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A review by laelyn
Hide by Kiersten White
2.0
Kiersten White is a new author to me, despite her Conqueror's Saga trilogy sitting on my shelf, waiting for me to stop buying new books and finally read all the ones I already own. For that reason I went into this new novel of hers completely blind. Now, I'm not the biggest reader of horror thrillers, but the description reminded me of films I enjoyed watching so I was really intrigued.
"Hide" turned out to be an okay-ish read for me, with a thrilling premise and a hook that drew me right in from the very beginning. I was excited to find out more. It's solidly written and the whole atmosphere of this old amusement park turned horror show is great. The underlying mystery is nothing new, but if done well it always works. And the main character, Mack, is definitely interesting too, what with her horrifying backstory.
Sadly, the characters are probably one of the biggest issues I had with the book. See, if I don't care about them then I don't care about what happens to them, and in a novel based on characters getting killed off one by one that's just... not good. The deaths were meh, mostly happened off screen and while all the characters had really short interwoven pov parts (which, I understand why they're there but they are really disruptive), none of these people were in any way fleshed out. They weren't actual characters. They were random backstories with a name attached. Mack herself was barely a full person, and she's our main heroine. Now, I did like Mack and Ava's relationship, but because the focus kept skipping from one character to another character whose names I can't even remember, they didn't have enough time to actually develop into something that made me care much. Also, keeping the time frame of the events in the novel in mind, it was all very instalovey - and that in itself felt a little out of place with what we know of these two and their traumas.
The pacing is also very very slow and there is never actually a feeling of dread. I was never once scared or really excited. The worldbuilding is poor and shallow, and a lot of times I felt like it didn't make much sense either.
Again, I'm not one who reads a lot of horror or horror thrillers, so take my review with a grain of salt. The first chapter or so was perfectly done and drew me right in, but the rest of the book was more of a slog to get through because I simply couldn't care less about anything that happened. But for avid genre readers this might still be a cool read.
Many thanks to Random House, Del Rey and Netgalley for the arc!
"Hide" turned out to be an okay-ish read for me, with a thrilling premise and a hook that drew me right in from the very beginning. I was excited to find out more. It's solidly written and the whole atmosphere of this old amusement park turned horror show is great. The underlying mystery is nothing new, but if done well it always works. And the main character, Mack, is definitely interesting too, what with her horrifying backstory.
Sadly, the characters are probably one of the biggest issues I had with the book. See, if I don't care about them then I don't care about what happens to them, and in a novel based on characters getting killed off one by one that's just... not good. The deaths were meh, mostly happened off screen and while all the characters had really short interwoven pov parts (which, I understand why they're there but they are really disruptive), none of these people were in any way fleshed out. They weren't actual characters. They were random backstories with a name attached. Mack herself was barely a full person, and she's our main heroine. Now, I did like Mack and Ava's relationship, but because the focus kept skipping from one character to another character whose names I can't even remember, they didn't have enough time to actually develop into something that made me care much. Also, keeping the time frame of the events in the novel in mind, it was all very instalovey - and that in itself felt a little out of place with what we know of these two and their traumas.
The pacing is also very very slow and there is never actually a feeling of dread. I was never once scared or really excited. The worldbuilding is poor and shallow, and a lot of times I felt like it didn't make much sense either.
Again, I'm not one who reads a lot of horror or horror thrillers, so take my review with a grain of salt. The first chapter or so was perfectly done and drew me right in, but the rest of the book was more of a slog to get through because I simply couldn't care less about anything that happened. But for avid genre readers this might still be a cool read.
Many thanks to Random House, Del Rey and Netgalley for the arc!