Chilling. That's the first word that pops into my head when I think about my reading of Envy. Even before I realized that this was based on a true crime, my heart beat faster just reliving the events of this book. Imagine a book that mixes a bit of horror with the paranormal we all know and love. Are you imagining? Good. That? That's this book. It's pretty amazing.

I fell in love with Hayley and Taylor instantly. Twins, sisters, confidants, and sharing one of the biggest secrets that they've ever had. I really wanted to get to know Hayley and Taylor as I followed them. Witty and intelligent, these girls are definitely spitfires! Determined to find out who killed their friend, the girls end up learning more about themselves than they every really though possible. I loved uncovering the mystery of their childhoods, and learning more about the Ryan family overall. It's not everyday you see such a tight knit family, and it makes for great atmosphere.

When I said that this book was chilling, I wasn't kidding. Gregg Olsen leads the twins on quite a chase as they struggle to uncover what truly happened to Katelyn. The mystery here is scrumptious. It's the type that will draw you in, have you probing for answers, and then throw a slap in the face at the last minute, just as you think you might have finally figured out what's going on. Oh yes. There's some twists and turns along the way. Let's just say it makes this a read while worth diving into. I can promise you that you'll be flipping pages faster than you can read.

Long story short, this is a wonderfully written mystery that is just creepy enough to make you want to keep reading. I devoured Envy and then was still hungrily looking for more to read. If you are a fan of mysteries, or of true crime novels, this is the best of both worlds. Pick up a copy of Envy and get reading.
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I was excited to read this book, but I think it might have suffered for my having read Olsen's Waterman & Stark series. Compared to those books, I had a harder time engaging with the plot and characters here. I think part of it may have been the teenagers--they felt more like teenagers seen and written by a sympathetic adult than wholly believable teenagers if that makes sense. It wasn't so much that they weren't believable, as that they were a bit too neat in terms of character and feelings, whereas real teenagers are kind of a mess. (No offense meant to any teen who might be reading this lol--I was a mess when I was a teen, too!) Here, in other words, the characters were just a little bit too neat and easy, more like adults who hadn't graduated high school than teens if that makes sense, when it came to the two at the heart of the story. The other teens in the background felt more believable, but they were also little more than stereotypes because they were in the story so little--and that was fine because they really were only minor characters. But, all together, it led me to feel like the characters especially held back the first portion of the book for me.

By the time I got into the second portion of the book, the plot and the intrigue had me engaged, so I sped through the second half of the book pretty quickly. There was also a twist that was a really nice touch to what I'd expected to be a predictable book.

So, all told, I don't know if this series can hold its own against Olsen's other series, but in the end, I'm glad to have read it and I certainly plan on reading the next one. Now that the characters are established, it'll also be a lot easier to go into that one now that I know what to expect, so I expect to enjoy it even more. ( )

I picked up this book because of the cover, the cover is creepy and dark, all the things I love in a book. It was not a horror. And although I was deeply depressed with the fact that the story did not match the cover at all, I kept reading.

This book at best is a who-dunnit mystery with some paranormal activity, I can not call it a thriller and there was very little suspense. The story line was okay, psychic twins looking for the person who killed their old best friend and saving their own butts along the way.

There were parts of the book that didn't make sense, such as why was Shania okay with murdering someone, what promise did she make to the twins mum? Who was Moira working for? Just a few of the questions left unanswered lol.

The main thing that irritated me through the book was: 1. Who takes a damn coffee machine into the bathroom and then leaves it close enough to the bath that it can fall in. And 2. Why didn't Teagan knock on the bathroom door and who even names a boy Teagan, is it an American thing? Teagan here in Australia is a girls name.

The Author has noted that the story line of Envy has taken some "cues" from a famous case involving the suicide of a young girl. The young girls frinds and mother had taken to cyber bullying her via MySpace after a falling out between the girls.
At the beginning and throughout you learn of a falling out between two girls and it is hinted that there was some online bullying happening.

"And finally, not far away, one person got online and started deleting the contents of a file folder marked KATELYN."

However the cyber bullying conducted by Katelyn's friend and mother is only really mentioned in the last few chapters and is overshadowed by the 'killer' coming forward.
I believe that the cyber bullying would have been a great baseline for the story, if it had actually focused on it, and a believable reason for the death of Katelyn. Not because of an accidental electrocution from a coffee maker. :| ( )

Twins Hayley and Taylor appear to be normal teenagers, but they are hiding a secret. Somehow, they have the ability to discover people’s thoughts, either in the present or the past, by touching objects, concentrating or through various other ways.

Read the rest of the review on my blog: http://shouldireaditornot.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/envy-gregg-olsen/ ( )

This is hard - giving only 2-star, but looking at other reviews, I can understand. I think the author has hope, after all, he's got several true-crime novels under his belt. I'm not sure why it's so hard for me to finish the book. Murder-mystery is supposed to be fast-paced, and not as confusing as this.

To recap: The Hay-Tay (that's Hayley and Taylor Ryan) twins are at it again. Their next-door neighbor Katelyn, who used to be buddies when they were younger, apparently took her own life and found dead in her bathtub by her own mother. Her family's broken up, and her parents couldn't stand each other. Katelyn's being left in the social dust by her best friend after failing to make the cheer team. Meanwhile, Hay-Tay started to get the vibes that Katelyn's death's not due to suicide.

I've been warned by some reviews about this book, but when a bookstore had this title on sale for $3 (still expensive for this kind of writing quality) I couldn't miss out. I didn't regret it though, because the cover is pretty - weird but pretty - and the clue-finding along the way had been interesting enough. The author also managed to paint a pretty picture of the setting, that is of Port Gamble, Wash. and the Kitsap Peninsula area. I'm curious how this sleepy town look like and found some pictures of Port Gamble on flickr.










* this last picture above might be the 'bridge' referred to in the book? *

One major flaw is how the author try to (unnecessarily) hide some facts. I didn't have the patience to plow through the book and skipped 20 or so pages just to get to the answer. No wonder I fell asleep reading this book most of the time, no kidding, so after that I tried to read the book after lunch (and fell asleep again sometimes) - am I just glad that it's finally over.

Again, this book holds promise because the core of the story - cyber-bullying - and the characters are interesting, but I'm staying away from the series. I think Mr. Olsen has to stick with true-crimes. While the characters in Hay-Tay universe feel real enough, the writing makes the reading experience goes haywire. I'm being abstract here, but please don't waste your time to read the book if you have more interesting titles waiting in your closet. ( )