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ARC provided by Random House Children via Netgalley for an honest review.
This book reminded me a lot of those bad 80’s horror movies. You know the ones where the kids all make bad decisions and get murdered in horrible ways and there is one girl left standing at the end. If you like those kind of movies then you will probably like this book. Unfortunately I was never a fan, so this book didn’t work for me on many levels.
I found nothing redeeming or likable about the characters, mostly because we didn’t really get to know any of them. They are very flat and not at all well developed. Some of this might be because there were too many of them and they start to die so quickly that we just don’t get the chance. But even our narrator is very one dimensional and not very likable. So it was very hard to root for any of them or to feel sad when they are killed.
The setting was ok. I liked the locked door aspect of the story. They are in a castle surrounded by a moat, with a storm raging which of course floods the moat and makes it impossible for them to leave. I did struggle with the layout of the castle a bit. I was never able to get a firm picture in my mind of how it looked or where all of the various rooms were.
The plot was very predictable. The murderer was pretty obvious to me by the time I was 50 pages into the book. The pacing was also really slow for about the first half of the book, which for a thriller was not good. I did like that many of the murders, especially the more gruesome ones, happened off page, but the reactions of the characters to these murders just didn’t work for me. There were times when I was expecting the whole thing to be a giant prank and everyone was really alive, but alas no. The motive also turned out to be very weak and not at all believable which just made the whole ending ridiculous. Thrillers should skirt the edges of believability, not jump off that edge.
This is only the second book that I have read by this author and looking back at that review I can tell that I had many of the same issues with it as I did with this one. Although I did like the first book enough to give this one a chance. Many people adore this author and her books, and if you are one of them then certainly give this book a chance. If you are not a fan, then skip this one and try one of her other books.
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