Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake) | TEEN FICTION MOL | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove) | TEEN FICTION MOL | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | TEEN FICTION MOL | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Stillwater Public Library | TEEN FICTION MOL | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
New York Times- bestselling author Goldy Moldavsky delivers a deliciously twisty YA thriller that's Scream meets Karen McManus about a mysterious club with an obsession for horror.
When it comes to horror movies, the rules are clear:
x Avoid abandoned buildings, warehouses, and cabins at all times.
x Stay together: don't split up, not even just to "check something out."
x If there's a murderer on the loose, do not make out with anyone.
If only surviving in real life were this easy...
New girl Rachel Chavez turns to horror movies for comfort, preferring stabby serial killers and homicidal dolls to the bored rich kids of Manhattan Prep...and to certain memories she'd preferred to keep buried.
Then Rachel is recruited by the Mary Shelley Club, a mysterious society of students who orchestrate Fear Tests, elaborate pranks inspired by urban legends and movie tropes. At first, Rachel embraces the power that comes with reckless pranking. But as the Fear Tests escalate, the competition turns deadly, and it's clear Rachel is playing a game she can't afford to lose.
Author Notes
Goldy Moldavsky was born in Lima, Peru, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where she lives with her family. She is the New York Times -bestselling author of Kill the Boy Band and No Good Deed . Some of her influences include Buffy the Vampire Slayer , the esteemed works of John Irving, and the Mexican telenovelas she grew up watching with her mother.
Reviews (3)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up--After a violent home invasion that leaves Rachel, who is Latina, with a traumatic secret, her mother takes a job at an elite Manhattan prep school where Rachel also enrolls--a fresh start for both of them. The teen immediately connects with bubbly classmate Saundra, but for the most part keeps to herself. When she uncovers, and is eventually invited to join, a secret club that revolves around horror movies and tropes, the contrived fear and catharsis that horror has brought her since her attack helps her feel at home with the club members, even as tensions she doesn't quite understand are always near the surface of the group's dynamic. As the group runs their Fear Tests--harmless horror scenarios each member is challenged to enact on their classmates--Rachel's past begins to catch up with her and she realizes the club might not be as harmless as she imagined. Loyalty, revenge, and the uses of fear are themes in this fast-moving thriller, and questions of how the plot does or does not add up in the end are eclipsed by fun horror references and a complex protagonist readers will root for. There is a minor love triangle among Rachel and two members of her group, but her friendship with enthusiastic, loyal Saundra is especially well developed. VERDICT A great choice for teens who enjoy horror and are looking for a quick read.--Beth McIntyre, formerly at Madison P.L., WI
Publisher's Weekly Review
Following a home invasion that leaves Rachel Chavez and her mother feeling unsafe in the Long Island suburbs, they relocate to Brooklyn, and Rachel's teacher mother takes a job at the Upper East Side's tony Manchester Prep. Rachel enrolls as a junior but fails to fit in, instead spending her free time bingeing scary movies to work through her trauma. After witnessing a frightening party prank, Rachel tracks down fellow Latino Freddie Martinez, whom she believes to be responsible, and talks her way into joining the Mary Shelley Club, a secret society, cued as ethnically varied, whose members--nerd Freddie, jock Bram Wilding, misanthrope Felicity Chu, and comedian Thayer Turner--share a passion for all things horror. At first, Rachel enjoys the sense of power that accompanies participation in the group's "Fear Tests"--scenarios staged to terrify their peers. Before long, however, her new friends' fun takes a sinister turn. This twisty tour de force from Moldavsky (No Good Deed) is at once a gripping teen melodrama, an incisive meditation on fear, and a love letter to horror and the genre's tropes. Vividly sketched characters, crafty plotting, and an adrenalized pace conspire to captivate and confound readers through the unsettling close. Ages 14--up. Agent: Jenny Bent, the Bent Agency. (Apr.)
Kirkus Review
Rachel, a 16-year-old trauma survivor, is initiated into her private school's secret society for horror fans. A year after surviving a violent attack, high school junior Rachel Chavez becomes the new girl at Manchester Prep on Manhattan's affluent Upper East Side. The middle-class daughter of a faculty member, Rachel feels invisible except for her one new friend, harmless school gossip Saundra Clairmont. After a school party ends in a ghost story, a séance, and screaming, Rachel--who immersed herself in horror movies as a coping device--notices a prankster amid the chaos. Soon, she is initiated into the Mary Shelley Club, a tightknit group that requires secrecy and rule-following from its members. She joins Freddie Martinez, a film geek on scholarship; hot-tempered, Stephen King--adoring Felicity Chu; charming Thayer Turner, whose political family is compared to the Obamas; and brooding golden boy Bram Wilding. Mostly the teens just watch all sorts of horror films--classics, slasher, zombie, psychological--but membership also involves more sinister activities. Moldavsky's tightly plotted tale weaves in dark humor, an impressive amount of horror trivia, and insightful references to Frankenstein. Readers will quickly become invested in Rachel's story even when she's making difficult-to-witness mistakes. The characters are notably diverse; issues of ethnicity and social class are naturally woven into the story. An atmospheric page-turner about loving scary movies, longing to belong, and uncovering the many masks people wear. (Horror. 14-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.