Amina Akhtar

Thank you to NetGalley and Mindy's Book Studio for an Advanced Reading Copy of Almost Surely Dead.

What initially drew me to this book was the cover. The colors are super alluring and made me want to know more. This book sucked me in from the first few pages. I immediately wanted to know what happened to Dunia, who she was and why she was missing. Dunia was a well-developed, yet questionable character as she even doubts herself what is going on in her life. I mean why would a total stranger that she only sees on her subway commute try to kill her right then and there in the subway station? Why do more weird things keep happening? Why is Dunia so estranged from her family?

One big draw for me is when books are genre spanning. I love a good mystery, yet this also had elements of family drama, mysticism and folklore with multiple timelines. I felt completely sucked into Dunia's world of her friends, not boyfriend and family. You know that there has to be a mole in the group, but gosh you'd never guess how deep that mole goes to get to Dunia. The writing has you second guessing who to trust until the very end of the book.

I also loved the descriptive elements that Akhtar uses to describe the different things her friends wear, the scenery, their features, etc. I could picture each event and person perfectly while reading.

As for the here and now timeline, I actually really liked the podcast element as it showed the truth behind what some of our favorite pods may be like with reaching into the worst moments of some people's life and fictionalizing it enough to be audience grabbing. My god, did I find the two podcasters absolutely heinous people. They were infuriatingly callous about Dunia actually being a person who is still missing and what her friends and family members might be going through. This was very much a love to hate scenario for me.

As for the ending- this is where we went down to 4 stars over 5. I felt the ending was somewhat lackluster compared the rest of the book. It felt like it just kind of ended without wrapping up quite a few storylines. If you don't mind this type of ending, then you'd love it.… (meer)