Review: ALIBI Vol. I-IV: The Complete Series by Annie Miles, Isabel Eckersley, John Byrne, Sorrel Provola

From goodreads

Abigail Shelton is dead.

Spring Valley's golden girl is found floating face-down in her boyfriend’s pool, hands bound behind her back, head bleeding, drugs and alcohol in her system. Her friends are the only suspects – and they all have reasons to want her dead. Everyone has an alibi, but no one is innocent.
ALIBI is a 4-part young adult e-book series. Each one-hundred page installment reveals the perspective of a different character: the secret love, the nemesis, the boyfriend, the best friend. As their tales unfold, we learn that Abby is not as perfect as everyone believes, but she’s not the only one with secrets to hide. This page-turning tale of suspense, betrayal, murder, and lust will keep fans of Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars up and reading well past curfew.

review

This series is so OH MY GOD. There is no other way to describe this absolutely amazing four part series that kept me on the edge of my seat until the very end!

I loved the concept of the perspectives of four people in this mini-series taking you in all sorts of directions until finally, you figured out how Abigail Shelton, who seemed like the girl who had it all ended up drugged, bleeding and dead; floating face down in her boyfriend, the governor's son's pool at the night of the governor's fundraiser.

Marketed as Gossip Girl meets Pretty Little Liars, this series is filled with characters with the most outrageous and drama-filled lives. I wouldn't want to live their lives but it was exciting to read about them. I loved how the ALIBI series involved having to wade through almost every scandal I've read about in Young Adult fiction/TV to arrive at a conclusion that was startling yet satisfying. It wasn't the who but the how that made this whodunnit a thrilling read!

Volume I: Charles by Annie Miles definitely helped set the stage! I was immediately drawn to Charles, Mason (the governor's son)'s cousin from Australia. Charles was charming, almost too charming and his version of the events leading to Abby being found floating face down in the pool are the first glimpse we get into the lives of these characters. Charles was probably the first to sense that there was so much more to Abby than what people saw and even at the end of all the four parts, I was convinced we didn't know everything about her.

Volume II: Palmer by Isabel Eckersley was my favourite part of the series. This was mainly because Palmer was one of the few characters I could sympathise with. Palmer is the girl Charles falls for which, in a way, triggers everything and it was great knowing more about her. I didn't like her in Charles, but in Palmer, I felt myself mentally cheering for her to emerge victorious in the grand scheme of things.

Volume III: Mason by John Byrne cemented my opinion of Mason. In the earlier parts, he seemed vengeful and insanely jealous of Charles who seemed to have taken everything that was Mason's from when he'd arrived. But by the end of Mason, it's clear that he was more of a pawn in someone else's game. That made me feel sorry for him.

Volume IV: Rowan by Sorrel Provola... oh my god, Rowan. I hated this girl. I hated her in the other volumes and hated her even more when we were shown the events from her perspective. I got to know so much more about the other characters while seeing the events through Rowan's eyes. For one thing, there were parts conveniently omitted by one of the characters in the initial parts and Rowan's perspective made me get the full picture about this person.

This was such a great series! I loved that the four characters were portrayed so thoroughly by four different authors and it all added up perfectly. By each author taking on the perspective of one character, I guess it also gave each character a truly distinct voice... When I read books with multiple perspectives, I sometimes find that it's difficult to distinguish between the perspectives but that was never a problem with this series.

I loved the way the mystery was unraveled: piece by piece. The governor's fundraiser was definitely a night of drama and revelations as Charles, Palmer, Mason, Rowan and Abby revealed things about themselves or others around them that were earth shattering. The ALIBI series from Twist Literary was sheer genius and had me reading into the early morning hours!

Publication date: 29th February, 2012
Publisher: Twist Literary
Source: Twist Literary (Thank you so much!)
Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars