Paradise Coast / Suzanne Young / Book Review

PARADISE COAST

Noa and her friends are barely keeping it together. With the wealthy Collective bearing down on her small seaside community, every day another local business is edged out, their properties scooped up by rich developers. But Noa's always lived here, and she's not giving up her family's surf shack without a fight.

When a hurricane unearths the ruins of an old luxury hotel in the Everglades, Noa knows this is her chance to get even with the Collective. This old hotel has been abandoned for years, and for good reason. A young socialite died there. A local was blamed for her death, and that set off the age-old animosity between the Collective and the locals like Noa. And Noa's pretty sure that the young man they blamed was framed. She just doesn't have the proof. Until now.

But trudging through the Everglades is dangerous. Especially when there are interested parties who don't want old secrets unburied. With the Collective at her back and dangerous secrets within reach, Noa and her friends will have to work fast if they want the truth to come to life... and if they want to survive in the process.

THOUGHTS

This book started so strong! It has great atmosphere. It leaves just the rights crumbs and clues to really string you along. And I guess the conclusion was fine enough, but it just didn't come together in a way that wowed me. Which was disappointing, with such a strong start.

PROS

Atmospheric	This whole book, from the very beginning, really grabs you and drags you right into its soggy setting. It's swampy. It's muggy. The wind-lashed docks, the murky flood lands, and the rotting wreckage of an old, half-submerged hotel: what isn't to love? You can really feel like you're in the Florida humidity right alongside these characters, and I love that.
Stakes	Apart from the atmosphere really pulling you in, Suzanne Young sets up immediate stakes between the locals (the "Chasers") and the wealthy Collective bearing down on them. It's us-vs.-them. It's tense. It's eyes watching from on high (literally, since the beach resort is up above looking down at the surf shack on the beach). It's palpable animosity and characters you love to hate. It's just good.
Beach Days	So many beachy books are romances, and I'm not complaining. But it is so fun to get a book that gives definite beach-read vibes without romance being its primary objective. Don't get me wrong. We do get a romantic subplot here. But it's much more a thriller. And despite being a thriller, this book wholeheartedly embraces it's cutoff-shorts, long-days-on-the-water, chilling-at-the-beach vibes. And that's so much fun.

CONS

As much as the setup here was great, I don't think this book really sticks the landing. A lot of the early choices that made the book more atmospheric and fun didn't come back around to tie into the mystery all that well. And that's a shame. When you're reading a mystery, you're really out here looking for clues to put together into the final picture. And when a lot of those clues don't do anything in that final picture, that's disappointing. These little details add to the atmosphere, but they need to do more than that. They need to be justified. And here, there were a lot of things that made for an unsettling scene early on and a disappointing lack-of-resolution at the end.	Fumble
On top of the little details meaning more to atmosphere than conclusion, the whole book just ends too quickly. There's a lot of build-up. There are so many conspiracies happening, so many threads being wound throughout this book. And at the end, they all just kind of fizzle. It doesn't come together into some grand conspiracy. There are no great red herring revelations. There's a lot of letting-off-the-hook that happens, which isn't very satisfying, you know?	Wrap It Up
The romance subplot here also didn't quite feel resolved. It's a second-chance romance, and I could see it working. Except that we don't spend enough time in the book on this romance for there to be a proper arc. Spending much more time on it would have hurt the rest of the book, I think, which (despite it's lackluster conclusion) does have a rather satisfying plot arc. But we really do go too quickly from absolutely-not-together to I-love-you-again, and that's unfortunate.	Romantic Quandary

Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
6/10

Fans of Jennifer Lynn Alvarez's Friends Like These will like the messy interpersonal drama of this seaside thriller. Those who liked the twists and turns of e. lockhart's We Were Liars will love unpacking the generational angst of this us-versus-them murder mystery.

Details Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers Date: February 24, 2026 Series: N/A Add to Goodreads Buy it HERE

Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.