This is a banger. I’ve always loved the candle cove creepypasta and this perfectly expands on it while correcting some of the over the top elements that took that story out of believability. I’ve always wanted a story about playing pretend and how it can go sour and start hurting you, and this hits the spot in that area; there are flavors of Lord of the Flies in here and they go crazy. One star off because the atmosphere didn’t quite capture me the way Hide did and Kiersten White has a habit of saying the quiet part very loudly that can sometimes annoy me; it was enough to make the antagonists white Mormons running a propaganda TV, it was not necessary to them state aloud, “wow, these white Mormons are running a propaganda TV show! Here are all the things wrong with that!” There were certainly moments here that felt pretty heavy handed. Aside from those, this really really good.

A Good House for Children by Kate Collins

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4.0

Bone White by Ronald Malfi

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2.5

At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

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3.5

Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced