Killing Britney

By Sean Olin

Ever since Britney transformed herself from freak-and-geek status to one of the most popular girls at school, her life has been touched by tragedy. First it was her mum, who drowned on a family rafting trip. Then her hockey-star boyfriend Ricky was killed in a hit-and-run. As the deaths continue to pile up, everyone fears for Britney. Sure, she's popular, blonde and fabulous. But is that enough reason for someone to want to... kill her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Release date: Dec 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781471103261

Sean Olin

Sean Olin is the author of Wicked Games, Brother/Sister, and Killing Britney. He lives in New York City but summers in a beach town that inspired the setting of the Wicked Games series.

[brittaniethekid · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Full of typical high school drama. If you're not one of the popular kids, this book is completely unrelateable and will have you rolling your eyes at every turn.
It's basically the novelization of Heathers for today's kids.

[elliepotten · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When a book calls itself a thriller, I often start reading with a dubious sense that it's probably not going to be that thrilling at all. The creation of a gripping and tense atmosphere isn't something every author can achieve - fortunately for me, Olin proves himself very adept in that area throughout his page-turner of a YA novel.

The premise is quite simple. Britney Johnson, still recovering from the death of her mother in a freak rafting accident a couple of years before, has managed to transform her life. She has fledged from ugly duckling to beautiful swan, ingratiated herself with the popular crowd, and is dating a hunky member of the school's unstoppable hockey team. But when her boyfriend Ricky is killed by a hit-and-run driver, she can't help but feel a flicker of paranoia. Was the 'accident' meant to kill her as well? As strange things start to happen around her and more people start to die, only one conclusion seems to remain: someone is out to kill Britney. But who? And will the culprit be found before it's too late?

This book is definitely not one for younger teens - the deaths are pretty gruesome and in finest thriller tradition, the book tends to prey on the mind as the reader works to figure out what's happening. That said, this is a cracker of a novel. The suspects are many and the red herrings keep piling up, leading the reader off down various tangents as the book progresses. I expected to work out the perpetrator before the end, but actually Olin kept me guessing right up to the final pages, never quite sure if my suspicions were correct. It was atmospheric, claustrophobic, tense, chilling and compulsively readable - what more could I ask for? Aside from a couple of slightly confusing leaps in narrative (which are sort-of explained by the end anyway) and a few mistakes an editor should have picked up on, this is well worth a read!

[kaybowes · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very graphic look at some nasty murders. The suspense is very high, until the end when the reader realizes that the character they thought was the target was really the perpetrator. Very scary!

[df6b_madisonh · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Britney notices that something isn't right in her life. After her mothers sudden death, and then the death of her jock boyfriend, she realizes that something is happening. Once the people around her start to die off one at a time, she tries to figure out what the true reason behind all of it is. She figures out that whoever or whatever is killing is really after her. Through secrets and lies, Britney figures out where her true background came from.