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By Robert / November 2, 2025
I really liked this heist book. Most of the YA novels I read I don’t like or I feel meh about. This book had me trying to contact the author and wanting to know what else she’s written. It’s not a surprise that Netflix made a movie of it (I have not seen the movie and don’t intend to. Books are always better).
I enjoyed the careful characterization throughout, but two characters made me think and feel. Dakota is everything to everybody and does everything, but she realizes that she’s wearing a variety of masks. Maybe hiding behind them. How true that is of every high school student! Who is Dakota? Is she the sum of what her parents want her to be? Is she a schedule that imprisons her? I felt for her.
Benny’s type of character I’d seen before in YA novels: the token Black kid in a sea of white faces. But I used to live in Philly, and Benny seemed like a kid from the neighborhood. He asks his uncle to help him get a car for the heist. That uncle and garage seemed realistic to me. As did Benny’s frustration at being the poor kid, the kid having to keep up appearances, the walking-the-social-tightrope kid.
The setting of the heist felt clever to me and Ludwig freshened up the tried-and-true plot with fun variations. How do you get a United State Mint operation to produce a “mistake” coin—then get it to stop producing coins once the computer goes into a loop? Ludwig knows her Philadelphia, and for those of us no longer living in Center City, Northeast Philadelphia, or North Philadelphia, the book is literally a ride down Memory Lane.
The novel is not perfect. That ending! That’s a lot of welding or solder, whatever they were doing. And the ending felt like it would never end. The book is very talky. I didn’t always sympathize with the rich kids and their problems (which made me look forward to the next Benny-narrated portion).
Bottom Line: Coin Heist 3.5/4 stars
But, overall, I thought this was a successful heist story and a quality Young Adult novel, a rare coin in the YA Thriller piggy bank that’s stuffed with counterfeits. If you’re interested in the genre either because you love heists and/or, like me, you want to write one, you need to read this book.
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By Robert / October 13, 2025
This book has everything every other Young Adult Thriller has in it. And that’s its problem.
Rich kids. Goody-girls. A strange girl. A hot guy who’s normal. A hot guy who is on the fringe. California. Cardboard parents and teachers.
So Thrashers reads like so many YA books out there. Senor Emily Mills has committed suicide. She wanted to be part of the in-crowd, a Thrasher. Who’s responsible for her death? Some characters are hiding a little; some, a lot.
Julian Hollister, however, kept my interest. I could never tell if he was good or evil. In that respect, he was like a real person. He did plenty that was nasty and plenty that was nice. He was a fully developed character and caught my eye, Jodi Dillion, the protag, didn’t.
Had I know this mystery/thriller would delve into the paranormal, I wouldn’t have bothered reading it. I like a good story about teens who can be frightening, unexplainable, and capable of terrible deeds all by themselves. The silly things Emily’s ghost did, like when she fiddled with the mortal’s electricity made me cringe. So, what’s Julie Soto’s stance on the afterlife? Were certain feats done by Californian eighteen-year-olds? Or by those from the beyond? Despite the ending, Julie Soto doesn’t really say, in an effort to alienate no readers. I guess the paranormal was just a device.
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Bottom Line: The Thrashers 3/4 stars
This book creates suspense, more so in the second half than in the first. I enjoyed some of the scenes, usually due to Julian’s antics. But I saw no statement made. It’s got the typical girls, the goofs, and a ghost. What else does YA need these days?