Another great read from Kindle Unlimited! My review in progress fluctuated between a two star rant and four star high praise, but I went through much the same journey with Beneath the Shine by the same author - hating the teen speak to begin but slowly being drawn in by the characters and technology. The AIs won me over, even with Cora at her most annoying!

Two girls are forced to live together when the mother of one and the father of the other marry. Cora is the messed-up 'survivor' of childhood abuse, and also the narrator of some chapters, who spends much of the book in meltdown. Hannah is the rich bitch daughter of the new CEO of Parnassus, the company at the centre of the last novel. Hannah is killed while the parents are away, and Cora becomes the prime suspect. Hannah's father even hires a 'canny' to babysit and analyse Cora, who claims she can't remember what happened to her 'sister'. The story is told in first person by Cora and in flashback as Rafiq the canny attempts to piece together the truth. But who can be trusted?

Teen dramas annoy me, and Cora is very, very dramatic, constantly screaming and crying and rocking and feeling sorry for herself, Her backstory of abuse felt tacked on, like psychology 101, and I didn't start to empathise or care about her until she started standing up for herself, with the aid of her hacker friend Neda, who deserves a story of her own. Hannah is straight out of Mean Girls or Heathers, and I can't imagine how the parents ever got together, aside from working together. BUT. The technology is so clever - the cannies, robot/cyborg AI assistants, and cerepins, like having a smartphone embedded in your brain. I love how naturally Sarah Fine incorporates all these great ideas, and the issues created by such advances. Cora has no physical memories of the night her sister died - but her cerepin recorded just enough to fill in the blanks. Thought-provoking stuff!

I did see the twist in the tale coming, but picked the wrong suspect! Cora grew on me eventually, when she stopped whining, and I loved the development with Rafiq, which played out like a movie (hint hint). More please! ( )