STARRED Book Review: Dragonfly Down

Reviewed by Joelene Pynnonen

A psychological thriller where a final summer in paradise turns into a nightmare

To Laurel Greenleaf, Sutton Island is paradise. The one place she and her family can go where they are not hounded by the press or their ruthless enemies. The place that every summer of her life, she has been able to be free. This summer, though, everything is changing. After this summer, her island will no longer be a retreat and her mother’s plan for her will take her away from what she’s always wanted.

Heirs to the affluent, generous Greenleaf family, Laurel and Olive have their lives mapped out for them before they are even born. More legacy than individuals, the expectation is that they will grow to take over their family’s altruistic but controversial business empire. Exuberant, creative Olive wants to avoid this legacy, forge her own path, and be her own person. Laurel, however, hides in the safety of it, letting it dictate her past, present, and future.

Any choices they have for the future vanish when the latest Greenleaf homeless youth center explodes in the middle of the night. With the building in ruins and Olive missing in the carnage, Laurel is forced to navigate her world alone for the first time in her life. This time there is no safety in staying quiet and following someone else’s plan for her. If Laurel wants to find out what happened to her sister, she will need to step out of the shadows and make a stand.

Dragonfly Down is a taut thriller that twines family drama, mystery, suspense, romance, and a couple of nifty twists to make for an unparalleled read. At heart, this is a Young Adult coming-of-age story about a girl who is too afraid of the past to embrace the future. The writing is lovely and evocative, capturing the depth of Laurel’s emotional turmoil as she tries to navigate the difficult hand she’s been dealt.

There are a lot of elements to this novel that make it work like a finely tuned device. Laurel’s entire life is set up around the premise that the empire her family has created and spends all its time nurturing is more important than anything else. More important than her personal goals, more important than her mental health, more important even than her. This notion is overwhelmingly apparent from the very first pages. As we get deeper into the novel, the reasons that Laurel has for accepting this notion begin to unfold. All of the major elements of this novel work together like cogs to move the story along. Every character, every past event, and every major decision slots into place to slowly reveal the whole picture.

It’s difficult to spend so much of a novel following a main character who does nothing but what others push or pull her to do. The payoff, in this case, is worth it. The beginning of Dragonfly Down is a slow burn but picks up some serious pace as it progresses. As we move through the story, all of Laurel’s choices begin to make a tragic kind of sense.

Dragonfly Down is a novel that deftly shows the highs and lows of being in a dysfunctional, loving family. Masters does a fantastic job of portraying a family unknowingly on the brink of implosion. A sense of impending doom hangs over the novel, creating a tense atmosphere that there is little relief from. This is a careful, skillful psychological thriller that ultimately proves the power of love.

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