YA Thriller/Horror

Review: The Haunted by Danielle Vega

~ megs14malloy

The Haunted (The Haunted, #1)The Haunted by Danielle Vega
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

**3.5-stars rounded up **

Hendricks and her family move to Drearford to escape a dark chapter in her young life.

Her parents purchase a dilapidated old house to renovate and for her part, Hendricks is hoping to lay low and heal her scarred heart.

Unfortunately, Steel House, their new home, has other things in mind.

Unbeknownst to them, they have inadvertently moved into the most infamous house in Drearford, with a frighteningly violent history.

While at school, Hendricks is quickly accepted into the popular crowd, even catching the eye of a local heartthrob, at home she is harassed and terrified.

It doesn’t take long for the house, and the spirits trapped there, to express their deep-seeded need for vengeance.

This is a classic haunted house story, with a well-executed Teen Scream element.

I enjoyed Hendricks as a character, as well as her new friends. They were all fun to get to know, especially Eddie, but we’ll get to him later.

I was pleasantly surprised, and impressed, by the imagery of the horror elements. I was seeing everything Hendricks was seeing and I’ll tell you, some of it really creeped me out.

Even though it seems initially that the major site of the paranormal activity is located in the cellar, eventually it permeates through the entire house. Nowhere Hendricks goes is safe. I was genuinely afraid along with her.

Hendricks knows she has to get to the bottom of the haunting, or else risk the lives of everyone in her family.

Along with her brooding neighbor, Eddie, who has his own dark ties to Steel House, the two band together to try to exorcise it of its demons.

It all builds up to an epic showdown that kept me glued to the pages.

There were a couple of details towards the end that I wish hadn’t been included. They sort of pushed it pass the line of solid paranormal into eyeroll territory.

With this being said, however, I did enjoy this enough that as soon as I finished it, I ordered the second book.

I need to know what happens to Hendricks next. I want so much more time with her character. Well played, Danielle Vega. Well played.

Original:

Synopsis:
YA’s answer to Stephen King…

That’s a fairly lofty statement, but I’ll bite.
Plus, my 80s-loving heart feels the vibe of this cover.

Let’s do this.

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Review: Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power

~ megs14malloy

Burn Our Bodies DownBurn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

**3.5-stars rounded up**

I feel like one of the few people left in the YA book world who hasn’t read Wilder Girls.

I own it, of course. Have you seen the cover!? I have added it to many TBRs, but have yet to pick it up.

When I received an early copy of Rory Power’s sophomore novel, Burn Our Bodies Down, I was shocked and excited.

I couldn’t wait to pick it up and then, I just didn’t. Long story short, I am a horrible reviewer, but you read my reviews, you probably know that.

I finally decided to give this one a shot over my week-long Christmas vacation. I am kicking myself now because I really enjoyed this. Why didn’t I read it months ago!?

Burn Our Bodies Down is equal parts weird, disturbing, suspenseful and heartbreaking. Some of my favorite characteristics to find in a book.

The story follows teen, Margot, who has lived with just her mother her entire life. She knows of no other family and any time she presses her mother for info about their past, or where she came from, her mother loses it.

Her mom is extremely unstable and their relationship is quite contentious. Margot has never felt wanted, or loved, and lives her life walking on eggshells.

Just as Margot gets to the end of her rope, she discovers a clue. The only hint she has ever had in regards to her mother’s early life.

It’s a photograph, tucked into a family bible, signed by who she believes is her grandmother. In addition to a phone number, the photo also indicates a town name: Phalene.

She’s shocked. Phalene isn’t even that far away. She decides to go there, find her grandmother and finally get some answers.

Arriving in town, Margot meets a couple of local teens she tries to needle information out of. While she is with them, they receive news of a fire on her grandmother’s farm.

The kids rush to check out the scene and end up finding the fields in flames and a body.

Upon further inspection, they discover the body is a girl, about their age and she looks exactly like Margot.

Thus begins the head-scratching drama that surrounds Margot’s family’s farm.

I can’t even begin to tell you how confused and intrigued I was by what was going on in Phalene.

She meets her Grandmother, Vera, and stays with her, but continues to be brushed off when she tries to get definitive answers about her mother’s childhood, or where she came from.

Margot learns many things in her first few days in Phalene, including the existence of family members she never knew about, including her mother’s twin sister, Katherine. During her investigation, she also ends up making a couple of friends along the way.

There is a dark feeling of unease that spans this entire novel.

You know, deep in your heart, that something is very wrong in Phalene and Margot’s family is at the heart of it, but what!?

I would classify this as an Ecological Horror Novel, a genre I have been enjoying quite a bit lately.

I personally loved Power’s writing style, although I did think some of Margot’s musings eventually bordered on repetitive. With this being said, Power’s ability to write body horror is top-notch; that cannot be denied.

I would recommend this one to Horror readers, particularly if you read and enjoyed Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s, Mexian Gothic. I would say the two stories channel a lot of similar vibes.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Delacorte Press, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review. I appreciate the opportunity to provide my opinion and will definitely be picking up Wilder Girls now!

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Review: I Am Still Alive by Kate Alice Marshall

~ megs14malloy

I Am Still AliveI Am Still Alive by Kate Alice Marshall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

**4.5-stars**

Alternating between After and Before sections, I Am Still Alive follows teenager, Jess, who has moved to Canada to live with her estranged, off-the-grid, father.

Battered, bruised and grieving, Jess has recently survived a car crash in which her mother was killed.

Like losing your mom isn’t hard enough. Like losing the strength in your own body isn’t hard enough. Now Jess has to leave the only life she has ever known behind and move to the wilderness to live with a virtual stranger.

Y’all, you can tell from the very start that this story is going to take you places. Those places aren’t going to be great, but what is great is the writing, pacing and format of this YA Survival Thriller.

After a shocking event, which is revealed slowly over the course of the story, Jess ends up alone.

The cabin where she had been living burned to the ground, leaving her, her dog Bo and a few meager supplies to try to survive on their own.

Jess is still in a lot of pain from her accident. Her muscles have atrophied in one leg fairly severely; as in, she was in therapy training herself to walk again prior to moving to the wilderness.

Because of this, even small tasks are literally exhausting for her. Her physical limitations present mental challenges as well. She truly must learn to listen to her body in order to push through.

This is a true survival story. Marshall does not shy away from pain, hunger, thirst, desperation and anguish. It is all on page and at times is agonizing to read.

There’s also some fairly painful issues involving family, guilt and grief. All handled extraordinarily well.

Reminiscent of Hatchet, the first survival story I ever loved, I really enjoyed reading this. I really enjoyed reading it, even though it tore my heart out and I legit cried like a baby at the end.

This is not a comfortable read, but it’s definitely a challenging, thought-provoking, adventurous read; not for the faint of heart.

I will absolutely be reading more from this author!

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Review: Even If We Break by Marieke Nijkamp

~ megs14malloy

Even If We BreakEven If We Break by Marieke Nijkamp
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I don’t even know what to say. This book was a huge disappointment for me.

I knew going in, the reviews were not the greatest. Regardless of the super interesting synopsis, it seemed a lot of readers were not enjoying it.

Frequently, I find myself in the minority opinion on polarizing books, however, so I still wanted to give it a shot.

I love slightly cheesy, teen slashers, particularly with weekend getaways or gaming elements. This book sounded like it would be a great fit for my tastes.

We follow five friends, who I believe are in high school, who head off to a cabin in the Arizona mountains for a weekend getaway playing a RPG they created.

There are costumes, a murder mystery to solve and things go south fairly quickly. Before you know it, we have a real life murder mystery on our hands.

I would surmise that incorporating a high fantasy RPG into a narrative story would be a complicated task, and I think I’m right, because I found it confusing AF.

I was still sort of intrigued, but then it went off the rails.

The big baddie was super obvious, so no real suspense there and then the drama to reach the conclusion was ridiculous. I’m sorry, but it was.

There was also a lot of hard-hitting contemporary topics sprinkled throughout that seemed oddly out of place. It made the overall intent of this novel confusing.

There were some diverse characters in here, which I love to see, but in a way, it felt overplayed; like it was just an effort to get them in there for that sake alone.

I don’t know, it didn’t come off as genuine? Perhaps because they were portrayed so one dimensionally.

This is just my opinion, of course, and I would love to see OwnVoices reviews on this story.

If you are unaware, this novel features trans-rep, nonbinary-rep and disability-rep. I also would really like to see reviews from individuals who actually participate in RPG; I would love to hear people’s opinions on how that was represented here.

Without belaboring the point, I didn’t like this. If you pick it up and enjoy it, or even love it, I am so happy you had that experience with it.

Sadly, it just wasn’t the right fit for me. On to the next!

Original:

1. A Weekend Getaway.
2. A Game.
3. Deadly Secrets.

I will
never
 skip a book with these buzzwords.

Sign me up!

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Review: Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards

~ megs14malloy

Five Total StrangersFive Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

**3.5-stars rounded up**

Mira lives in California, while her mother lives in Pittsburgh. It’s Christmas and Mira wants nothing more than to be over on the other Coast with her Mom.

Last year, her Aunt, her Mom’s sister and closest friend, passed away. They both took it hard, but her Mom really struggled.

Mira is concerned about her mother’s mental health as she tries to cope with that loss around the holiday.

So, when her connecting flight from New York to Pittsburgh gets canceled due to inclement weather, Mira needs to find another way to get home to her.

Luckily, the girl she was sitting next to on the plane, Harper, is renting a car, along with three of her college friends, Brecken, Josh and Kayla.

There is room and they are heading in the same direction, so Harper offers Mira a ride. It would sure beat any of the other options, like sleeping at the airport.

Mira accepts, but she has her reservations. She doesn’t know these people at all.

As they hit the road, the weather gets progressively worse. They see a lot of accidents and even have a few close calls themselves. As you can imagine, the stress level in the car is ratcheting up.

They’re now at each other’s throats and it’s not pretty.

Anything that could possibly go wrong, does for this group. Conditions get to the point where they are barely able to drive at all.

They make a few pit stops and yep, you guessed it, those don’t go well either!

I had fun with this one, y’all. Richards did a great job or bringing your typical Teen Scream to the page.

The cast of characters played well off of one another and it definitely kept me guessing. There’s some uncertainty as to what people’s motives are and I enjoyed that element a lot.

The suspense continues to build throughout the story. Items start to disappear from the car and it feels threatening rather than accidental.

Although there were some plot holes, and I wasn’t sold on the ending, I did have fun with it. I think if you don’t take it too seriously, it’s quite an enjoyable read.

Thank you so much to the publisher, SourceBooks Fire, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review.

Blizzard Scares are some of my favorite scares, so I am definitely happy that I had the opportunity to read this one. It’s perfect for this time of year!!

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