Julie Soto, USA Today bestselling author known for her romance books Forget Me Not and Not Another Love Song, ventures into new genres in 2025. Dramione and fantasy fans are sure to know about Rose in Chains, the start of a romantasy trilogy based on her popular fan fiction The Auction, releasing in July, but she is also venturing into young adult fiction this year.
Soto's first release of the year, The Thrashers, is a young adult thriller following a friend group in the aftermath of one of their classmates, Emily, dying by suicide the previous school year. Her journal seemingly implicates them as the cause of her death. Jodi and her friends begin having odd experiences, from street lamps to text messages, as their senior years goes sideways when the police begin to question and charge them.
As a lover of thrillers, particularly of the young adult genre, I was excited about this novel. I’ve been a fan of Julie Soto since her fan fiction days, and was excited to see what she could do with a thriller.
The Thrashers combines the best of Pretty Little Liars and Unfriended for a fun read.
As someone who grew up on horror and Stephen King, I’m always trying to determine what the twist is before it happens, mostly because it’s formulaic in a way. To me, it isn’t if I figure out the twist, it’s how far into the book I become confident in it. For The Thrashers, that was around the 50% mark. This worked well, as certain tidbits of information only came out later in the story that helped reveal what the twist would be, and it left me reading time to see how it would all play out.
Fans of Pretty Little Liars, or at least those who have read the first two arcs of the series, will know it well. The Thrashers, what the friend group is called, are like the Liars in many ways, from their interpersonal dynamics to who "leads" them. Soto did create something different in why Emily's death happened the way it did, and that reinforces the emotional toll it takes on everyone involved, but it comes a touch too late to make a more meaningful impact on the narrative.
There’s a supernatural aspect to the story that is incredibly reminiscent of the screenlife horror movie Unfriended. The friend group in that movie is also like the Thrashers in many ways, with secrets running rampant and strange incidents causing everyone to fear for what Emily wants from them. I particularly like how that idea pops up in the epilogue, and would’ve loved to see more scenes like that throughout the second half of the book.
That said, The Thrashers is a fun read. Is it going to be the best young adult thriller out of 2025? No, but the combination of supernatural aspects, odd texts, and fake information make for something that causes the reader to question who is lying and why, which leaves you turning the page to find out.
Thank you to Wednesday Books for the opportunity to read this book through an eARC on NetGalley.