Scan barcode
A review by sjvoels
Camp Murderface by Saundra Mitchell, Josh Berk
3.0
**An ARC of this work was provided by Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review.
Tez just wants to go to summer camp and be a kid that maybe doesn't have a heart condition.
Corryn just doesn't want to go to summer camp and be a kid whose parents are secretly divorcing.
Regardless, both end up at Camp Sweetwater in June 1983 but camp life very quickly becomes less than idyllic. Sure there are crafts and hikes and swimming in the freezing cold lake and ghost stories, but there is also bullying counselors, a haunted forest, a death trap of a lake, and actual ghosts. Corryn and Tez, probably opposites in their "real life," are quickly pulled together when their campmates start being possessed, voices can be heard from the campfire, and things start appearing. They work to piece the story, the real story, together: 100 years prior three girls were murdered at the camp in a crime (haunting?) that is mysteriously hushed. And it happens every twenty years.
The mystery itself as it relates to the three original missing girls is well-written and Tez and Corryn make for well-rounded characters. They are caught up in a gripping, suspenseful adventure that will leave the reader asking for more. However, more is exactly what the reader needs for this story to be complete. CAMP MURDERFACE ends abruptly without real resolution leaving many questions. For example, the events happen every 20 years, how come no one is asking questions about that? Why does no one find that suspicious? At the end, all of the campers relate that they've had mysterious happenings as well. What are they and why were they then so belligerently negligent of the main characters who were trying to convince others of mysterious events? What is the haunting at the camp and why do the adults who work there disregard it? The story, while engaging, felt incomplete without enough substance to really warrant a sequel.
Tez just wants to go to summer camp and be a kid that maybe doesn't have a heart condition.
Corryn just doesn't want to go to summer camp and be a kid whose parents are secretly divorcing.
Regardless, both end up at Camp Sweetwater in June 1983 but camp life very quickly becomes less than idyllic. Sure there are crafts and hikes and swimming in the freezing cold lake and ghost stories, but there is also bullying counselors, a haunted forest, a death trap of a lake, and actual ghosts. Corryn and Tez, probably opposites in their "real life," are quickly pulled together when their campmates start being possessed, voices can be heard from the campfire, and things start appearing. They work to piece the story, the real story, together: 100 years prior three girls were murdered at the camp in a crime (haunting?) that is mysteriously hushed. And it happens every twenty years.
The mystery itself as it relates to the three original missing girls is well-written and Tez and Corryn make for well-rounded characters. They are caught up in a gripping, suspenseful adventure that will leave the reader asking for more. However, more is exactly what the reader needs for this story to be complete. CAMP MURDERFACE ends abruptly without real resolution leaving many questions. For example, the events happen every 20 years, how come no one is asking questions about that? Why does no one find that suspicious? At the end, all of the campers relate that they've had mysterious happenings as well. What are they and why were they then so belligerently negligent of the main characters who were trying to convince others of mysterious events? What is the haunting at the camp and why do the adults who work there disregard it? The story, while engaging, felt incomplete without enough substance to really warrant a sequel.