A rare YA thriller with a social conscience and real emotions.
In Vincent’s novel, a murdered 8-year-old girl’s guilt-ridden stepsister and their wrongfully accused neighbor suffer disturbing dreams.
The setting is Oklahoma City, around Halloween, during a spate of disappearances of young girls—many from marginalized neighborhoods. Lauren is a teenager in an uncomfortably blended family, fortunate to reside off-site in a dorm at a high-end, two-year high school. Despite all the chilliness in her household, Lauren adores her 8-year-old stepsister, Maya, and is tasked with watching over the girl while trick-or-treating. But Lauren gets distracted by a surprise appearance of her flighty, inconsistent boyfriend, JT, and loses sight of Maya. After a frantic neighborhood search, Gabriel finds Maya dead, violated and stuffed into a car trunk. The local police make Lauren’s gay Latine friend Gabriel their prime suspect, setting him up for an indictment. Lauren is shamed and ostracized by Maya’s side of the family, and her own guilt compounds her grief (“I hadn’t murdered her, but it was my fault it happened. How had I missed Maya running off?”). She and Gabriel suffer upsetting and oddly insistent dreams; hers are largely surreal images of molestation by a masked figure; his feature Maya fleeing from him in a manner akin to the video games they played together. The dream phantasms point out clues that the police seem determined to overlook. Is the deceased child sending messages? And how can Lauren and Gabriel make any adult authority figures believe? This material fits the brief of a YA thriller with paranormal overtones, but escapist action and supernatural ‘woo-woo’ elements are downplayed in favor of more grounded themes and realistic emotions. Vincent gives bereavement an especially vivid treatment, along with depictions of LGBTQ+ and Latine marginalization, police racism, and a general sense of how the working poor feel when the walls close in. The story is haunting, and not just in the ghostly sense.
A rare YA thriller with a social conscience and real emotions.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2025
ISBN: 9781958342299
Page Count: 276
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A powerful story of family, belonging, and identity interlaced with thriller elements.
A wary teen wonders if she should run when people come looking for her.
Lucy Smith was raised by her white father, who said little about her mother. Following his death and her stepmother’s abandonment, Lucy entered the foster care system at 14. Her stepmother revealed that Lucy’s birth mom was Native American, but her social worker urged her to keep that quiet. Battered by her time in the foster care system, it’s no wonder that 18-year-old Lucy is cautious when she’s approached by a man who says he’s an attorney who helps Native American foster kids connect with their families and communities. He introduces her to a friend who reveals to Lucy that she knows her Ojibwe maternal relatives—but a wary Lucy refuses her offer to learn more. Someone is stalking her, after all, and the FBI is investigating the bomb that went off in the diner where she worked—an event she’s sure targeted her. This stand-alone from bestseller Boulley, who’s an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, includes characters her fans will recognize from previous works. The action scenes are mediated by ruminations on the failings of the foster care system and strong portrayals of Lucy’s relationship with her father and her complicated identity. Ardent book lover Lucy is a sympathetic narrator whose strong sense of justice is coupled with a deep acceptance of others.
A powerful story of family, belonging, and identity interlaced with thriller elements. (content warning, author’s note) (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781250328533
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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