Makani Young used to live in Hawaii with her parents, but then something happened that she doesn't even like to think about, and everyone she knew turned against her. Her parents sent her to live with her grandmother in Osborne, a tiny town in Nebraska, and it feels like exile. She now has a couple friends and a crush she can't stop thinking about. It's not the life she used to have back in Hawaii, but it could be worse.

Then a girl from school winds up dead and horribly mutilated. As the body count rises and the police try to find and stop the killer, Makani knows it's only a matter of time before her own secrets are revealed.

I decided to read this because the cover caught my eye and I was in the mood for a YA slasher. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite as gripping as I'd hoped it would be, and I kept getting distracted by other reads. So much time was spent on Makani's crush on Ollie and their developing relationship, and I just wasn't interested in the two of them as a couple.

The murder scenes were fairly spooky. They all started with the soon-to-be victim noticing that random objects were out of place, which tied in nicely with the way Makani kept noticing things that were out of place in her grandmother's home (was the killer in Makani's house? would she notice in time? why was the killer waiting to go after her?). The body count was surprisingly high, considering that the characters learned the killer's identity a little over halfway through the book. Knowing who the person was didn't seem to help much when it came to catching them, though, which I thought was a little difficult to believe. And yes, the mutilations got pretty gruesome. The first murder didn't really prepare me for a couple of the later ones, although the gamer one was, in some ways, the most disturbing of the bunch despite being one of the least gory.

With as many times as Makani's secret was hinted at, I thought it was going to be very different than it actually was. It made for horrible reading, but not for the reason Makani thought, at least not for me. She blamed herself for everything that happened, but I thought that the adults who'd known what was going to happen and played along were at least as responsible, if not more so.

The last 50 or so pages were frustrating. The people in this town were idiots - the killer was still on the loose, people were still dying, and these morons set up a "haunted" maze complete with at least one person dressed up as the killer who was terrorizing their town. I would have been in full support of the parents of the victims if they'd run through the maze screaming in rage. And the killer's motive was just stupid. It felt like Perkins really wanted to write something in which teens from a wide variety of cliques were killed but couldn't figure out a good way to tie all together.

The ending was abrupt and left me feeling unsatisfied. Prominent characters had bad stuff happen to them, and multiple people were seriously injured or killed, but there was no time set aside to process everything that happened. The book just stopped.

This had some nicely creepy and suspenseful moments, but all in all I'm glad it was a library checkout rather than a purchase.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Seriously? That's it? And that motive...

This has a much higher body count than I expected, considering that the killer's identity was discovered a little over halfway through the book. And yeesh, gruesome.

It's a YA slasher novel. Considering the "meh" reading mood I'm in, it's probably a good thing that I'm going into this not expecting it to be fabulous. I just want it to be decent. Crossing my fingers.

The main character, Makani, used to live in Hawaii with her parents and now lives in Nebraska with her grandmother. Her parents supposedly sent her to watch out for her grandmother, who had a "sleep pruning" incident that resulted in the tip of a neighbor's nose getting cut off (it was later reattached), and to give her some space while they went through a nasty divorce. However, apparently something awful also happened back in Hawaii. I have a feeling it involved someone dying and people at Makani's school thinking she was responsible.

So far we've already had one death in Nebraska, and people are blaming the girl's parents, an unknown boyfriend, and/or Ollie, the loner Makani has a crush on.

When someone recently asked ‘Katherine, can I send you some candy and a book?’, what on earth do you think I possibly replied? 

There was a teeny catch - well, actually a few (and yes, luckily I knew the sender); there were some rules to this 'Wicked Reads' Halloween campaign...

I won't tell you the books but I WILL tell you the candies: they were TWIZZLERS, SOUR PATCH KIDS, SNICKERS, JOLLY RANCHERS, & SWEDISH FISH.

Which would have you have chosen?

I was hoping for a gory, bloody read, and my guessing wasn't too bad (I nearly matched the book to the candy I wanted!). I did get one of the books I hoped for though - 'There's Someone Inside Your House', by Stephanie Perkins - because  I wanted to write a creative post about my favorite slasher/horror movies.

'There's Someone Inside Your House' is a YA thriller-horror of the slasher variety; someone is killing teens at the high school, so naturally the list is where my head went to...

WHY??

I used to work in film production (I have a BA in film) and I had the devilish delight of working on a whole slew of 'highly-rated' and so-much-fun-to-make horror movies during my illustrious film-making career.

This is my favorite movie-watching season so this just had to be done!

*MY ULTIMATE MUST-SEE HORROR-SLASHER MOVIE LIST*

*I do give some details about the movies away but not too much; you may know some of these, yes?! Click on the titles to take you to the movie links on IMDb after you have read my blurbs: 

HALLOWEEN (1978) - This really is the penultimate classic teen slasher movie, and it stars The Scream Queen herself, Jamie Lee Curtis. Michael Myers has escaped a mental institution and is on the loose in Haddonfield on Halloween night. Jamie Lee plays Laurie, and this movie made her a star. You won't forget that ominous soundtrack, and you won't get that masked face out of your mind.

*Subsequent 'Halloween' movies (not talking about the recent installment) weren't quite as good, but do watch the second one right after the first for full effect.

FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980) - This started yet another horror movie franchise (and again didn't expect to), but this time the star wasn't even in the original/first installment. Everyone seems to know about Jason Voorhees terrorizing the campers who come to Camp Crystal Lake, but this 'campy' debut in the series is one to watch because of how it's a little different from the ones that follow. The deaths are gory, there's lots of blood, and you will probably recognize only Kevin Bacon as one of the actors who went on to anything after this.

*Again, the second installment is alright too, as is the third; the Jason character has a metamorphosis in the films, but after that, the killings get to the point where they are laughable or gratuitous. The actor who plays Jason believes he has the highest body count of any horror actor, and takes great pride in doing his role.

SCREAM (1996) - A movie that turned the entire horror genre on its head, coming from the horror-movie making legend Wes Craven (of 'A Nightmare of Elm Street' fame), 'Scream' has its costumed killer targeting a group of teens by using the 'rules' of horror movies as his 'code'. Like Hitchcock's 'Psycho', when its star is killed off very early on, Drew Barrymore is the first to go, which totally threw the audience through a loop. This movie really is genius, and because it comes from one of the horror masters, there are gems in here (humor, pacing, the script, references to other movies), that would otherwise fall flat with another filmmaker.

*Inspired one of the most recognizable Halloween costumes (the 'Scream' mask) I can think of.

PROM NIGHT (1980) - Hot off her 'Halloween' success, Jamie Lee Curtis decided to take on another horror, shedding the veneer of being the vulnerable screamer. This time she's prom queen, and one of a small group of teens who covered up the accidental death of a friend six years ago. Naturally it's the night of the high school senior prom and what better occasion than this for a masked killer to knock off these teenagers who need to pay for what they allowed to happen to their friend all those years ago.

*Features some excellent disco tracks, rad dance moves and fashion.

THE SHINING (1980) - This film upped the ante when it came to horror because of all the perfect ingredients. First of all, its A-list director, Stanley Kubrick, was a master filmmaker, and he employed a brilliant cast, including Jack Nicholson in one of his most unforgettable roles. Based on the haunting book by one of the most profilic horror writers of our time, Stephen King, ‘Jack Torrance’, his wife and child, head to the deserted Overlook Hotel (could there ever be a more memorable movie setting too?!) to be ‘caretakers’ in the off-season and so Jack can write. But his descent into madness, played so well by Nicholson, directed perfectly by Kubrick, is captured on film and it’s movie perfection. 

*Stephen King wasn’t too impressed with the adaptation, despite this being regarded as one of the best movies of all time, and one of the best of his book adaptations.

**Considered a ‘slasher’ movie because of the famous axe swinging (that axe lives here in Seattle at the ‘MoPop’ at the Horror Exhibit).

SHREDDER (2001) - Last but not least, I thought I’d include this straight-to-DVD slasher-horror movie that I worked on, quite a few moons ago now. It’s not great, it’s actually funny in parts, and it’s aimed at a teen audience, but I would have to say it was one of the craziest movie-making experiences I ever had. We filmed it up at Silver Mountain, Idaho, and the majority of it was filmed at night; standing in the snow for hours in the middle of the night making movies is a cold business (and we made a bloody mess wherever we went). I took the gig because I had friends working on it, and I wanted the challenge of working on a movie in the snow and on a mountain, and I was pretty stoked at myself. 

Movie-making is fun, but it’s HARD! I worked on movies for about 10+ years.

*There’s nothing quite as funny as taking breaks with actors with ice picks in their backs...

I hope you enjoyed my list; are any of these new to you? What’s your favorite?

I’ll be finishing off my book right now; thank you to Penguin and the Wicked Reads campaign for the goodies and my signed copy of the pretty book you see below!