Bizarre and hugely suspenseful.
Seventeen-year-old Anouk accepts an invitation to assist with an academic exploration of a 200-year old underground palace but instead finds herself trapped in an extensive and elaborate set of deadly underground rooms.
Anouk’s contemporary story intertwines with frequent flashbacks to the aristocratic family that built the underground palace at the time of the French Revolution. In that timeline, Aurélie and her sisters reluctantly descend to the recently completed palace when a mob of revolutionaries attacks their home in 1789. Now, Anouk and four other teens realize early that they’ve been recruited to a fraudulent project and that their captors intend to kill them. They race through the palace, each room adorned in almost carnival-like pre-Revolutionary décor and most equipped with devious devices meant to murder them. One room shoots razors, another metal globes, and another contains blue containers that spew deadly gas. But why were they targeted for this particularly baroque murder? Bachmann keeps the pages turning with this thriller that, for most of the book, appears to have no explanation. Although he develops Anouk quite well as a lonely character who has been estranged from her wealthy family, her friends remain one-dimensional. The peculiar circumstances add to the strange atmosphere and also to the suspense, lending the book an appealing, unworldly quality. When the explanation finally arrives, it fits quite well with the odd atmosphere.
Bizarre and hugely suspenseful. (Horror. 12-18)Pub Date: March 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-228992-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense.
Everyone believes that Salil Singh killed his girlfriend, Andrea Bell, five years ago—except Pippa Fitz-Amobi.
Pip has known and liked Sal since childhood; he’d supported her when she was being bullied in middle school. For her senior capstone project, Pip researches the disappearance of former Fairview High student Andie, last seen on April 18, 2014, by her younger sister, Becca. The original investigation concluded with most of the evidence pointing to Sal, who was found dead in the woods, apparently by suicide. Andie’s body was never recovered, and Sal was assumed by most to be guilty of abduction and murder. Unable to ignore the gaps in the case, Pip sets out to prove Sal’s innocence, beginning with interviewing his younger brother, Ravi. With his help, Pip digs deeper, unveiling unsavory facts about Andie and the real reason Sal’s friends couldn’t provide him with an alibi. But someone is watching, and Pip may be in more danger than she realizes. Pip’s sleuthing is both impressive and accessible. Online articles about the case and interview transcripts are provided throughout, and Pip’s capstone logs offer insights into her thought processes as new evidence and suspects arise. Jackson’s debut is well-executed and surprises readers with a connective web of interesting characters and motives. Pip and Andie are white, and Sal is of Indian descent.
A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-9636-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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