BOOK REVIEW: If You're Out There by Katy Loutzenhiser

............................................................................................................................................................

Title: If You're Out There
Author: Katy Loutzenhiser
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mystery
Pages: 307
Pub Date: March 5, 2019
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Book Source: publisher via edelweiss
My Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Synopsis: After Zan’s best friend moves to California, she is baffled and crushed when Priya suddenly ghosts. Worse, Priya’s social media has turned into a stream of ungrammatical posts chronicling a sunny, vapid new life that doesn’t sound like her at all.

Everyone tells Zan not to be an idiot: Let Priya do her reinvention thing and move on. But until Zan hears Priya say it, she won’t be able to admit that their friendship is finished.

It’s only when she meets Logan, the compelling new guy in Spanish class, that Zan begins to open up about her sadness, her insecurity, her sense of total betrayal. And he’s just as willing as she is to throw himself into the investigation when everyone else thinks her suspicions are crazy.

Then a clue hidden in Priya’s latest selfie introduces a new, deeply disturbing possibility:

Maybe Priya isn’t just not answering Zan’s emails.

Maybe she can’t.

...................................................................................................................................................................................

*** POSSIBLE SPOILERS ***

If You're Out There was an okay read, but I ended up on the fence about this one, as I have with so many books so far in 2019. 

Zan and Priya grew up together, and were as close as two best friends could be. Then Priya moved away to go to a new school, and stopped responding to Zan's emails and messages. Zan is confused as to what may have caused her once-best-friend to ghost her, as she sees Priya posting photos via social media and responding to pretty much everyone but her. Zan doesn't accept this. She begins to think something else is going on; that her friend may be in trouble. Why else would she ignore her like this? Everyone in her life is telling her to basically move on, get over it, right? Not Logan. Logan is a new guy at school and has taken a liking to Zan. Together, the two of them start to piece together what may or may not have happened to Priya.

When I was reading this I had some theories on why Priya may have started to ignore Zan. I wondered if Zan maybe had feelings for her and it wasn't Priya's thing, if perhaps Priya was kidnapped, or maybe she was just a snob—too good for Zan now that she is a California girl. What actually happened was pretty lame, to be frank. It was not what I expected and I was pretty disappointed with the outcome. I was happy with the ending, but the reason behind Priya not speaking with Zan was just silly to me. I don't want to spoil it, but it was this weird out-of-left-field thing and, I don't know, it just seemed far-fetched and not really believable. Meh.

What I did like was how devoted Logan was to helping Zan find her friend. I did enjoy the romance. It wasn't a main story thread, but it was nice on the side. I also enjoyed the friendship between Zan and Priya even though they were separated for most of the book. When the two finally see each other, things are wonderful. I felt the connection regardless of their separation. The author did really good job of making us feel how important they were to each other.

Overall, I enjoyed the contemporary parts of this book such as the romance and Zan's struggle with the loss of her friend, but the mystery was lackluster for me. I feel that it was dragged out much too long, especially considering the actual events leading up to Zan ghosting her friend were not really interesting or believable. It was a fail on that front, but a win with the contemporary. Like I said, on the fence! Great character building, great background information. Inspirational friendship. Slow plot, but overall a good read. 

............................................................................................................................................................