A page-turning locked-room mystery that doesn’t stick the landing.
Nine teens are trapped in a deadly game that’s overtaken by rogue AI.
Saffron and twin sister Georgia both have internships coming up: Saffron at Play a Game, a new high-tech escape room, and Georgia at the local newspaper. Even though the sisters have had a falling out, they still play the online game Sole Survivor together with a group of seven others. Saffron overhears a conversation at Play a Game in which a software engineer warns the owner that Lightman, the AI running the game, has grown too powerful. Meanwhile, Lightman, posing as a work friend of Saffron’s, uses a group chat to invite the other members of the sisters’ gaming group to Play a Game. It’s scheming for them to compete in a real-life version of Sole Survivor; the goal is “to be the last player standing when the 10-minute timer runs out.” As they begin to compete, compelling details slowly emerge, revealing that several group members have past relationships that have led to simmering tensions among them. The breakneck series of events is engrossing, and the explicit on-page gore thrillingly escalates the stakes as the players begin to die. Disappointingly, the abrupt ending fails to live up to the story’s earlier strengths. Most characters are white; unfortunately, one of the gamers—a boy who’s “brown-skinned with chaotic black hair”—is described as an “unrepentant criminal” who’s been arrested multiple times.
A page-turning locked-room mystery that doesn’t stick the landing. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781728278919
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Exhilarating, nonstop fun.
A murder on The Escape Game, a popular reality TV show, puts the next round of contestants at risk—can they all get out alive?
The previous season of the show, in which groups of teens race to get through escape rooms, ended in disaster when Sierra Angelos and her team discovered another player lying dead in a coffin—her older sister, Alicia. But the network and ruthless executive producer determine that the show will go on. Prickly, olive-skinned Sierra, whom some suspect of murder, is returning—and she’s determined to find the killer. Her new team includes math whiz Carter Kelly, who’s Black; home-schooled, white-presenting Beck Matheson, who designs his own escape rooms and is trans; and Aditya Parvesh, who’s cued South Asian, has a way with words, and was pushed into auditioning by his movie star mother. At first, Team Helsing struggles to gel, but the teens’ shared desire to prove themselves makes them a formidable powerhouse—even if they’re hiding some of their true goals from one another. As clues to the killer’s identity start appearing, the players must try to make it to the finale before someone else becomes the next victim. This thrilling whodunit moves at a page-turning pace; the occasional reveals for the main mystery are well balanced with the tighter sequences of solving the escape rooms. The narration rotates among the central cast, allowing readers to empathize with each character in turn and be privy to even more intrigue.
Exhilarating, nonstop fun. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9798217006120
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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
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