The story is suspenseful, with excellent pacing, self-aware humor, and a twist that Hartinger pulls off as well as the best...
Anyone who’s ever watched a horror movie knows: don’t go into the woods.
Rob adores his boyfriend, Liam, but is having trouble getting along with Liam’s best friend, party-girl Mia, and her handsome, troubled boyfriend, Galen. Rob makes some unwise decisions to get along, but the most dangerous is going with them to a remote cabin on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Hartinger gleefully piles up the horror-movie clichés. Along the way, they encounter a menacing old woman carrying a crossbow, and she’s far from happy to see Mia. After the drive along muddy back roads, Mia realizes the woman is angry that her family has sold land to clear-cutters, ruining property values. The teens make the best of it with skinny-dipping, drinking, and a game of “Three Truths and a Lie.” Mia reveals a disturbing secret, which she says is a lie, but Rob is unsettled. Then the outhouse is knocked over and their gas tank punctured, all after their satellite phone has disappeared. It’s not long before the paranoia spirals until they all suspect one another, and not everyone makes it out alive. Though the cast is not particularly diverse racially (Galen’s “golden-brown” skin notwithstanding, there’s no solid indication that these teens are anything but white), placing a couple of gay boys at the center of a psychological thriller is a refreshing spin on a very old trope.
The story is suspenseful, with excellent pacing, self-aware humor, and a twist that Hartinger pulls off as well as the best slasher films. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-4960-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
