Review:
A year ago, Julie was a cheerleader who was more focused on her social life than on her academics. All that changed after one particular summer night. Now she's determined to leave everything behind, go to college, and forget everything that happened.
Except someone won't let her, sending her a note that just says "I know what you did last summer." Sick and scared, Julie tracks down the others who were there that night: Helen, a pretty but insecure young woman; Barry, a football player and Helen's boyfriend (who unbeknownst to Helen, is seeing lots of other girls besides her); and Ray, Julie's former boyfriend, who she broke up with soon after the events of that summer.
I figured out who was after the characters pretty much the instant the person appeared on-page. Although there was one moment that took me a bit by surprise, the various clues Duncan scattered around were fairly easy for me to spot. That said, I'm an adult reader with years worth of experience reading thrillers and suspense novels - I don't know what Teen Me would have thought of this book (and I'm fairly sure Teen Me never read it, since nothing here ever gave me a feeling of deja vu).
Unfortunately, this turned out to be the updated text rather than the original, which meant there were occasional mentions of things like GPS, webcasts, and cellphones, and yet for some reason no one had their cellphones on them when they might have been useful, and no one had anyone else's cellphone number. Also, the way "Iraq" was substituted for "Vietnam" created some weird moments that didn't quite work.
All in all, this was okay. I found Helen, in particular, to be an interesting if not very likeable character.
Extras:
A Q&A between Barry Lyga and Lois Duncan, in which Duncan talks about the movie version (which horrified her, not in a good way) and updating the text. Also, a list of reader discussion questions.
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