The Girl Who was Supposed to Die by April Henry  

A teen girl comes to consciousness on the floor of a cabin in the woods. She can’t remember anything. She’s sore and when she touches her fingers to the floor, excruciating pain rips up her arm. Two of her fingernails have been torn out. As she wonders who she is, why she is in the woods, and why she has been tortured, she hears two men talking about taking her out into the woods to finish her off.

When one of the men stays to do the job, the girl discovers she has some great self-defense skills. How did she learn them?

This girl–whom we finds out is named Cady–must run for her life. She pairs up with a guy she’s never met before, and they work against time as well as an unknown enemy that has apparently murdered her family for reasons that aren’t clear to her. The police are looking for Cady as an escapee from a mental institution. Is she sane? Has she hallucinated her experiences? Or worse–did she kill her family?

The Girl Who was Supposed to Die is a fast-action thriller of a mystery. In just over a day, Cady must learn the truth and work to uncover the terrible secret that threatens all she has known. But first, she has to remember her past.

High school Housekeeping: The Girl Who was Supposed to Die is a super-quick white knuckler that will appeal to all teen fans of mystery and thrillers. It’s also a great read for the reluctant reader because s/he’ll need to speed from chapter to chapter to put together the pieces of Cady’s past. Henry hasn’t made the mistake of stopping to add chapters of unbelievable romance, She sticks with the jet-fuel of the story. The short form and easy reading level (about grade 5) make it accessible to all teens (but the subject matter is a bit too brutal for your younger siblings–it’s meant for you). If you are a teen looking to get hooked on books, try this one. The author, April Henry, has written several such mysteries. Keep going!