A queer psychological thriller with teeth.
Eighteen-year-old Sloan narrowly escapes a massacre at a summer camp but is left missing her memory.
Sloan expected to spend the summer before heading off to college having fun working as a counselor at Camp Money Springs, but her plans are cut brutally short when a band of men wearing carved wooden animal masks show up and slaughter everyone in the night with machetes. Only Sloan and her now-girlfriend, Cherry, survive, but Sloan can’t remember anything about how they escaped, relying only on Cherry’s version of events to fill in the gaps. As Sloan desperately tries to regain her own memories about that night and answer the myriad questions she has, her trust in Cherry begins to unravel. Sloan begins to wonder if anything she’s been told is true, if Cherry may have somehow been involved in the massacre, and if the mystery of Sloan’s own adoption 14 years earlier could be the answer to everything. Sloan’s confusion and growing uncertainty build palpable tension as events hurtle forward in a haunting and compelling manner. Sloan and Cherry’s codependent relationship rings true and feels suffocating and difficult to escape from, never quite allowing readers to develop trust in any one character. Occasionally, Sloan’s unreliability as a narrator can feel repetitive, but overall, this element adds to the frantic march toward a shocking and satisfying conclusion. Main characters read White; there is some racial diversity in secondary characters.
A queer psychological thriller with teeth. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9780593532072
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
Readers will be captivated by this twisty thriller and its uncompromising protagonist.
The mother Annabel Price thought was dead returns with a story about where she’s been—but 18-year-old Bel knows she’s lying.
Ever since Rachel Price’s unexplained disappearance 16 years ago, true-crime fans have come up with plentiful theories about what happened. Bel and her family members, who are white, cobbled together lives for themselves after a jury found Bel’s father, Charlie, not guilty of murdering his wife. Beset with medical bills for his elderly father, Charlie recently agreed to participate in a documentary about the unsolved mystery. Black British filmmaker Ramsey Lee is well into the process of interviewing the Prices when his project gets an unanticipated boost after an exhausted, disheveled Rachel staggers back into town. Rachel is eager to resume her role in the family, but the inconsistencies in her accounts raise alarms for Bel. With the help of the youngest member of the filmmaking team, Bel sets out to learn what really happened. Along the way, someone else disappears, and Bel uncovers a tangle of lies that make it impossible for her to trust people she thought she knew. When things come to a head the night of her grandfather’s 85th birthday party, Bel ends up in a race for her life. The last quarter of the novel tears along at a breakneck pace before arriving at a satisfying and unexpected conclusion.
Readers will be captivated by this twisty thriller and its uncompromising protagonist. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593374207
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense.
Everyone believes that Salil Singh killed his girlfriend, Andrea Bell, five years ago—except Pippa Fitz-Amobi.
Pip has known and liked Sal since childhood; he’d supported her when she was being bullied in middle school. For her senior capstone project, Pip researches the disappearance of former Fairview High student Andie, last seen on April 18, 2014, by her younger sister, Becca. The original investigation concluded with most of the evidence pointing to Sal, who was found dead in the woods, apparently by suicide. Andie’s body was never recovered, and Sal was assumed by most to be guilty of abduction and murder. Unable to ignore the gaps in the case, Pip sets out to prove Sal’s innocence, beginning with interviewing his younger brother, Ravi. With his help, Pip digs deeper, unveiling unsavory facts about Andie and the real reason Sal’s friends couldn’t provide him with an alibi. But someone is watching, and Pip may be in more danger than she realizes. Pip’s sleuthing is both impressive and accessible. Online articles about the case and interview transcripts are provided throughout, and Pip’s capstone logs offer insights into her thought processes as new evidence and suspects arise. Jackson’s debut is well-executed and surprises readers with a connective web of interesting characters and motives. Pip and Andie are white, and Sal is of Indian descent.
A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-9636-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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