All Eyes on Her
Author: L.E. Flynn
Narrator: Khristine Hvam
Genre: YA Mystery/Thriller
Length: 9 hours 23 minutes
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
You heard the story on the news. A girl and a boy went into the woods. The girl carried a picnic basket. The boy wore bright yellow running shoes. The girl found her way out, but the boy never did….
Everyone thinks they know what happened. Some say Tabby pushed him off that cliff— she didn’t even like hiking. She was jealous. She had more than her share of demons. Others think he fell accidentally—she loved Mark. She would never hurt him…even if he hurt her.
But what’s the real story? All Eyes On Her is told from everyone but Tabby herself as the people in her life string together the events that led Tabby to that cliff. Her best friend. Her sister. Her enemy. Her ex-boyfriend. Because everybody thinks they know a girl better than she knows herself.
What do you think is the truth?
If you’re in the camp of loving YA murder mysteries like Sadie and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, I definitely think this will be right up your alley. While I didn’t think that this one offered anything particularly new or surprising to the YA murder mystery genre, I still found All Eyes on Her to be a completely engrossing read nonetheless.
The moral of the story goes that golden boy Mark and his girlfriend Tabby went on a hike together in order to have a romantic picnic. Mark’s body was discovered over the side of a cliff, and the only suspect was his girlfriend Tabby. To outsiders, they had the perfect relationship, but as we learn more about the two of them, we realize that their relationship was far from perfect.
As with any scenario where we have a female who potentially murdered a boyfriend, the amount of vitriol and villainizing of Tabby’s character was exhausting. The town does everything from slut shaming to name calling all while maintaining Mark’s golden boy image.
The writing format and layout of this story really works well because it is told from multiple POVs to include the main and side characters involved in Tabby’s and Matt’s lives aside from these two themselves. There were also Tabby’s old text messages, diary entries, and newspaper clippings. I thought this allowed for the audience to begin to formulate their own opinions on the situation and learn as we go rather than already having all of the facts laid out. Furthermore, the author does a fantastic job of seeding doubt in everything in order to dismantle your preconceived notions about gender roles.
As far as characters go, I was definitely torn on Tabby for the majority of the time, since her character is slowly revealed to us over time. I was a huge fan of both Bridget (Tabby’s sister) and Elle (Tabby’s best friend). Both of them were severely loyal and dedicated to Tabby, and along the way, each of them experience their own metamorphosis as more of Tabby’s character comes to light. One of the character’s that really got under my skin was Keegan, Mark’s best friend. His misogynistic attitude was over the top. There are a lot of teenage stereotypes in this book, but his just really made me want to throw the book at his face.
Overall, if you’re looking for a fast paced murder mystery that makes you question everything, I think you’ll really enjoy this one.
Thank you to Macmillan Audio for the advanced listening copy. This did not influence my review. All opinions are my own.
The Reading Chemist 