A chilling way to turn screen time into scream time.
Teens discover a computer game said to be deadly.
When Hedda’s mother needs to visit a sick friend, Hedda gets to leave the technology-free desert ranch she’s been sequestered at since she was 6 to stay with her tech-developer father in California. Based on Hedda’s neurological episodes which prompted the desert move, her mother’s convinced that “the Glare,” Hedda’s childhood nickname for technology, is addictive and dangerous. Plagued by strange nightmares and some missing memories, Hedda wants to go to a real school and be a regular teen, and so she takes advantage of the temporary move to give technology another try. But when she finds a mysterious message written by her child-self, she ends up on the Dark Web encountering a game called the Glare. By the time she learns the creepypasta viral legend about it (if you die 13 times on the unbeatable 13th level, you die for real), it’s already too late—and worse, it’s gotten out to her fledgling circle of friends. The psychological manipulations mirror augmented reality games, and the theories behind the game are built on too-real conditioning techniques used by ads, games, and social media. The teens struggle to tell what’s real, what can hurt (or kill) them, and if they can escape. The expertly balanced reality-blurring storyline and strategic technology depictions seed psychological scares that will linger long after reading. Side characters’ names signal ethnic diversity.
A chilling way to turn screen time into scream time. (Horror/science fiction. 12-adult)Pub Date: July 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-368-00565-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion/LBYR
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A fresh, generous, wide-ranging compendium of frights.
Spooky stories covering multiple subgenres, plus some added attractions.
Few horrific tropes or creepy conventions are overlooked in Duplessie’s debut. The stories are arranged into six sections: “Short Frights for Dark Nights,” “Anatomical Anomalies,” “Five Minutes in the Future,” “Be Careful Who You Trust,” “The Dark Web,” and “The Unearthly, the Ghoulish, and the Downright Monstrous.” Some of the best entries are grounded in familiar setups, but Duplessie is careful to avoid repetition. The stories’ relatively short lengths and the crisp, direct writing style make this volume inviting for even reluctant readers, but it doesn’t shy away from the truly terrifying and grotesque. That said, the grisliest events are often described with poetic elegance rather than gratuitous violence: “His face collapsed like an empty paper bag.” The stories frequently conclude with the suggestion of frights to come rather than graphic depictions. One ends with an overly curious girl getting sealed up in a brick wall. Another foreshadows the murderous power of a cellphone. Highlights include the eerie “The Reaping,” in which the prick of a rose’s thorn triggers a spate of bloodlust, and “Chamber of Horrors,” which features a murderous iron maiden. Each story ends with a bonus in the form of a QR code and instructions to “scan the code for a scare”—if readers dare. Short, eerie poems are peppered throughout; there are even a handful of riddles. Most characters read white; names cue some ethnic diversity.
A fresh, generous, wide-ranging compendium of frights. (Horror. 13-18)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780063266483
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
A rare second volume that surpasses the first, with, happily, more intrigue and passion still to come.
A heady blend of courtly double-crossing, Faerie lore, and toxic attraction swirls together in the sequel to The Cruel Prince (2018).
Five months after engineering a coup, human teen Jude is starting to feel the strain of secretly controlling King Cardan and running his Faerie kingdom. Jude’s self-loathing and anger at the traumatic events of her childhood (her Faerie “dad” killed her parents, and Faerie is not a particularly easy place even for the best-adjusted human) drive her ambition, which is tempered by her desire to make the world she loves and hates a little fairer. Much of the story revolves around plotting (the Queen of the Undersea wants the throne; Jude’s Faerie father wants power; Jude’s twin, Taryn, wants her Faerie betrothed by her side), but the underlying tension—sexual and political—between Jude and Cardan also takes some unexpected twists. Black’s writing is both contemporary and classic; her world is, at this point, intensely well-realized, so that some plot twists seem almost inevitable. Faerie is a strange place where immortal, multihued, multiformed denizens can’t lie but can twist everything; Jude—who can lie—is an outlier, and her first-person, present-tense narration reveals more than she would choose. With curly dark brown hair, Jude and Taryn are never identified by race in human terms.
A rare second volume that surpasses the first, with, happily, more intrigue and passion still to come. (map) (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-31035-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
© Copyright 2025 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.
