Fatality

How much is your family worth? How far would you go to save them? Steal a police car? Jeopardize your own life? That’s what Rose did in Fatality, written by Caroline B. Cooney. It’s a story of a girl named Rose Lymond involved in a murder case. The story takes place in the springtime in a modern-day city and around a cottage in the countryside. It is a suspenseful novel of murder, love, friendship, and secrets. This story revolves around 15-year-old Rose Lymond, an intelligent high-school student, who’s suspected of witnessing a murder while visiting her friend’s cottage a few years ago.

There were several highlights in the novel. In the beginning, Rose stole a police car to destroy her diary which contained events and secrets. Everyone was shocked that smart, logical, predictable Rose did such a troublesome thing, and it also made the police determined that Rose knew things she wasn’t telling them. Then, someone tried to kill Rose, and the police suspected of the murderer, but Rose dismissed the matter with a shrug. Then there was the high climax. Rose was in her brother’s friend Verne’s car, and she finally realized that Verne was the killer, yet she couldn’t escape. The other highlight was at the end, when Rose told her father the secret that she kept in her diary that could completely destroy her family.

As you’ve read earlier, the story revolves around Rose Lymond, so she is the main character. The police and detective questioned Rose over and over about the murder, yet she insisted that she never saw anything. The police didn’t buy her story, so they started monitoring her. At last, they finally realized Rose’s reasons to keep her secret. Secondary characters include Rose’s family, who went through a tough time during the investigation of the murder case since it was shocking the way Rose refused to cooperate; the police and detective, who investigated the case and solved it at last; the murderer, Verne, also Rose’s brother’s friend; and Angelica Lofft, Rose’s friend that rescued her from the murderer; yet also the daughter of the suspected murderer, Mr.Lofft.

There were three main conflicts in this story. One was that the police needed to solve the murder case, yet they had no lead other than Mr.Lofft, and Rose was the only witness, yet she wouldn’t tell them anything and denied that she saw anything at all. Another conflict was how Rose was trying to protect and save her family by not telling them the secret she wrote in her diary and later destroyed. The last one was how someone (the police suspected the murderer) was trying to kill Rose. As you can see, there’s a lot of suspense