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Premise

Meg doesn’t love the idea of lying to her parents about where she’ll be tonight–an exclusive party on an isolated island with the cool crowd she barely knows–but her BFF Minnie is all in, and where Minnie goes, Meg follows. If only to watch out for her friend, who secretly struggles with bipolar disorder. The house is luxurious, and even though the host is MIA, some of the other kids have been there enough to make themselves at home. Everything is fine at first, and Meg is doing her best to go with the flow… until the bodies start to drop.

At first, everyone is willing to accept that one among them has died by suicide (despite the unexplained near-death-by-allergy at dinner, a recent dead teen at one of their schools, AND a VHS in the house labeled “Vengeance is Mine”). Some are even willing to accept that a second death just hours later is an accident (really, y’all?!). But when Meg finds a mysterious diary in her room, she can’t help but wonder if it’s all connected.

Spoiler alert: it is.

Full Review (SPOILERS)

Killer Motivation

In the vein of classics like Friday the 13th and Prom Night, the killer motivation here is simple: your bad behaviour led to the death of a loved one, and now I will make you all pay while you are drunk and isolated. It’s a neat and familiar bow to tie together a trope-heavy slasher that, while fun to read, does nothing particularly unique nor interesting with its plot.

After a short game of cat and mouse, it’s revealed that the killer was the dead girl’s brother, whose existence was only barely hinted at to ensure we wouldn’t guess it was him… because how could we when we didn’t actually know about him? This used to pass as a twist in the 70s and 80s, but now, it’s just another trope that makes me roll my eyes, shrug, and chuckle. The end.

The Terrible Place

Want to get back at a group of teens who inadvertently caused your sister’s death?

Step 1: Invite them to an isolated area where there will be booze, sex, and drama

Step 2: Kill them one-by-one, using elaborate and gruesome methods

Step 3: Reveal yourself to the Final Girl while reciting a speech that details your motivation

Step 4: Act surprised when she kills you

It’s a fool-proof plan that has given us dozens of cheap, laughable, splatter flicks over several decades. It’s exactly the kind of thing horror fiends love to hate, and will almost always gravitate to at some point.

In this example, the island setting worked as well as any other. And using a storm and power outage to further said isolation is always a nice touch. Credit where credit is due though, I liked that Meg came up with an elaborate plan to reach out for help online… even though it failed in the end. It created a rare moment of spot-on suspense, and to have all that build up lead nowhere really emphasized the dire situation they’re in. This was easily the book’s finest moment. In fact, a string of “yes, but” scenes, wherein the characters come so close to escape only to find themselves still trapped is the thing that kept me turning pages.

Weapons/Shock Value

This is a slasher, and I must say, it did the slashing quite well. The kills became increasingly gruesome as the admittedly thin plot unfolded, and since the most obvious killer was a dead girl, the whodunnit suspense was fun (as mentioned above, the real killer was her brother). I’m a bit of a sucker for slashers with a supernatural twist, or ones that tease a supernatural twist as this one did. So, while I knew right away that the dead girl who had been mercilessly ostracized and bullied would be their undoing, I wasn’t sure who (if anyone) was doing the killing on her behalf.

That the killer was among them the whole time was not particularly shocking, though I was surprised to find out it was Ben (using an assumed identity). How he tricked people into thinking he was some guy named Ben alludes me, and I don’t care enough to go back and re-read his “villain tells-all” speech. Still, it’s a good enough twist for the type of slasher this is.

I assume the author was going for cheese in this one.

Killer motivation: vengeance

Author motivation: tropey fun

The Victims

Everyone in this book was either annoying or ridiculously naive, or both. This means I didn’t have any emotional reactions to anyone’s death, but I came close with Minnie, letting out a gasp. Not only was I expecting Minnie to live, I think that her character had a lot of potential.

Writing a bipolar character into a book like this is a bold choice, because handling that responsibly while slicing and dicing to near comical effect is a difficult task. I won’t go so far as to say the author succeeded, but I truly appreciate that not only was the “crazy” girl not the killer, but the killer astutely pointed the fact out. When Meg calls him “sick,” he responds by saying: “It makes you more comfortable to think so, doesn’t it? That I’d have to be insane to do all this? Not true. I’m saner than your little friend down there,” gesturing to Minnie’s body. (Crude) Point taken.

As for additional diversity, there is also a black character and an East Asian character. Unfortunately, there’s also a cringe-worthy moment in which our Final Girl plays white saviour, poorly. When Nathan points out that TJ should be extra careful because “Well, if this is a horror movie, you’re the first one to go. The black dude’s always the first one to die,” Meg replies: “Racist much? Are you going to ask if Kumiko can help you with your math homework next?”

Umm, really? That’s her big argument?

Ugh. Pass.

But this seem like a good time to talk about our most important character–The Final Girl.

The Final Girl

Meg has her moments. She comes up with at least one really good plan to save them (it fails), when she thinks she’s sure who the killer is, she takes immediate action (shooting the wrong guy, a-la the original Black Christmas), and most importantly, she survives.

She embodies all the Final Girl stereotypes:

• she’s a pretty, white, young woman
• she is reluctant to lie, cheat, and drink
• she is the caretaker, always watching out for her more reckless friend (though, the fact that Minnie is bipolar and Minnie’s father somehow thought it was okay to tell Meg to look after her is its own problem)
• finally, she’s the first to put together that the deaths have something to do with the dead girl, Claire.

On paper, Meg is the perfect Final Girl. That said, it takes her way to long to accept what’s happening, and even longer to present the facts to the others. If she were hiding details to protect herself by not letting the killer know she was on to them, that would be fine, but she’s just… insecure? Worried they won’t believe her? Whatever the reason for her squirrel-ish-ness, it’s a thumbs down. Her defining characteristic is that she does not stand up for herself, and this is mainly depicted through her toxic friendship with Minnie, whom she plans to escape at college.

But finding her courage to defeat the killer, in a surprisingly badass climax, seems to have made a positive change in her. Though, this newfound courage will likely be warring with her survivor’s guilt for the rest of her life, which she acknowledges at the end. Still, she killed the bad guy and saved the good guy, so it’s about as happy an ending as she can hope for.

Final Thoughts

There are two kinds of slashers, ones that strive to subvert, and those that don’t. This is firmly of the latter variety. It was a quick and easy read, since the writing was simplistic and the plot relied heavily on tropes that have already been done to death. But, hey, it was fun to read and isn’t that the main point of a book like this?

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Read this one? Share your own thoughts in the comments!

And for more bloody good fun, join my Final Girl Bookclub on Fable to read along with me. See you in the threads!