So I came to this book to be scared by horror. I rarely read horror, but I was so bored that I wanted to try something new this summer. I read this book during a power outage, so no lights on inside or outside. I even read it on my tablet at like 9 PM. Should have been PEAK fear, I was ready. And then I read the entire book that night, and wasn’t scared once. I mean, some parts of the book had frightening themes, but none of it actually scared me. I was worried she would get herself into a bad situation, but I never felt like I was on the edge of my seat. This book was a decent YA thriller read, but it was not a horror novel at its core.
Most of the book I spent upset with Val for making silly decisions. I couldn’t get too mad at her, because she was only 14 and I could easily see myself getting into a bad situation as a freshman in high school. Maybe not as bad as she let her situation get, but definitely into a generally dangerous one. She’s just a kid.
Gavin should have definitely had something done far before Val even entered the school. He wrote a whole essay about who would be “killed first” in a school shooting, but then rather than reporting him and getting him mental help, the school puts it up for everyone to read so that they won’t get in “legal trouble.” I don’t know how that works, when I was in school one of my classmates got suspended for a few days for putting a curse word in an essay by accident XD. If someone wrote an essay like that, they definitely would have been suspended for a long time, sent to some sort of mental health program, and I don’t know if they would have been allowed back to school at all.
Val’s parents really tried to protect her, but they were painted as the villains for at least the first part of the book. I feel like most of the worrying for me came from me worrying that Val was going to be hurt by Gavin. It was so clear from the start that he was somewhat unhinged, but she just ignored all the signs and decided that everyone else was just wrong about him.
There were a few things that Val “discovers” about Gavin at the end of the novel, but it was a little confusing so I wasn’t sure how much of the stuff she found was true. It was mentioned once, I guess it would be expanded upon later on in the series.
Overall, the story was a smooth read and the book entertained me while my power was off. Definitely a win-win situation, even if it wasn’t what I was expecting to read at the time. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a thriller YA novel.
Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 books.
