Dangerous Little Secrets (Saint View High, #2) Review
This review contains major plot spoilers from Books 1 and 2 from the Saint View High series. Sections containing spoilers will be marked with a page break indication. Please be advised that this book contains: attempted sexual assault, violence, assault, and sexual encounters. Check trigger warnings before reading.
The Saint View High series is back with another installment about our main character on the hunt for who carried her out of the burning school, and who is responsible foe her uncle's death - her only clue: a school football shirt belonging to one of the wildest high schools I have ever read about.
WARNING: Spoilers and discussion of sexual assault and violence ahead
Dangerous Little Secrets picks up immediately where we left off in Devious Little Liars (Saint View High, #1), with our female lead Lacey basically left for fending for herself on the beach with one of the many boys who have yet to grasp the basic understanding of consent. Owen basically beat Lacey to the point of unconsciousness on the beach and because there are about six main guys in this book, three of which are currently on Lacey's bad side, I found myself having to write down a list of who was currently moderately redeemable in our eyes. Despite it being only about a month since I read the first installment in this series, I have managed to forget every name of the boys Lacey has come in contact with, as well as if they are redeemable or not. I can chalk that up to reading a few books in between the first and second book, but I had to go back and remind myself which boys were somewhat respectable and which boys are straight up sex offenders.
Banjo -- I still can't believe that is his name -- is experiencing some type of teenage-life crisis because of course Lacey told him that she loves him, yet he filmed a sex tape of her with Rafe and Banjo without her consent. Shocking that he is confused on why she does not want to talk to him! But of course we learn that Banjo had no knowledge of a camera hidden in his room, yet Rafe was able to find it approximately two minutes into tearing through Banjo's room. But boy was I shocked when we find out that it was Banjo's brother who put the camera in his room.
Owen is running around town because his father is the police chief and he thinks that somehow will protect him when he is literally assaulting anything with a pulse because he is bored and has zero hobbies.
A big shoutout to Lacey for actually standing her ground towards Rafe when he told her that he wasn't behind the sex tape - even though she believes he wasn't the one who planted the camera, she still needs time to process what happened. Lacey is definitely an admirable character in the sense that she holds true to her beliefs and will always be honest and hold her ground.
We suddenly are at what appears to be an underground fight ring with Colt and Lacey which lasts approximately half of a chapter and Lacey manages to be into him for this chapter - let's see how long that will last. Especially when she's spent the last four chapters complaining about Colt and how much she does not want to interact with him outside of learning how to fight. And to no surprise to anyone, Colt is just absolutely drawn to Lacey now that she's showing interest in him, despite not defending her when Gillian was was screaming at her after Lacey was beaten half to death. All of a sudden Colt is talking about how Lacey's uncle isn't who he said he was (of course this is in his mind during his chapters) and Colt is simply being the most annoying boy on the planet. But I digress.
Banjo is in Love with Lacey. Rafe is in love with Banjo and Lacey. Colt is horny for Lacey. Lacey says she was in love with Banjo but she won't even talk to him. This is surprisingly easy to keep track of despite the fact that all of these boys collectively have three brain cells.
The most un-surprising part of this book was the fact that Lacey's uncle Lawson potentially has or had a mistress. The man was murdered and someone left notes that said "Liar. Cheat. Rapist." on Lacey's locker - I think we all knew where this was going.
For some reason Colt's only personality trait is trying to have public sex with Lacey and then not letting her finish. It's all he talks about (and thinks about in his chapters) for a majority of the time, and always starts out with him and Lacey screaming at each other or confronting one another at yet another party.
I certainly did not expect Augie to basically be trying to pimp out Banjo to a random woman, but hey, this book has everything else, so I should not be surprised. As the book goes on, I definitely think the reader is supposed to feel more for Banjo, and see a softer side to him compared to what we saw in Book 1. However, his aloofness towards the fact that Augie was the one to record the sex tape of him, Rafe, and Lacey is not lost on me -- yes, he told Lacey it wasn't him (Banjo), but he hasn't made a case on why exactly everyone should be blaming Augie. It definitely would be helping win Lacey back if he, I don't know, told her what happened himself. Instead, she had to find out through such a long and convoluted process that I myself cannot trace back what exactly happened.
For someone so concerned about finding out who murdered her uncle, Lacey seems to spend a lot of time... not doing that.
I am desperately trying to understand why everyone and their mother thinks that Colt killed Lawson... do I think he did it? Maybe. Have I yet to see any proof? Not a drop. His dad though... surely he has his fingers in pots where they do not belong.
One chapter later and we had proof. Whoops, spoke too soon. I still think that he was only at the fire, not the one doing the murdering. Also I'm sorry, but Rafe walking up to his dad during the school dance and decking him across the face as he accuses him of murder is so on brand, I had to laugh.
My jaw was literally on the floor. Her mother??? Miss Thorpe has done it again with a fantastic cliff-hanger in this series. I truly was not expecting that to be how Book 2 came to an end. I am very much looking forward to finishing this series, and hopefully we will finally know who killed Lawson.
The complete Saint View High trilogy is available now to read and add on Goodreads. You can add Dangerous Little Secrets and the rest of the Saint View High series on Goodreads, and follow the author for more updates.
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