Medema’s young adult mystery, Message Not Found, portrays the emotional toll of a death that needed a ton of pop rocks and Bob Ross to heal.
That eyeless smile… I was reading the last page in the book of her life and I didn’t even know it.” – Message Not Found
I loved this book. Medema explores grief so accurately and writes so beautifully that the idiocy of teen romance never falls flat even when Bailey got too close to Cade and I really wanted her to have been the one thrown off the mountain. The book is relatively slow going, but I think that suits the healing one does after a death. However, Message Not Found is never bland. The slowness is only ever truly slow if the mystery aspects are of little interest.
In the middle of an Alaskan winter, Vanessa, the perfect book girl, swerves off a mountain pass road and falls to her death, leaving behind her best friend, Bailey, and her boyfriend, Mason. Late in the night, after the Champagne wore off, Vanessa leaves Bailey’s house to go partying with Mason. A mysterious text has Vanessa panicking, and Bailey is left with a thousand questions unanswered when Vanessa dies far from her house, a place where she had no business being. As everyone around her jumps on the bandwagon of grief, Bailey wonders what could have been so important it cost her best friend’s life? Jackie-mom has a software AI that Bailey steals and then steals phones, anything that might hold a piece of Vanessa, and uploads all of Vanessa’s digital footprint to the AI. As the bot, called V, is given more information, it paints a startling picture that leaves Bailey wondering. As she heals, reconnects with her ex-boyfriend, Cade, and grows closer and closer with Mason, she discovers the untold truths of Vanessa’s life, while navigating college applications.
I would recommend this book to everyone who likes Y/A mystery or needs grief counseling.