I’m currently on another rewatch of one of my favorite tv shows ever; Veronica Mars. The new season is starting in about a month and I have never been more ready!! But this also reminded me that I still hadn’t read the Veronica Mars books yet. And that needed to be fixed asap. So this week I read the first book. It takes places a little bit after the movie but there won’t be any spoilers!

Ten years after graduating from high school in Neptune, California, Veronica Mars is back in the land of sun, sand, crime, and corruption. She’s traded in her law degree for her old private investigating license, struggling to keep Mars Investigations afloat on the scant cash earned by catching cheating spouses until she can score her first big case.

Now it’s spring break, and college students descend on Neptune, transforming the beaches and boardwalks into a frenzied, week-long rave. When a girl disappears from a party, Veronica is called in to investigate. But this is not a simple missing person’s case. The house the girl vanished from belongs to a man with serious criminal ties, and soon Veronica is plunged into a dangerous underworld of drugs and organized crime. And when a major break in the investigation has a shocking connection to Veronica’s past, the case hits closer to home than she ever imagined.

I adore the Veronica Mars tv show and movie so so much, so you might be able to imagine that I was more than a little scared to start this book. It has been a while since I last saw the movie so the details were a little fuzzy. Luckily we are reminded of some things that happened during the movie, and during the show for that matter. This made it very easy for me to jump into the story. But I do think that it might be somewhat confusing or even annoying for readers that didn’t see the show. I wouldn’t recommend reading these books if you haven’t first watched the show and movie!

There weren’t many people in this world who would let you be vulnerable and still believe you were strong.

The plot of the book was a regular old mystery, just like you would expect from a Veronica Mars book. I really enjoyed trying to figure out what was going on. And there was a lot! This book was full of twists and turns and I didn’t see everything coming. I love that in a mystery novel. Unfortunately part of the mystery was solved but not really explained if that makes sense. We get the who and the where, but not the why, and I personally think the why is often the most interesting thing. The other part of the mystery was explained very satisfying and that was one of my favorite parts of the book.

The hazard of living in a place where you had so much history–so much pain and so much rage and so much love–was that every item could turn on you in a flash.

If I’m being very critical, this probably wasn’t the best mystery novel out there. But if you’re a big Marshmallow like me, you might enjoy this after all. This book is full of nostalgia and has an interesting mystery with a partly satisfactory ending. I for one will for sure be reading the next book!

Are you a Marshmallow like me? And have you read the books yet? I’ve gone down the Veronica Mars rabbit hole and probably won’t come back out until the new season premieres haha. Come talk VM with me in the comments!