Warning: this review may contain spoilers.
If anyone knows how to write a page-turner, it is Holly Jackson. Jackson made her debut in the Adult Thriller genre with her sixth novel, Not Quite Dead Yet — a fast-paced mystery-thriller where a young-adult must solve her own murder before she dies by the end of the week. While this novel marks her first adult novel, Jackson is no stranger to the thriller genre; all five of her previous novels, plus one novella, have been thrillers. As always, Not Quite Dead Yet showcases Jackson’s ability to create intense webs of suspicion, deception, and a hint of romance that produce the ultimate up-all-night read.
"You can love something without needing it to love you back.”
Jet Mason, self-proclaimed starter and quitter, spends her Halloween night not watching a classic slasher film, but rather becoming the victim of a real-life murder mystery after taking a hammer to the skull. Fortunately for Jet, she does not die instantly; she wakes up in a hospital feeling grateful for the life she is able to keep living. Unfortunately for Jet, she has two dreadful choices: undergo a surgery that has less than a 10% survival rate or live her life as normally as possible for one week, in which she will develop a brain aneurysm that will kill her. Choosing the second option, Jet sets off on a journey she is sure no one has ever done before — she is going to solve her own murder. Working both with and against the professional detectives on her case, Jet collects evidence, follows leads, and falls in love as she determinedly finishes what she has started (for once). But as the week flies by and her deteriorating health slows her down, Jet is unsure whether her efforts will bring her to the finish line, or if she will die without receiving justice.
"I’m finally going to do something, Mom. Something important. And I’m going to see it through to the end. This time will be different. It has to be different, because it’s my last chance.”
"Do something?” Mom cried. "What do you mean? Do what?”
Something great.
Something no one had ever done before.
"I am going to solve my own murder.”
While this novel is Jackson’s first adult novel, it shares more similarities with her young adult novels than it does other adult-thrillers. Aside from the increase in profane language, this novel lacks some of the deeper thriller and horror elements of adult novels. However, Holly Jackson’s knack for storytelling has the ability to grasp her readers’ attention in both her young adult and adult novels.
“One set faltered, two shadows that lingered, blocking the glow under the door. A boundary, between here and there, the living and the dead."
After reading so many thrillers, it becomes harder and harder to find one that I cannot predict the ending of. This novel is an exception. Holly Jackson has perfected the use of subtle details that leave readers wondering, and Not Quite Dead Yet is full of overlapping forward-and-backward details that had me creating my own mind-map of who killed Jet (I was never right); similar to adult-thriller author Freida McFadden, Holly Jackson writes immaculate plot-twists that you can never see coming. This, coupled with Jackson’s ability to craft simple yet substantive passages, crowns her a Thriller Mastermind. Not Quite Dead Yet is a must-read for thriller fans!