A twisty whodunit filled with unreliable narrators.
In this closed-circle thriller, a group of teens become stranded on a Colorado mountain during a snowstorm while a killer picks them off.
After all their original preferences for the Senior Excursion trips offered by moneyed Warner Prep fall through, a group with a history of bad blood find themselves stuck in a remote cabin with their hard-nosed guidance counselor, Ms. Silva, for an enforced technology-free weekend. The students smuggle in illicit booze, and the very first night, they drug Ms. Silva with Ambien so they can party. By the following morning, someone is dead. A volley of first-person narration alternates among the perspectives of Piper, Willa, and Delaney; third-person interludes focus on each of the other teens—Eden, Camille, Liam, Wyatt, and Declan. The multiple voices make for an intricate setup. Donne also switches the narrative back and forth in time between the present and another night of alcohol- and drug-induced chaos three years earlier—one that resulted in tragedy—further contributing to an unsettled feeling. Many in the large cast of lightly developed characters are image focused, self-involved, and not particularly likable, and this element works in favor of this plot-driven thriller. Readers will be kept guessing until the end about which of the duplicitous, secretive people in question may be the murderer. Most cast members present white, Liam is cued as having some East Asian ancestry, and Piper is asexual.
A twisty whodunit filled with unreliable narrators. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780593651063
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
A lukewarm thriller.
In England, a group of teenagers tries to stay alive when a long weekend in an abandoned castle goes wrong.
When Bessie and her friends decide to join a party their classmate Allegra is throwing in her family’s abandoned castle before it’s converted into apartments, they think the biggest issues they’ll face are making it there before a big storm hits and keeping their plans secret from their parents and teachers. Once they arrive at the castle, however, Bessie and best friend Kashvi discover menacing graffiti and evidence that someone has been staying in the cellar. They also learn that protestors from the nearby village are angry about the development plans for the castle—one of them even argues that it would be better to burn it down. A handful of classmates manage to get there before the storm gets too severe. But when the teens wake up the next day to discover one of their own dead, and the storm makes it impossible for them to leave, they quickly realize that they’re in danger. But is the killer one of the members of the Facebook protestors’ group…or one of their own? Despite the book’s intriguing setup, the prose is dominated by repetitive conversations that convey little substance. Still, readers may still find themselves propelled forward by a need to discover the identity of the murderer. The central cast is racially diverse.
A lukewarm thriller. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593704080
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
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