They'll Never Catch Us

Written by Jessica Goodman

Narrated by Jesse Vilinsky, Phoebe Strole and Kristen Sieh

**A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**

From rising star Jessica Goodman, author of They Wish They Were Us, comes a new fast-paced thriller about two sisters vying for the top spot on their cross-country team—until a teammate’s disappearance throws their lives off course.
 
"An utter page-turner. Goodman's voice is razor-sharp and keenly precise. Perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn!" —Tiffany D. Jackson NYT Bestselling Author of White Smoke and Grown

Stella and Ellie Steckler are only a year apart, but their different personalities make their relationship complicated. Stella is single-minded, driven, and she keeps to herself. Cross-country running is her life and she won't let anything get in the way of being the best. Her sister Ellie is a talented runner too, but she also lets herself have fun. She has friends. She goes to parties. She has a life off the course.

The sisters do have one thing in common, though: the new girl, Mila Keene. Both Stecklers' lives are upended when Mila comes to town. At first, Ellie and Stella view the new star athlete as a threat. But soon Ellie can't help but be drawn to her warm, charming personality. After her best friend moved away and her first boyfriend betrayed her, Ellie's been looking for a friend to share her secrets. Stella finds herself noticing the ways she and Mila are similar. Mila is smart and strong--she's someone Stella can finally connect with. As the two get closer, Stella becomes something she vowed she'd never be: distracted.

With regionals approaching and college scouts taking notice, the pressure is on. Each girl has their future on the line and they won't let friendships get in their way. But then, suddenly, Mila goes out on a training run and never returns. No one knows what happened, but all eyes are on the Steckler sisters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Jul 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9780593398005

Jessica Goodman

Jessica Goodman es la autora del best seller Sueñan con ser como nosotras, su primera novela. Editora en la revista Cosmopolitan, formó parte del equipo que ganó el premio a Mejor Revista nacional en 2017. Además, ha trabajado en revistas como Entertainment Weekly, HuffPost, Elle y Marie Claire.

Reviews for They'll Never Catch Us

[familiar_diversions · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Stella and Ellie Steckler were incredibly close when they were little. They had to be: their parents had their own concerns (their mom was an alcoholic and their dad suffered from depression), so there were times when it felt like they could only rely on each other. Stella, the older sister, remembers the bad times a little more clearly than Ellie, and as they get older and their parents aim for a more normal and stable life, it's Stella who reacts by turning inside herself and becoming harder and more focused while Ellie is more social. They both get into cross country running, although Stella's better and has a good chance at getting a college scholarship.

Until she doesn't. An incident involving another cross country runner results in Stella losing her chance at the scholarship and gaining a reputation for being violent and angry. Ellie and Stella begin to grow apart. Stella starts to view Ellie as competition, while Ellie's still struggling to get out of Stella's shadow.

Mila Keene, a new girl at their school, is a cross country star who's a threat to both of their scholarship chances. Despite that, they both find themselves opening up to her in unexpected ways...and then suddenly Mila disappears, and people start talking. Did she just run away? Or did an angry and violent Stella kill her to remove some of the competition? Or is this a sign that the person who killed several female cross country runners ten years ago and was never caught is now back and killing again?

I bought this expecting a YA thriller with tension, murder, and lies. This turned out to be more of a YA mystery with a great deal of focus on sisterly bonds and the pressures and expectations teen girls face. Mila didn't disappear until almost halfway through the book, and since I was approaching this as a thriller, that felt like an eternity.

The second half of the book was much better than the first, both because I'd begun to realign my genre expectations and because the disappearance that the publisher's description had promised had finally happened. Also, Stella, in particular, became a much more sympathetic character, to the point that parts of the second half were downright excruciating. She was trying so hard to move forward, but she'd been labeled "violent Stella" and every move she made was automatically a mistake.

Although the full details of what happened to Mila and who killed her took me by surprise, there were aspects that were utterly predictable. This book's greatest strength wasn't its mystery, but rather the way it depicted Ellie and Stella's complicated relationship and the things they and the other cross country girls were going through. Whether it was true or not, they all viewed this (high school, cross country running) as their one big window of opportunity to leave their small town and the roles it forced upon them behind, and every one of them responded to the pressure in different ways. Stella and Ellie got the most attention, but several of the other girls got a bit fleshed out as well.

The toughest thing about this book was how much female rage it had simmering under the surface. Stella's was the most obvious - in the midst of all the ways others judged her, the only thing she could do was focus on her goal to win and get a college scholarship, but that caused its own problems. Ellie's rage was more hidden but felt almost as strong as Stella's. She'd had a secret relationship with another girl's boyfriend (not really a spoiler, it was revealed early on), and although they'd both made mistakes, somehow they always became more her problems than his. It got to the point where I wanted to finish the book so that I could stop feeling so angry on behalf of the Steckler girls. All that anger was exhausting.

Overall, I thought this was good, but I wish the first half had been tighter and that I hadn't gone into it with "thriller" expectations. There were aspects that could have been dropped or maybe given less attention. Also, maybe this was on purpose, but Stella and Ellie's POVs felt similar enough that I frequently got them confused - not what I expected since the publisher's description made them sound like polar opposites.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

[sennebec · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sisters Stella and Ellie are a year apart in age, but light years apart in personality, temperament and outlook. Stella is more intense, less social, and still burning over what happened at the final cross-country meet last year, coupled with being targeted by the police officer father of a boy who hurt her at another meet that resulted in him being penalized. She's back, hoping to improve her best time to a point where the scholarship once offered her and rescinded after the alleged attack at that end of the year meet. She spent her summer at a combined running and anger management camp, but now that she's back, will anyone trust her? Meanwhile, younger sister Ellie, also a good runner, has her own baggage from the summer, and is holding in quite a painful secret, one that could affect several other runners should it come out.
Meanwhile, there's the shadow of three other girls, all runners, who were found murdered with one shoelace missing years ago, followed by another girl everyone expected to be found murdered, but who ran off to escape family pressure, making subsequent searched when someone goes missing more challenging.
Enter Mila, an extremely talented runner from another state who moved here with her mom after her alcoholic/drug addicted father tore up their home. At first, Stella and Ellie see Mila as a dangerous rival, but then, just as both start warming up to her, she goes missing. Is her disappearance tied to the long ago murders, or is something more sinister and recent happening? Read the book to find out. The author does a great job of blending the dynamics of all the players, their parents, the old murders and red herrings in a way that not only keeps you turning pages, but utter a surprised aah at the end.