📚 Review: Too Perfect to Die

Genre: YA Thriller

Publishing date: July 28, 2026

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Synopsis:

“Bring It On”, but with murder, this heart-pounding YA thriller follows Jonty, a star cheerleader forced to track down a killer and achieve her dream—before it’s too late.

With competition this fierce, bodies are bound to hit the mat…

All Jonty has ever wanted is to lead her cheerleading team, The Exalted Ones, to win a NCA championship. Cheer is not just a sport, it’s her legacy. Her mother cheered for T.E.O. before she died, and Jonty would do anything to snatch the crown and honor her mother’s memory. This year she has a real shot, finally beating her rival Tommie and becoming the team captain.

But Jonty’s perfect season is shattered when Tommie shows up dead on the first day of practice. Now the team is down a flyer and everyone is convinced that Jonty killed her. Everyone except Adam, her co-captain, who was with her the night that Tommie died.

As the season progresses, girls keep dropping like flies, and one thing becomes Someone is sabotaging The Exalted Ones, and they’re willing to commit murder to get their way. But with the police still convinced it’s her, will Jonty be able to save herself, her team, and her perfect season?

#TooPerfecttoDie #TopplingStacksTours #JulianaGoodman

@topplingstackstours & @jeweliana

4,5 Really exciting story and satisfying end. A Bring it On school competition taken seriously with murder. It's quite cenimatic, the author introduces the main character very well seting her moral compass, passion for leadership and strong sense of protection of her friends and teammates, then puts her keychain on the murder scene and from here it's a battle of trying to get the championship, be perfect, obcession with cheerleading and trying to find out who really murdered her teammate, because the police is not interested in investigating only going with the obvious clues. Others get hurt on the way, and when all is about to crumble like their perfect pyramids, the main character takes all into her hands. Exciting and hard to stop after the 60% mark, it does have a slow middle, but then it's worth it. Interesting points from this story that are relatable to school competitions (doesn't have to be just cheerleading) and can be applied to any kind of sport or club. The fact that the kids have to devote their teenage years to the sport or activity making the teens miss a lot of opportunities or just the joys of growing up. I wish there were a balance in real life.

Juliana Goodman was born and raised in Blue Island, Illinois and earned her MFA from Purdue University. She has received several awards and scholarships for her writing and was a fellow with the Tulsa Artist Fellowship for four years. Her debut YA novel, The Black Girls Left Standing is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection and a 2023 Edgar Award Nominee. In her free time, she enjoys watching horror films, reading the latest young adult novels and hanging out with her poodle, Darcy and her kitten, Jack-Jack.

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