All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Ubran Book Review

“The thing about being trapped in a room with five other people, a bomb, and a syringe of lethal poison is that at some point, [shiz] is about to go down. No matter how frantically you claw at rationality, how desperately you cling to common decency, you eventually give in to your basic instinct to survive.”

(pg. 305)

About

Author: Diana Urban

Genre: Young Adult Mystery

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Synopsis

Welcome to dinner, and again, congratulations on being selected. Now you must do the selecting.

What do the queen bee, star athlete, valedictorian, stoner, loner, and music geek all have in common? They were all invited to a scholarship dinner, only to discover it’s a trap. Someone has locked them into a room with a bomb, a syringe filled with poison, and a note saying they have an hour to pick someone to kill … or else everyone dies.

Amber Prescott is determined to get her classmates and herself out of the room alive, but that might be easier said than done. No one knows how they’re all connected or who would want them dead. As they retrace the events over the past year that might have triggered their captor’s ultimatum, it becomes clear that everyone is hiding something. And with the clock ticking down, confusion turns into fear, and fear morphs into panic as they race to answer the biggest question: Who will they choose to die? 

Review

Spoilers Contained Below

Dear secret keepers,

It’s that time of year . . . time for mystery!!!! I saw All Your Twisted Secrets on bookstagram a year ago and I was like, I’m going to read that one day. And here I am. I was going to say today’s that day,, but I already read this book before today (whenever I’m posting this), so that would have not been accurate 🤪.

All Your Twisted Secrets gave me One of Us is Lying vibes (which I have a book review on my blog!). It involved a mystery with six teenagers locked in a room after getting invited for a scholarship awards dinner at a well-known restaurant. However, upon arriving at the restaurant, they get locked inside where they find a makeshift bomb that’s ticking down from an hour. They also find a syringe with a mysterious liquid in it that can supposedly kill a person upon injection or even getting a drop of it on you. Lovely. In addition to the bomb and syringe, they were tasked with choosing someone to kill before the hour was over. What a dinner 😳.

In this room are six people who were completely unrelated to each other, some more than others, but they all easily panic, understandably so. So who were they going to kill?

Honestly, I knew they were all thinking Scott because he didn’t seem like he belonged there. But I didn’t believe they were going to kill anyone because they all seemed innocent enough—I mean, they had to be trapped in this room for a reason and someone had to have it out for them. At first, I was like, how the freak did they not know that this dinner was weird? Let’s look at the evidence shall we: 1) their friend’s restaurant was empty, which was a huge red flag because 2) their friend’s restaurant was even open????? I mean, they should have felt something was off when Maria and her parents were on vacation and their restaurant should, I don’t know, BE CLOSED 3) the dinner set up seemed sketchy as heck 4) why would there be a scholarship dinner in February 5) The lack of sketchy cell service 6) the uncomfortable heat in the room should have also gave them bad vibes. I mean, did none of them even think how sketchy and off the whole thing was???????!?!!?!??! I swear all of them lacked gut intuition or bad vibes 😂. I would have caught those bad vibes from the get go and wouldn’t have gone.

Obviously, one of the main things that crossed my mind as I read was who the freak would lock these six people in a room. Anyone who was mad at them would. My first thought was Maria because she owned the restaurant and would have the means to open it and lock them in. But she was on vacation, so it couldn’t be her. In the back of my mind I thought maybe she came back early from her vacation, but then as the backstory continued, she didn’t seem like she would hate all six of them. Maria sounded jealous or envious of Sasha and maybe Amber, but I didn’t think she would want to kill them because of her emotions. After that, I really didn’t see anyone in the backstory chapters who would want to hurt them. Sure, there were Amber’s old friends who might have wanted revenge or to seek some sick sort of vengeance, but they didn’t seem like the type. Especially that one guy, Phil, who went to school with a gun and amber saw it in his backpack and reported him. That’s such a terrifying and beyond nerve-wracking moment to experience because Amber had to tell the school what she saw in case things escalated, but at the same time I could understand how she didn’t know Phil’s full story. I think it wasn’t right for Phil to bring a weapon to school, but the reasoning behind it was complex. He brought the gun to school because he used it to protect against his abusive dad. Phil was never going to use the gun at school. However, Amber couldn’t have known that and she wasn’t wrong to report what she did. But I could feel how overwhelmingly tense she was to report Phil because she knew he would know it was her who told. That’s . . . terrifying. But once we knew why he brought the weapon to school, the more I didn’t see him as someone out to get them all.

So nothing made sense as to why they were locked up in the room.

To be really honest, the present day scenes where the bomb clock is ticking down, were somewhat repetitive.

I liked the sense of urgency and fear they all had. It was interesting to see what was running through their minds or how they were all reacting to the situation. I couldn’t believe how quick Sasha was to jump on saving herself and killing someone like it wasn’t a big deal. She was a morbid character that frankly I didn’t like. I will get more into that later. I liked the whole idea of them finding clues like the room was an escape room, but they didn’t find any clues. It would have been cooler if the room was an escape room because it would have been more fun. They did find a camera, which added to this eeriness of someone watching them. The thing was when they thought to fake kill someone at the end, I was like, can’t the camera HEAR THEM???! If Amber wanted to fake kill someone just to get this over with, I think the person behind the camera would have heard! 🤪 So that raised flags about what was going on. I was growing very suspicious and confused as to what the point of them being locked up in a room meant.

I also was oddly laughing at how they rock-paper-scissored who they would kill. Like what the heck?! They really wanted to rock-paper-scissors that? 🤔 A life or death decision based on a childhood game? Wonderful 🤪. Or the fact they drew straws . . . ummmm, it just felt like they were literally grasping for straws in being desperate to see who they would kill. Also, there was this whole back and forth of let’s choose someone to kill and then let’s try save everyone and then let’s choose someone to kill. It just got repetitive for me after a while because I just wanted to know who had a real motive to lock them into the room together.

I swear, whoever placed them in the room was strategically smart. I mean, no internet, a fake fireplace, small windows, a big oak door, and burning heat????! This person was out to kill. But why?

When in the room together, it was interesting to see how quick they were to share everything with each other to figure out who would put them in the room. That’s when the “secrets” came out. To be really honest, the secrets weren’t that big of a deal. Sarah bought drugs from Scott and she used them to stay awake and do all her activities and homework. That wasn’t really shocking news to me. Also, when Diego said Amber’s dad would want to kill them, I laughed. I think Amber’s dad had better use of his time than to lock six kids in a room together with a bomb and syringe, one of the kids being his daughter. I also didn’t really see the connection between all of them in correlation with one person who would want to harm them.

Let’s talk about each person and then how I discovered who locked them in the room at the end.

Scott.

Scott was your skater boy who hung out by the green boxes after school. You know, that kind of boy. He was honestly my favorite character 😆. He literally was just there for the fun of it—him chilling with his bleeding leg on the floor. He really had no reason to be there, not because he wasn’t smart enough to earn a scholarship, but Scott just felt like he was there. His big secret was he sold drugs to Sarah, not even the right drugs she asked for, which seemed wrong and illegal to me. The whole selling-her-drugs part was probably illegal all around, so there’s that. But other than that, he seemed harmless. He was funny and cool. He was really chill and nice. I liked him.

Diego was okay. He seemed like a flirt who made a dumb mistake. He created some sort of mood ring sponge 😂 that apparently made millions. I just want to say how sad I am for the human race that they would buy into a mood ring sponge thing. Wonderful. Diego’s dad used to work with Amber’s dad, but Diego’s dad left Amber’s dad’s company/workplace to run the sponge business, which caused Amber’s dad’s business to fall. This made money tight in Amber’s life. After Diego’s sponge idea and business took off, he really didn’t talk to Amber and this drove a wedge between them in addition to how he caused Amber’s dad’s business to lose money. He eased back into Amber’s life over their connection of loving sound scores, which I thought was pretty cool. Diego seemed nice and like he genuinely respected and connected to Amber’s interest. I didn’t see the problem with him or who would want to kill him. I mean, sure he was rich from his sponge business, but I didn’t feel like someone wanted to kill him for it.

Robbie was a selfish smooth talker. I didn’t like him 🙈. He had his sweet moments, and yes he was cute in how he treated Amber. I liked how when Priya was gone, Robbie took Amber to the festival to keep the birthday tradition alive. It was also sweet how he showed up at her house with a single rose like a proper gentleman. I like how cute he was when telling Amber she could bring her board games to the party because he thought she was cute. But then when he got more into the baseball season, his persona shifted. It became about baseball, baseball, baseball. I understood why Robbie was obsessed with baseball. He had all these famous and successful baseball player brother’s that he had to live up to—that he felt like he needed to live up to to make his dad and family proud. That’s some big shoes he wanted to fill, and he became so fixated on living up to what others wanted of him that he didn’t see how he was minimizing Amber’s dreams. Amber wasn’t going to give up her whole music dreams just to follow him around while he chased his dream and she didn’t. That wasn’t fair to her! I was on Amber’s side when she kept saying no because heck, she shouldn’t follow a guy around and go to the same college as him just because he wants her to. She was her own person and deserved to chase her passions. If he really loved her, he would have respected her dreams and told her to go follow them. And I couldn’t with his whole “we’ll pay for a music teacher/tutor” thing because first of all, a music teacher or tutor isn’t the same as a full fledged music program and second, she wasn’t his beach. Also, he was being petty when he was on his phone during her big play and when he left early when things went wrong. She needed him to hug her afterward and he left because he needed his beauty sleep. I’m sorry! Your girlfriend needed you and you chose beauty sleep for baseball over her?! IDIOT. Dump his butt!!!! Buying her a bracelet with a music charm was cute, but it wasn’t going to gloss over the fact that he was sugaring her up to go to Georgia with him to play ball. Chase your dreams, Robbie, don’t rob her of hers 😉.

Diego understood Amber’s dreams—encouraged it too. No wonder Amber liked him more than Robbie after a while. I mean, even he was being the better boy friend if you asked me.

Priya was okay. I liked her, just not my favorite. I liked how she took no shiz from people and she had enough self-respect to walk away from a situation that wasn’t healthy for her. She endured a lot more than she should have just to please Amber when Amber wasn’t acting like a very good friend to her. Amber should have recognized the passive aggressive bullying Priya was getting from Sasha, but Amber was too caught up in making her score for the play was good enough to send for her application. I thought Sasha was being a beach to Priya because she was jealous that Amber and Priya actually had a good friendship. Priya was right to drop Amber because their friendship wasn’t healthy anymore. I really hurt for Priya with how she even chipped her freaking tooth when bending over backwards trying to still be in Amber’s life.

Then there was Sasha—your typical mean girl beach. I said it once, I’ll say it again, I didn’t like her. She was manipulative, selfish, haughty, and rude. She was also a liar and a bully. She didn’t do anything unless it benefited her and she used others to get her way. I didn’t like how she used Amber to boost her singing and role in the show. I also didn’t like how she purposefully messed up her part in the play when she knew Amber was recording that night to send the music in for her application. I didn’t like how Sasha deliberately pushed Priya away so she could get closer to Amber and use her. I didn’t appreciate how Sasha tore other people down. But part of me understood the pressures Sasha faced. She felt like she had to be perfect and be involved in all these clubs because she was in an accident when she was younger and this stopped her from being a professional gymnast. So she branched out and swore to be good at everything so she wouldn’t feel defeated like she was after the accident. Sasha also took the Ritalin, which made her act out to people without realizing she was harming them.

But above all, Sasha was the one who bullied Maggie, Amber’s sister. Sasha constantly cyberbullied Maggie after Sasha broke her leg in the accident. Sasha bullied from a hurt place—hurt people hurt people. But she didn’t realize how far her bullying would take her, and Maggie ended up taking her life because of her callous, thoughtless hurt. To Sasha, she didn’t mean it or she didn’t realize it would go that far, but that’s not the point. Bullying is harmful and words hurt and we need to preach that so kids understand the gravity—the impact—their words have. Just because you are in pain, do not drag someone into your hurt to feel as low as you do. That will not fix the actual hurt you feel and in the end, it ends up hurting a lot more people than you realize. Sasha was a bully and she was completely wrong for what she did to Maggie and what she continued to do to Priya.

So this brings me to who locked them in the room.

I had a hunch it was Amber.

The entire time they were trapped in that room, I kept thinking, where was Amber’s mom?! Amber said in the beginning of the book that she was supposed to text or call her mom wherever she went to ensure she was safe . . . you know, after everything with Maggie. I thought the mom would have tracked Amber at some point and bust down that door to break her and everyone out, but that never happened. I also wondered why the mom wasn’t worried about Amber at all when it seemed like the mom worried a lot about Amber based on all the background chapters. So that felt off to me.

I also started to question why Amber didn’t sound as worried as everyone else about escaping? She sounded concerned about the heat, but not so much making it out alive . . . like she knew there was no real danger. She took on a lot of the leadership when trying to think of a logical way out, which could have just been her being calm, but it felt like more than that. Third, I think she was the one who talked about how anyone could look up how to make a fake bomb. I mean, how would she know that unless she looked it up or knew something about it.

I was still shocked that it was her. I mean, who the FREAK thinks to lock people in a room just to prove a point 😳. And who would do so with a threat that someone had to die? That’s MORBID. That’s terrifying. I don’t care how smart or creative she was in her plan or how she had a justifiable reason for what she did, but it didn’t excuse the fact that she didn’t need to go through such lengths to prove a point and throw murder in there. I mean, what did she think was REALLY going to happen. I’m sorry, music major my butt! She had a cunning little mind or she missed her call in acting because gosh darn! This girl really played up the game. I could not. Also, what made me think it was her was how literally none of them had a connection to each other—or none strong enough to be suspicious—except the fact that they all knew Amber or they all had something to do with her. So this just made me think about how Amber was the link. I thought for a second maybe Scott locked them in the room because if you look at the cover, his eyes were the only pair on the cover that didn’t stare straight at you. So I thought maybe that symbolized something. In actuality it was probably just a graphic design choice 🙈. But you could feel how desperate I was to know who did it if I was reading too much into the cover.

In the end, Priya ended up using a shard of glass to kill Sasha who was going to kill Amber with the syringe (which was a fake, the bomb too). That shocked me. Priya! Our innocent, humble, sweet Priya chose to save her best friend when someone was going to murder her because of the sick plan Amber had in the first place. She was just defending herself and her friend, but gosh, did this dinner get wwwwwwwaaaaaaaaayyyyy out of control. I thought Priya and Diego would have been more repulsed and furious with Amber that she locked them in that room. I would have! I would have thought Amber lost her darn mind and I wouldn’t be her friend ever, but they were pretty chill about it, which seemed weird. I would have liked a little bit more emotion in that moment. I also wanted to know how Scott was because after the end scene in the room, we don’t really see Scott or Robbie. Did Robbie and Amber officially break up or . . .? Was Robbie traumatized? Were Scott and Robbie ever going to know she was the one who played this sick prank on them? Maybe not a prank, but a sick joke. It’s funny because they all thought it was a joke at first—they were going through their delusional then angry phase. I would have liked to know how their parents felt? I mean, why didn’t any of them track their daughters or sons? What the literal heck?!

Also, I liked the parallel between how what Amber did was a form of bullying because Amber didn’t even realize the hurt she caused by locking them in the room similar to how with bullying you don’t know the hurt you cause. With Amber, she also cost someone her life—someone who could have changed to be a better person, but now would not have the chance. Gosh, Amber must have felt beat up inside because the blood was on her fingers. This was her plan after all—lock them in a room so they could turn on Sasha and she could realize her bullying ways. I could feel Amber’s being stunned and not knowing what to do. This was her fault. I’m glad she took ownership of that and was going to tell the truth. But gosh, she was going to lose going to music school. She was going to lose a lot by coming forward as the person who did this. I didn’t see how she could find a way out of not fessing up because eventually the cops would figure it out. Or some CSI person would. The thing was there’s something to be said about how Amber even thought to create a fake bomb or a syringe in the first place. She needs to speak to a psychologist to heal from her sister’s hurt and the trauma she felt. She also needs to speak to a psychologist after what happened in that room. I think there’s hurt she harbors and that she indirectly manifested in that room.

This was not the mystery I was expecting. It was shocking, but not like a big punch to the gut shocking. I am more stunned and hurt by what happened in the end more than anything. I may not have liked Sasha, but she could have been a better person. Who knows? I do believe that bullies are just hurt because they are hurt on the inside. It does not excuse their actions by any means, but it makes you understand why they are the way they are. Because bullies aren’t born, they’re made. It’s about remembering to spread love and kindness to others because we never know what they have been, what they are going through, or what they will go through. Be kind to one another instead of tearing each other down. And if you feel hurt on the inside, making other people feel worse isn’t going to heal the pain you have. Be kind, reach out to someone to talk about how you feel, or do something you love. Don’t be hateful. If someone you know or love is getting bullied, tell someone or kindly talk to that person and be the shoulder they need right now. Always reach out and always be a good friend to others—-a good person.

Anyway, what was your favorite part of the book? Least favorite part? What movie has your favorite soundtrack or movie score? Let me know below in the comments as I love hearing from you all 💕

I hope you have a beautiful day whenever and wherever you might be reading this 😊.

And as always, with love,

Rating

3.35 Full Bloom Flowers

Characters: A full range of characters that you may or may not like. I didn’t really connect with or fall in love with any of the characters, but they sure were interesting.

Writing: I loved the layout of the story with the now and then storylines because it helped build up to the end.

Plot: If you look realllllll close, you might figure it out. But you know, that’s the fun with a mystery 😉.

Mystery: It will definitely have you reading until the end, wondering who the heck did it.

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