An unconvincing attempt at a holiday-themed thriller.
A serial killer terrorizes a group of university friends in the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day.
White university student Lylah has complicated feelings about Valentine’s Day, as it marks the day her parents died two years prior. Though she has adjusted to her new life at school, where she lives with five friends and housemates, old anxieties arise when her housemates begin receiving mysterious, threatening notes a few weeks before Valentine’s Day. What is initially dismissed as a sick holiday prank becomes deadly serious when one of them is discovered brutally murdered on campus. The police become involved, providing rather ineffective security to the group of friends as they are stalked and hunted around town by an unknown murderer. Lylah and her friends jump to a hasty assumption about the killer’s identity early on and begin referring to the killer by the name of a former friend whom they suspect, improbably convinced that it must be him, excluding any other possibilities in the process. Classic slasher tropes are invoked frequently and repetitively, to highly implausible effect. The result of these unlikely plot developments, combined with flimsy dialogue and weak characterization, requires so much suspension of disbelief that it renders the story more comical than horrifying.
An unconvincing attempt at a holiday-themed thriller. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4926-5432-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
This gripping page-turner will keep readers guessing until the final twist.
Seventeen-year-old Hunter Gifford has no memories of the car accident he was in the night of the homecoming dance with Chloe Summers, his now-missing girlfriend.
In the small southern Kentucky city of Bentley, comments on social media condemn Hunter as responsible for Chloe’s disappearance. When he attends the community vigil for her, Chloe’s mother publicly accuses Hunter of obstructing the investigation. Hunter’s own mom died when he was 15 and his sister, Olivia, was 12. Their dad has awkwardly attempted to pull his weight as a solo parent, and Hunter has stepped in and nurtured Livvy. Small but mighty Livvy is an ardent defender of her brother and is fiercely in love with her girlfriend, Gabriela. To make things worse, childhood friend Daniel informs Hunter that he’s making a true-crime documentary about Chloe. Hunter is upset, especially since it makes him look like a prime suspect, and a subsequent dramatic event draws more attention to the video. Hunter and Chloe met in creative writing club, and he knew she kept a journal—but it’s missing. Enter the sleuthing team of Hunter, Livvy, and Gabriela, who hatch a plan to find it. The dynamics between Hunter and Livvy and Livvy and Gabriela are endearing and will charm readers, who will root for them to solve the well-executed mystery. Main characters default to White; Gabriela is Mexican American.
This gripping page-turner will keep readers guessing until the final twist. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72825-420-3
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
A well-crafted slow-burn romance with plenty of depth.
An agender 16-year-old from the Bay Area is torn between love and their Cupid duties.
Jude recently made the biggest mistake of their Cupid career: They fell in love with a human boy. Worse, they kissed him. Broken-hearted Jude, who is white and trans, was placed on probation, and they are determined not to make the same mistake twice: Kiss a human again, and they’ll lose their powers and their memories of ever having been a Cupid. When Jude’s latest assignment goes off the rails, senior Cupids consider imposing more consequences but instead give them a challenging test as a second chance. Their assignment: restore the broken relationship between a girl named Alice Tran and a trans boy called Huy Trinh, who are both Vietnamese American. Posing as regular high school student Jude Ricci, befriending the pair, and then engineering a reconciliation should be child’s play. At first, everything seems to be going smoothly, but the situation gets hairy when Jude grows closer to Huy, raising the stakes with both their memories now on the line. Jude and Huy’s budding romance is both tender and heartbreaking, given that readers are constantly aware of potential tragedy looming over every sweet moment. The romantic tension between the two will move even the most stonehearted readers. A deep look at the expectations of family and society and how they can negatively affect teenagers’ lives fills out the narrative.
A well-crafted slow-burn romance with plenty of depth. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781338777697
Page Count: 320
Publisher: PUSH/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
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