Rest in Peaches
Alex Brown
Publisher
Published October 15, 2024
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About Rest in Peaches
Quinn Marcelo wouldn’t necessarily win the award for Most Popular Person at her school, but unbeknownst to her peers, Quinn entertains them at every football, basketball, and baseball game―as Peaches the Parrot, her high school’s God-like mascot.
When someone sabotages the legendary Peaches costume at the Homecoming Game, Quinn’s left unmasked and humiliated. After all, Peaches’ identity was a closely guarded secret and a point of pride for nearly everyone at Olivia Newton-John High. As if that wasn’t enough, Little Peaches, a new, real parrot that the PTA got to enhance the Peaches Experience, is kidnapped right after Quinn’s unmasking.
Determined to uncover the culprit, Quinn publicly unravels the lives of everyone in her path―including Tessa Banks, the most popular girl in school―in a no-holds-barred conspiracy-fueled investigation. But when a killer starts going after the people implicated in Quinn’s mascot disaster, she must race to uncover the truth behind her feathery faux-pas―before the truth kills her, too.
My Review
This was a fun book. It’s got the feel of a slasher but somehow also manages to be really funny, too. The town’s obsession with Peaches, the mascot, alternates between being sweet and kind of hilarious. People bring their babies to the mascot to be kissed, etc. It’s cute.
Right from the get-go, we know that Quinn is into Tessa, but she thinks Tessa can’t stand her. The girls form an unlikely alliance after the Peaches’ costume is destroyed and Little Peaches (an actual parrot) is kidnapped. That alliance evolves really nicely throughout the story and leads to some interesting discoveries.
It was a pretty wild ride from start to finish and a fun celebration of the joy that a mascot brings to audiences.
Content Notes
Recommended for Ages 14 up.
Representation
Quinn and Tessa are Filipino Americans. Tessa identifies as pansexual. Quinn identifies as a lesbian.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Some F-bombs and swearing.
Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between two girls. References to an affair.
Spiritual Content
None.
Violent Content
Situations of peril. A murderer stabs more than one character. A body falls from a roof in front of a crowd of people.
Drug Content
Teens drink alcohol at a party. (The main characters don’t.)
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I love this premise way too much—sports mascots really can take command of a room, or the whole Internet (see: Gritty), so this is honestly believable! I also think I’d enjoy a book where the stakes aren’t quite life-or-death, but are more parrot-kidnapping levels of stressful. Thank you so much for the thoughtful review, Kasey, and take care!
Haha! yes, exactly. Thanks, you too!