Vincent Ralph

This was a pleasant surprise, and not at all what I expected. I don't often have high hopes for YA slasher stories, because it's hard to get away with being descriptive and gory, which are some of the best parts of a slasher, when you're writing for a younger audience. I enjoyed this so much, I read it in one sitting.

This was a unique premise, I personally haven't read any mysteries / horrors / slashers about AI deep fake murders before. The violence and deaths were all written well, not show more overly gory or graphic, but they still left you unnerved. It helps that fake AI scams, murders, photos, etc. are becoming more prevalent and more of an issue in society today, which made the premise even scarier.

This was the first book I've read in ages where I never suspected the killer, not once. I would have probably guessed 8+ other characters before even thinking of this person, and I loved that surprise.

I do think the ending was a bit abrupt and we could have used more time to flesh out finding out who the killer is and the aftermath, but that's my only minor complaint. show less

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. show more Great tension and red herrings make is very satisfying. I very much look forward to more from this author. show less

*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, show more 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. show less

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 show more 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.) show less