Genre: Young Adult Mystery/Thriller
Release Date: February 28th, 2023
Pages: 336
Publisher: Delacorte Press
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Publisher’s Synopsis:
“Hot on the heels of the New York Times bestsellers The Twin and The Lake, another pulse-pounding read from the undisputed queen of YA thrillers!
They said goodbye to their friends and family for the weekend. They weren’t counting on forever.
Jagged Island: a private amusement park for the very rich—or the very influential. Liam, James, Will, Ava, Harper, and Paisley—social media influencers with millions of followers—have been invited for an exclusive weekend before the park opens. They’ll make posts and videos for their channels and report every second of their VIP treatment.
When the teens arrive, they’re stunned: the resort is even better than they’d imagined. Their hotel rooms are unreal, the park’s themed rides are incredible, and the island is hauntingly beautiful. They’re given a jam-packed itinerary for the weekend.
But soon they’ll discover that something’s missing from their schedule: getting off the island alive.”
My Review:
Meet the influencers: Liam’s a gamer, James does movie reviews, Harper is a book blogger, Ava and Will are rival beauty gurus, and our main character is Paisley, who has a true crime podcast.
Six teen influencers are invited to exclusive, private-island, gothic-themed, amusement resort. What could possibly go wrong? Well, when people start dying and there’s a killer on the loose, a lot actually.
You know how there’s like a sub-genre of young adult books that feel more ‘adultish’ and definitely appeal to an older audience, well this definitely isn’t one of those. While I’m not saying that as a bad thing, I just want to point out that this one actually feels targeted towards young adults, with its timely and relevant mentions of the TikTok lifestyle. A little young for my personal tastes but this did not negatively affect my reading experience.
I thought the book started out really well. The atmosphere and world building at the beginning is great. Our introduction to this gothic luxury mansion, the creepy rides, haunted houses, and eerie island setting is well done. I liked the introductions to the characters as well, we get a small taste of their personalities.
⚠️Warning… hot takes ensuing…
But once the sequence of events begins, all of that character and world building just stops abruptly and is never expanded upon again.
I had a hard time picturing everything as it was happening. There’s literally zero world-building or setting descriptions apart from the very first part of the story when they are seeing the island and hotel for the first time, so I couldn’t imagine anything in my head.
I just kind of had to roll with it. It’s a fairly short book. I feel like we could have had more descriptions along the way to make the action scenes (and really it’s just one continuous action scene) come to life more.
There’s also like zero characterization either. I mean I didn’t really care about any of them because I didn’t really get to know them. So the high stakes were pretty much lost on me and the betrayals felt meaningless.
This is like one of those horror movies that everyone watches just to laugh at and make of it. It feels like a parody (Scary Movie, anyone?).
Everything is just so over the top and melodramatic with no build up, tension, or suspense. There is a bit of gore factor which did up the ante a little for me.
In comparison to all the flashback/cold case thrillers I’ve been reading recently, I was looking forward to this one as a fresh, in-the-moment story.
I will say, this is a quick, easy, compulsive read. And I found myself inexplicably hooked into the whole thing regardless of everything else.
If you like a non-stop action, fast-paced, close-quarters, who-dunnit, mayhem of a thriller, you may also find it as fun and engaging as I somehow did.
It has a classic, locked-room mystery feel to it all and, in general, I do love that trope. It’s like the game Clue in a way. Everyone’s a suspect and you don’t know who to trust.
There are plot holes galore. And I mean in abundance. Nothing made any sense, everything was way too convenient, and nothing added up right.
The characters’ reactions to things were laughable.
Not a single decision they made, nothing they did, made any logical sense whatsoever. C’mon, they’re old enough to do better.
And also, why were the adults in this story the most dumb, useless, incompetent, clueless, idiots ever? No idea.
Reading this is like watching a bunch of bumbling idiots running around like headless chickens.
I have so many questions. So. Many. Questions. Some of which I will include hidden at the end of this review because they will contain spoilers.
But I just didn’t buy into the whole entire thing. It wasn’t believable at all.
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, that it would come out as a ‘hahaha it’s all a joke’, but it wasn’t. It actually wasn’t a joke.
But I really have to know though… is it supposed to be like this? I’m still so confused. Does anyone know? Is it serious? Is it intentionally campy?
As for the intense cliffhanger the story ends on… I recently read another thriller that ended on a similar cliffhanger and I actually really liked the ambiguity of it. But for this one, I’m not sure I understand the purpose for it. Honestly though, that part was more suspenseful than the rest of the story.
In summary…
Is it so bad that it’s good? Kind of. Was I scared? No. Was I (for some unknowable reason) super invested in the outcome? Yes.
I’m still going to tell you to read this book. I don’t know y’all it was bad but I just kind of liked it anyways. Even after all of my ranting, I still want to check out this author’s other books now.
I initially after reading gave it two stars, but since I’ve stewed over my thoughts more I think I have to bump it to three because for whatever reason I just really wanted to know what the hell was going on and I wanted a conclusion. I never actually considered DNFing it, so therefore I am changing it to three stars instead of two.
***SPOILERS UP NEXT****
My plot hole questions:
Why didnt they charge their phones? Why not go to one of their rooms that has only one entrance? Just why tp everything? Jammers, night vision goggles, really? 🧐 And you cant possible tell me that this billionaire has no emergency procedures, backups, fallback plans, or anything of any kind for this situation?
Disclaimers:
Huge thank you to Netgalley and Delacorte Press for gifting me an early copy of this amazing story! I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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Have you read this book? Planning to add it to your TBR?
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