darkit

Chimo

This book was so good i kept reading on, does anybody know the t

This book was so good i kept reading on, does anybody know the theme of this book?

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Eico

Ok i understand gtg

Freaking awesome!

I'm big on mysteries, and when I found out that this murder takes place in a highschool setting, I was super happy. And when I actually read it?

OH. MY. GOSH.

Hartley is completely relatable. If you found your boyfriend's condom wrapper, you'd react the same way she would, and you'd react the same way to finding bodies. She's super sarcastic and funny, and her lines are so witty and perfect. I absolutely adore everything about this book. If you like murder, or just funny teenage antics, this is the book for you.

A Great Book!

It was a funny (yet somehow still slightly serious), fast-paced read

Just Awesome.

This book was just great. Period.

The book starts with the scene where the funny, cute heroine, Hartley, finds a condom wrapper in her boyfriend's-Josh's-locker. And guess what? They aren't sexually active. Ready to smash his larynx in, Hartley and her equally cute, funny best friend, Sam, go to confront him at his house after school that day. But instead of catching Josh in the act, she and Sam find the girl Josh was cheating on her with-Courtney- strangled to death with a pair of earphones in his closet. Oh. my. gosh. Of course, like normal human beings, she and Sam start freaking out. Did Josh strangle Courtney? What did the girls do after they found Courtney's corpse? Will Hartley bash Josh's larynx in and feed his nuggets to hamsters like he deserves? Read it and find out!
Oh and here are my views on the characters:

Hartley: Cute. Funny. Kind. Sarcastic. Great heroine.

Sam: Equally cute/funny. Quirky. Great BFF.

Chase: SEXY to the nth degree. Goth. Awesome. Funny. God help us all when he's on the road, according to Hartley. XD

Josh: Jerk. Jerk. JERK. Che...He cheated on her because she wouldn't have sex with him.
Lamest excuse ever.

And I think thats it.....But overall, it's an awesome read. :)

Though I wasn't the biggest fan of the ending, Deadly Cool was a quick and fun read with a wonderfully loveable main character who will definitely have me reading the sequel.

Picking up Deadly Cool was a relief for me because I had been in a somewhat fickle reading mood for the last few days. I kept going through my pile of books, trying a few pages here and there in order to find something that would keep my attention, but nothing really caught my interest until I fell in love with the first couple of lines of this book (which you can see above). I immediately dived into Deadly Cool and quickly developed a girl crush on the main character, Hartley. Seriously, if she was a real person, I'd be knocking down her door to introduce myself as her new best friend. Hartley is an intelligent, sarcastic, and all-around awesome character. Her witty comebacks had me laughing out loud off and on throughout the book, which I finished in two sittings. Gemma Halliday did a fabulous job of creating Hartley's character and utilized a certain cynical creativity to craft some very entertaining dialogue. For example:


"I rolled my eyes. 'Teenagers have sex, Caitlyn. Get over it.'

'Well, they shouldn't,' Caitlyn countered. 'It's wrong. They should be saving themselves. Our bodies are our temples. They should have a little more respect for themselves than that.'

'You know, I could have sworn I saw you shoveling Cheetos into your temple last week.'

'Oh, but I'm pretty sure those were nonfat,' Kaylee piped up.

Oh brother." (pp. 108-109).


This next one has to be my favorite:

"I'll go," he said.

"And that's safer because?"

"I'm a guy."

"Right, and having a pair of dingle balls makes you invincible how?" (p. 139).

Aside from being downright hilarious, at heart, Hartley is a really good person. After all, how many of you would waste nearly all your free time trying to clear your cheating scumbag of a boyfriend of murder charges when he just got done sleeping with the president of the Chastity Club when you wouldn't put out? Not to mention the cramp it puts on Hartley's social life. The cops are stalking her house in hopes of catching her sleezeball-but-not-the-murdering-type ex-boyfriend and she's the topic of all the good gossip as the girl whose guy got caught boinking another chick in the band room.

I also really liked the minor characters in Deadly Cool, especially Hartley's best friend, Sam, whose constant attempt to try to clean up her swear-like-a-sailor act kept me giggling. I also liked the quirkiness of Hartley's paranoid, tofu and Yogalates-obsessed Mom commonly referred to as the SMother. The minor characters (while minor, as the name suggests), played fairly strong parts in the story, which is nice to see in a category of literature where the development of secondary characters frequently falls by the wayside.

The one problem I had with Deadly Cool and the reason I decided to give it a three instead of a four was the ending. For those of you who know me well, you know I'm fairly good at seeing twists coming. However, I can honestly say that this wasn't the case with Deadly Cool. But this time, it wasn't a good thing. I don't want to ruin the ending, so I won't say too much, but let's just say that I thought the character who turned out to be the murderer was a liiiittle far-fetched. His/her motives for killing just didn't really seem enough to me, and as a result, I found the conclusion of Deadly Cool to be a bit 0ff-putting. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book as a whole and will definitely be picking up the sequel, Social Suic

Review by MajiBookshelf Blog

Fist off, I just love a good mystery novel. Mystery novels make me think, and I like thinking. Anyways, "Deadly Cool" was a very awesome mystery novel.
Let's start off with Hartley. She's cool, definitely a person I would like to hang out with. She is very nice, and she is also very helpful towards the people she cares about. This story revolves around how her "ex" boyfriend is framed for committing a murder, and even though he cheated on her, she agrees to help him clear his name. Which according to me is very heroine like.
The boyfriend, I don't care about. Ask me about Chase? Him, I definitely care about. Chase is the guy who helps Hartley and her friend figure out who the murderer is. According to how all boys should be in books right now, he is also a bad boy type. Now I like bad boys, because they are so mysterious, but Chase is one of a kind. So protective over Hartley, and not in a bad way, which is so cute.
Anyways the story overall was such a fun read, it didn't feel like I read over 300 pages. I liked the mystery in it, not too heavy, and not too light. Just perfect.

Omg

This book is so good. But i thought that the author kindof gave away who the killer was. Because she desribes them and i was like this looks like the person on the cover. Maybe it was hartley on the cover i dunno. But she did a great job of making us think the killer was someone else. This book was absolutely fantastic! I could not put it down. Definitely recommend it to all. Cant wait for the next one to come out. Excited to see where everyone ends up and who willbe together...