Vincent RalphKirja-arvosteluja

One night a year, Sam Hall and a very small group of friends traipse off into the wood to tell their secrets to a private little hut. A place, or an object that lets them unburden themselves of the weights on their shoulders.

Sam a formal child TV star has lots of secrets. Secrets about a fire, about his dad, about his life. But so does everyone else. And now the blackmail has begun. Secrets leak out, some small, some large, causing problems and danger for all.

This book was okay. It starts on Halloween and goes a few more days. The adult in mean screams “talk to your parents or trusted adults” and this book wouldn’t exist. To me, this book was nothing special. It will have a hot flash in the pan this year but die off by next.

When Jess was 7, her mother became the Magpie Man's first victim. Since then, he's killed 12 others, and the police are no closer to finding him and giving his victims justice.

Jess, now 17, has a plan. She has applied to be part of a reality show that will involve her life and social media feed constantly being in the public eye. One day a week, it'll all be available live for whoever wants to watch, while the rest of the time she'll have to film her own daily life and provide it to her director to be edited into episodes for her viewing public. Jess is determined to use her time to remind everyone of the Magpie Man and his victims, and hopefully get people thinking about the people in their own lives, one of whom must surely be the killer.

Unfortunately, the Magpie Man is also watching, and he has his own thoughts about what Jess is doing.

Even with great big stacks of consent forms, this reality show came across like a giant legal nightmare, and I could never bring myself to fully believe in it, especially when Jess started getting threats and a new victim appeared. From what I could tell, Jess didn't even stick to the premise very well - there were so many moments that she was technically supposed to film but didn't (because filming them would have been stupid or would have scared off the people she wanted to talk to). The cameras were pretty much only on when it was convenient to the story for them to be.

Because it's the way of most mysteries/thrillers, I figured that the Magpie Man was someone Jess had at least a little contact with, and there weren't a whole lot of possibilities for who that might be. I came very close to correctly guessing the killer's identity due to one very dramatic event that suspiciously didn't come up as much later on as I would have expected it to.

This was definitely a quick read, but that and its short chapters didn't necessarily mean that it was fast-paced. Not a lot actually happened - the bulk of the book was devoted to Jess's grief over what her mother's murder had done to her family.

Extras:

An author's note and a Q&A with the author.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)½

Former child star Sam Hall has a secret, and so do some of his friends. Every year on Halloween they go to the Dark Place and whisper into the night what their secrets are, only this year, someone has been listening... and plans to use their secrets against them.½

This book reminds me of "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "Scream". I like the mysterious messages, the creepy masks, the dark secrets, and the twists and turns we experience, as the author weaves us through the story.
Christopher Gebauer and Jennifer Jill Araya do a great job narrating this novel. I will definitely look for more books narrated by them in the future.

Secrets, like procrastination, tend to grow ever larger in your mind. Five teens have had a ritual for several years. On or near Halloween, they sneak off to an abandoned building in the woods and tell the darkness their biggest and worst secrets. The intent is to give them some sense of relief. It has worked until the night someone destroys any chance of serenity by attacking the building with eggs full of rancid blood. That's followed by text messages, emails, and extremely scary/creepy videos.
The affected teens are baffled and scared, especially when they're ordered to do and say things that up their stress level while fracturing their trust. When they go on the offensive, what they uncover is so far from anything they expected, it's chilling and involves other people as a result of what happened a long time ago. High creep factor here and a darn good read.

*Thank you to NetGalley for a free e-copy in exchange for an honest review.*

Actual Rating: 3.5

I Know What You Did Last Summer meets One of Us Is Lying in this teen mystery thriller!

Secrets Never Die starts one fateful Halloween. Sam Hall and his friends have an annual tradition. Every year, they visit an abandoned hut in the woods where they each go in, one at a time, to share their deepest, darkest secrets and get it off their chest. Most of them come out lighter and relieved. This year, after a series of weird occurrences, San starts to realize that things aren’t quite right. And when everyone starts getting threatening texts that are personalized to each of them, their greatest fear is confirmed: someone knows ALL their secrets.

The premise itself is really interesting and I loved the tension that was created by reading from the perspective of a character who had secrets, with the primary antagonist being someone masked and mysterious.

It definitely took me a little while to get the hang of the story and all the characters — especially again near the final 20% of the book where the cast expands again. However, I think it really helps that the entire book was written from Sam’s perspective. We knew who he was closest with, who he didn’t like, who he did, and most of all, his own secret. Being an ex-child star is really not a characterization I've read much so it was super interesting to see. So to be expected, Sam had the best and most intriguing backstory of all and I also liked how some of the others had secrets that were intertwined with his history.

Plot-wise, I do have mixed feelings on how the final story turned out; on one hand it was definitely unexpected (and the good mysteries are the unpredictable ones) but it also seemed a little underwhelming for not being as tied into existing thread lines as I wanted. I felt similarly about some of the secrets, especially if they were built up until the very end as something so extreme it would change the course of the story.

Ultimately, the climax did deliver, the ending is satisfying, and I had a really good time trying to read between the lines to figure out who did it and what the characters’ secrets were. I’d definitely recommend this for fans of ensemble mystery stories.

Well this was entertaining and had some tense moments but you definitely need to suspend disbelief a few times throughout this YA mystery.

The premise was good and I liked the short snappy chapters and the pacing was spot on. I think it's target audience will enjoy making the connections and working through the twists and turns in the story to find out who the killer is. A solid 3.

Twisty, turns, locks, doors, lies. This one grabs you and doesn’t let go. Just when I thought I had it figured out, the author throws in another wrench. If you like a good mystery, this is one for you.

Jess is given the chance, using social media and a reality show, to find the Magpie Man, the person who killed her mother and 13 other victims. She’s lived with the burden of being known as the daughter of his first victim and living with a father who is lost without his wife and no closure for the two of them. With the help of Jamie, the boy who lives down the block and the other victims’ families, Jess begins a fast paced, fear inducing cat and mouse chase with a killer…one she doesn’t see coming until the end. Definitely a book that will keep you guessing!

TW: Domestic Violence;

Tom's blended family has just moved into their dream home, and Tom is still adjusting to...everything. Jay, his stepdad, seems like a genuinely nice guy, but his mom was in enough abusive relationships prior to him that part of Tom still expects things to fall apart if he gets too invested. He struggles with anxiety and OCD, and when he notices the odd little holes outside his and his stepsister's doors, everyone else dismisses his worries as probably nothing. But he swears they look like drill holes for locks. But they're on the outsides of the doors, so who were they meant to lock in? What happened in this house before Tom and his family moved in?

He gets a chance to start answering his questions when he meets Amy, a new classmate of his and a member of the family that just moved in across the street. Amazingly, Amy and her family were the ones who lived in Tom's house prior to them moving in - who moves out of a place only to move into another one right across the street? Granted, it's a bigger house, but Tom can't stop himself from digging for info, and it doesn't hurt that something in Amy reminds him of himself, sad and kind of broken. However, Amy keeps telling him that she's fine and that nothing happened in the house. Could he be seeing shadows that only exist in his own mind?

Despite the author's efforts to put doubts in reader's minds about whether Tom's own trauma was leading him to see monsters where none existed, I almost never expected anything other than the revelation of a giant secret on the part of Amy and/or her family. It was more of a question of what was being hidden, and each detail that was revealed ruined my past theories. I finally ended up with a reasonably decent idea that almost fit all of the clues - it turns out that I was partly right, but things were more messed up than even I guessed.

I really enjoyed the way the author built up the unsettling atmosphere and gradually revealed clues. For those who find themselves getting impatient, don't worry, you don't have to wait until the end of the book before finding out what's going on - the truth gets revealed in Part 3, starting on page 215. That might seem early, but there's more to this than just figuring out what's going on.

This is marketed as a YA thriller, but the thought occurred to me that it didn't read like it was written as a YA thriller, although I think teens could definitely still enjoy it. Despite the teen protagonists, it struck me as being more of a thriller aimed at adults. Everything it seemed like the author was trying to say between the lines was meant for adults - the responsibility that adults have in supporting and protecting kids and teens, keeping an eye out for cries for help that kids and teens might not have the words or power to verbalize, etc.

I wouldn't say the anxiety and OCD rep was necessarily bad, but to me it read more like a device designed to put doubt in reader's minds rather than good and nuanced mental illness representation.

Overall, I really enjoyed this, and I highly recommend that, when you get to Part 3, you make sure you have a large enough block of time set aside to read the rest of the book in one go. I couldn't put it down once I got to that point. That said, some of the stuff at the end is a little farfetched. It's kind of amazing that the characters let things get so bad before even attempting to turn things around, and one character's inaction in particular bothered me a lot.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

I loved all the twists and turns.

The way the story is laid out is amazing.

The ending was so unexpected!

One aspect of a good book is what I call 'pull power', the ability to grab you during the first few pages and maintain its hold until you resurface much later, see what page you're on and go "How in heck?!?" This is one of them. I started reading it when I crawled into bed and resurfaced at page 300. It combines mystery, the contemporary power of social media and how a very determined teen uses her grief and accompanying anger to flush out the serial killer whose first victim was her mom. Great tension and red herrings make is very satisfying. I very much look forward to more from this author.