Rules for Vanishing

I've been developing a spot in my heart for horror that is bent to YA. It's not that difficult. Most of the horror movies I watched as a kid were all full of kids getting eaten, slashed, or otherwise completely f***ed up. You might say I always thought horror stories were MADE for kids. Just look at campfire ghost stores, man, and you'll know what I mean.

So what about this? It's high school and all the kids here are ripe for the picking. In a lot of ways, it's great for the older kids with kids in high school because they can vicariously watch all the little s**ts get eaten and if you're the same age, you feel EXACTLY the same way.

So what makes this book different?

It reads like an awesome and equally f**d-up adaptation of Silent Hill. show more Movie or game, it doesn't matter. It's freaking weird and deeply involved and horribly convoluted and awesomely deadly. Me? When I first watched Silent Hill, I freaked and fell deeply in love. The same thing happened with me on this book.

So why the 4 stars rather than 5? Because of the ending. With all that awesome going on in the middle of the book, far surpassing the solid opening, I wanted something THOROUGHLY ambiguous and thought-provoking. Something that fit the premise and execution of the rest.

Please don't dumb down an otherwise smart book. Please? PLEASE. It's like a fantastic runner pushed all her limits to the very edge of human endurance, only to ask for a wheelchair nearly at the end of the race when there was clearly no need.

TRUST YOUR READERS. Awesome is awesome. Let them have the full meal. Sheesh.

Otherwise, this was a fantastic book. :) show less

If I had to describe this book in one sentence it would be - A Demented Wizard of Oz -

The characters were a little underdeveloped but I didn't mind because this book is more plot driven than character driven. I loved the mystery and lore of the Road, along with the local legend of the missing girl, Lucy. It is creepy and gory in a way that books labeled 'YA' usually aren't. It was refreshing actually.
This could have been an adult novel if the main characters ages were changed, but I don't think it would have worked as well. Being teenagers, I felt that the characters had a better ability to just kinda roll with the fantastical things that were happening to them. If they were adults there would have been a whole lotta "This can't be show more happening!!1!" and the book is already long enough without all that extra stuff, although the format is probably the cause for the length. There are text conversations and interview transcripts interspersed with regular narration.
Initially, after finishing, I thought that I would have liked a little more clarity from the ending, but now I think the ending is a perfect mix of "Where are they now?" and mystery. show less

Rules for Vanishing was one of the best YA books I've read, managing to avoid most YA tropes and telling a unique horror tale with true to life characters and some truly frightening scenes. I found myself anxious and jumpy as I read, primarily because Kate Alice Marshall is very adept at building tension as she creates her world and everything in it. It is by turns heartwrenching and heartwarming, as this group of kids, each with his or her own issues, tries to navigate this nightmare landscape to bring a missing girl back home. They're forced to confront forces they never could have imagined and must learn to trust and rely on each other again. There are times it's impossible to tell who to trust, what is real, what is part of "the show more game"...but somehow, everything makes sense in time and makes for a very enjoyable read. show less

If I had to describe this book in one sentence it would be - A Demented Wizard of Oz -

The characters were a little underdeveloped but I didn't mind because this book is more plot driven than character driven. I loved the mystery and lore of the Road, along with the local legend of the missing girl, Lucy. It is creepy and gory in a way that books labeled 'YA' usually aren't. It was refreshing actually.
This could have been an adult novel if the main characters ages were changed, but I don't think it would have worked as well. Being teenagers, I felt that the characters had a better ability to just kinda roll with the fantastical things that were happening to them. If they were adults there would have been a whole lotta "This can't be show more happening!!1!" and the book is already long enough without all that extra stuff, although the format is probably the cause for the length. There are text conversations and interview transcripts interspersed with regular narration.
Initially, after finishing, I thought that I would have liked a little more clarity from the ending, but now I think the ending is a perfect mix of "Where are they now?" and mystery. show less

Let me just say that I really love a good horror novel, and deeply appreciate one that can bring something new to the scene all while leaning on familiar tropes/set-ups, in this case, the found-footage style of the Blair Witch project. "Rules for Vanishing" has all the familiar tones of a woodsy, local folklore-based horror story but Kate Alice Marshall is in complete rule of her world and has created something altogether new. It reminded be a bit of Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy, but it a much more accessible way. This book is downright chilling at times, to the point where I wasn't letting myself read it before bed because of some of the images Marshall conjures up. Seriously, it's not your average creepy girl wandering the show more woods book - "Rules for Vanishing" has a much higher-stakes game its characters must play, with very strict rules, and it creates a terribly and darkly readable book.
I really thought this was gonna be a full 5-star read for me, but there were a couple things holding it back. The main thing is that this book has a pretty huge big cast of characters, who we get introduced to VERY fast, in rapid succession, and there isn't much done to delineate them (aside from a couple "main" players"). It's actually pretty important readers know who EXACTLY is who; it ties right into plot points, but I struggled to keep names straight. I think it would have helped to have more attention given at the beginning to making distinct characters instead of sort of introducing them in a big blur.
Secondly, there is a mythical aspect of this book (no spoilers) that would have been much stronger if readers had been introduced to it a little earlier on. It comes up at a couple moments, but at the end it becomes WAY more important and there wasn't much foreshadowing to it, which would have been nice.
Finally, although the ending was pretty good, it honestly paled in comparison to the rest of the novel and I think it was a little predictable. I would have loved to see a more unexpected ending!
All in all, "Rules for Vanishing" is one of the most well-written, unique, and CREEPY YA horror stories I've read, and I definitely want to read more by Marshall. show less

I've got fairly mixed feelings about this one. On one hand, it was a fun, fast read, and the plot pulled me along throughout. The middle of the book was fantastically creepy, and I loved every page. On the other hand...I wish there'd been more character development and that the voices of the different characters hadn't felt so interchangeable. This partly because there were so many (maybe more than the book needed), and partly because the plot moved so fast and they were so indistinct from each other in many ways. I also didn't particularly care about them as a result of the lack of character development, and normally that's the sort of thing that will make me lose interest in a book completely. Here, though, that didn't happen because show more the plot was so compelling.

The end did lessen the experience of the book for me, though. It's tough to talk about without giving it away, but I saw (one of) the major twist(s) coming, and the end in general was incredibly rushed. I also didn't like the way the author extended it in a way that made it feel like she was just aiming to drag new readers into her next book instead of just focusing on this one, which was essentially a stand-alone. So...I don't know. Mixed feelings, as I said. show less

Sara’s sister Becca disappeared a year ago. Everyone in town thought she just ran away with a boy, but Sara knows better. There’s a local ghost story of a girl named Lucy Gallows, who disappeared down the road in the wood decades ago. That’s where Becca went. The road only appears once a year and Sara knows if she follows it to find her sister, she might not come back. But she must try.
The story is told with a collection of interviews and cell phone video transcripts, text messages, and first-hand testimony from Sara. I loved the variety of storytelling this book had. It gave me pieces of information at a time, yet never really the full puzzle.
The book was spooky, but never horror. I did get confused in some parts and had to show more flip back a few pages to confirm what I thought happened, did happen, but most was intentional (that you later find out). I wouldn’t recommend walking away from it for a bit and then coming back. There were too many things and characters and jumps that you could easily get lost when you picked the book back up again.
The ending left me slightly unsatisfied. I get why the ending of the telling of the events on the road finished the way that they did, but the character wrap up just left me with questions that weren’t answered. show less