PRIMAL ANIMALS

At an elite summer camp, a girl faces phobias and discovers dark family secrets.

Sixteen-year-old Arlee Gold did not do well in her first two years of high school, so her high-achieving mother sends her to Camp Rockaway, where she herself made crucial upper-class connections in her own youth. Arlee is most concerned about insects, to which she has an intense aversion, but the rich, judgmental campers intimidate her too. There’s a creepy vibe that only gets stronger as the summer goes on; engaging, dynamic prose establishes Arlee as a strong-willed narrator who is also deeply haunted. Hints of Arlee’s troubled past—“the thing that called me to the woods years ago”—and the camp’s horrific present—“they’re watching you, Arlee”—never offer enough detail to serve as supplementary clues. Low-level suspense gives way to clear horror about two-thirds of the way through the story, when a gruesome crime scene pulls Arlee away from a burgeoning romance with another girl and into a silent battle with the camp’s ominous secret society. While a chilling revelation about Arlee’s mother proves sufficiently terrifying, the story’s resolution doesn’t provide satisfying enough closure for either Arlee’s emotional journey or the many sinister hints scattered throughout the narrative. Physical descriptions cue Arlee and most of the cast members as defaulting to White.

Possesses great promise but stops short of brilliant.