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Book Summary and Reviews of Reality Check by Peter Abrahams

Reality Check by Peter Abrahams

Reality Check

by Peter Abrahams

  • Critics' Consensus (2):
  • Readers' Rating (2):
  • Published:
  • Apr 2009, 336 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

QB of the varsity football team. Passing grades in all his classes. Dating the hottest—and smartest—girl at school. Summer job paying more than minimum wage. Things in Cody's world seem to be going pretty well. Until, that is, his girlfriend, Clea, is sent off to boarding school across the country, and a torn ACL ends his high school football career.

But bad things come in threes—or in Cody's case, sixes and twelves—and the worst is yet to come. While limping through town one day, Cody sees a newspaper heading: "Local Girl Missing." Clea, now his ex, has disappeared from her boarding school in Vermont, and the only clue is a letter she sent to Cody the morning of her disappearance. With that as his guide, Cody sets out to find out what happened. Once in Vermont, he unearths the town's secrets—and finds out that football isn't the only thing he's good at.

Reality Check is another edge-of-your-seat suspense novel by the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-nominated author of Down the Rabbit Hole.

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Book Awards

  • award image Edgar Awards, 2010

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Cody and most of the teens he encounters - both out west and in Vermont - are complex characters with believable motivations and faults, plot issues aside. Ages 12-up." - Publishers Weekly

"A solid mystery." - School Library Journal

"The climax is unexpected…readers will be frantically turning pages." - Kirkus Reviews

"Starred Review. A fine thriller that is pitched to attract everyone from reluctant readers to sports fans to romantic idealists. " - Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

This information about Reality Check was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Andrew Francis

Couldn't Put Down! 8/10
From the in-depth opening letting us connect with Cody and his relation to Clea, which allowed us to really get the emotions going when she goes missing, to the surprise plot twist ending, to the character development and relation building, this book has it all.

I read the ending late at night, and the suspense building up kept me from being able to go to bed! I loved how complex the mystery was, which got me excited when I was able to piece together every little clue into a complete story of what happened. The author uses so, so many descriptive words I felt immersed in the story, as I was Cody and I was trying to find Clea.

Only one gripe though, it seems the climax and resolution happen in the span of the last two chapters, which for someone like me who constantly wants new information, kinda of got me bored. Other than that though, great book! 8/10

(Would be 10/10 if the ending was prolonged and if there were less cussing, like seriously there was an F-Bomb like every two or so pages near the ending; the word started to lose its meaning.)

Jhon

Toola
I loved Toola (the main character), she really showed some moral characteristics such as when she stopped following her teacher on Instagram and when she said sorry to Hilda for giving her a massive front wedgie, just amazing!

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Author Information

Peter Abrahams Author Biography

Photo credit: Lily Gray

Peter Abrahams is the best-selling author of A Perfect Crime, The Tutor, The Fan, and Lights Out, for which he received an Edgar® Award nomination; and Down The Rabbit Hole, a novel for children. He lives in Falmouth, Massachusetts, with his wife and children. Writing as Spencer Quinn, he is also the author of the Chet and Bernie mystery series that starts with Dog On It (2009) with the latest book Scents and Sensibility that was published in 2015.

Author Interview
Link to Peter Abrahams's Website

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