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Review: All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban

I'm All Booked Up YA
All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban

Six students— the queen bee, the jock, the valedictorian, the stoner, the loner and the music geek— get invited to a dinner with the Mayor. They have won the prestigious town scholarship and now get to celebrate their success. However, as soon as they arrive, they realize it’s a trap.

The door is locked. The windows have bars. There is no way out. Amber Prescott finds a note addressed to all of them that they have one hour to choose someone to die, or they all die. On the table lies a syringe with poison and a bomb on a timer. 

The six have to decide whether or not to work together, pick someone to die or go down together. Only, the six cannot agree on anything. It is easier to attack each other than find common ground. But time is running out and with no way to escape, they have to make a choice. Who could have something against all six of them? At first it seems that they couldn’t be more different…but they all have a common link. 

Amber believes she can get everyone out alive. She can’t do it alone though, she’ll need cooperation from everyone. 

All Your Twisted Secrets is an engaging debut thriller. Urban pulls you in from the start with her interesting characters and unique plot. All of the characters were more than meets the eye. She tells their stories well through flashbacks. The chapters alternate from the current night and the past. The timeline Urban sets out is detailed, and the reader finds themselves dying to know the next piece of the puzzle. 

The MC, Amber, takes the leadership role in the room. She has the most to lose if someone dies. Robbie, her boyfriend and star baseball player, doesn’t know if it’s worth it to try to diffuse the bomb. Sasha, Amber’s best friend and the school queen bee, thinks they need to sacrifice someone right away to go home. 

But, there’s also her former best friend Priya who’s shaking and doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Diego, the class valedictorian and Amber’s crush, casts blame on some surprising enemies. Then, there’s Scott, the odd one out. The stoner. The guy who leaves everyone alone doesn’t have any enemies…or so he thinks.

Without giving too much away, Sasha drove us crazy. That was the point of her character…but seriously, can she just shut up and not try to kill people? We also felt bad for Priya. Out of everyone in the book, she deserved better from her so-called friends. 

Amber was a decent MC. Without saying more, she’s not exactly the most reliable narrator. But, most of the characters in this story lie to protect themselves. After all, no one wants to get injected. The love triangle became a nice touch for some of the drama inside the locked room. It certainly made the dynamic more interesting.

For the most part, this book was so hard to put down. We had to keep reading to know who did this to the group. The pacing felt perfect considering the bulk of the story happened during an hour. However, the ending prevented us from giving it a 5 star review. 80 percent of the way through the book we thought it would be 5 stars easily. The problem was that the ending fell flat. While we didn’t mind who was behind it all…we actually liked that part, we didn’t like that person’s reaction at the end. The last chapter seemed abrupt and left us with a few questions. Without giving away any spoilers, we wish the person who started it all owned it better, ya know? 

Still, if you enjoyed One of Us is Lying, the Cheerleaders, the Dead List or other YA mystery/thrillers, we recommend giving this a try. Have you read this yet? If you have, tell us your thoughts in the comments! 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Published by I'm All Booked Up YA

We write recommendations and reviews for YA books.

44 thoughts on “Review: All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban”

  3. I really want to get into thrillers and this sounds amazing, but I also get very easily frustrating with pain in the ass characters and I can already tell that Sasha’s going to drive me crazy lol

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  19. I thought this sounded quite similar in premise to One of us is Lying, but having not read either, I wasn’t sure how far those similarities go. This does sound like a really gripping read but sorry to hear the ending let you down in some way. Still, it sounds worth it for the other 80%, annoying characters and all. Great review, thanks for sharing!

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