Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher

I'm not one of those people who look at the end of a book before I read it. I understand why people do that, but it would ruin the experience for me. That being said, I was tempted to peek at the end of this one because the suspense was almost too much.

'Zoe' tells her story in a series of letters to a randomly chosen death row inmate in Texas who she found on the internet. She feels connected to the inmate because she killed someone, too. And there's the suspense. We don't know who and we don't know how. We do know that it is one of the boys she is interested in.

Zoe (that is the fake name she gives the inmate, Stuart) wants to tell someone her story, but does not want to tell it all right away. She wants Stuart to understand how it happened, so she begins with how she met Max, the popular guy all the girls like, and Aaron, the guy she instantly connects with who seems to have a girlfriend already. She also talks about her constantly fighting parents, her ailing grandfather and her deaf baby sister.

Not knowing who is dead borders on excruciating at times. Zoe is not a killer, so how did it happen? Definitely a story that made me want to read it faster just so I could get some answers.

For more info, check out the Indianapolis Public Library catalog and the author's site.