Melodramatic dark academia.
An incoming college freshman discovers horrors lurking on campus.
Adria “Addie” Velde is excited to join an orientation program at the University of the Arches, her mother’s alma mater on the California coast. Haunted by childhood memories of lurking shadows and her mother’s strange aloofness, Addie quickly discovers that going off to college might not provide the escape she was hoping for. The campus is littered with strange symbols, she meets creepy instructors, and a purportedly “fun activity” leads her to descriptions of strange rituals. From her dorm window, Addie can see the Devouring Well, which has a padlocked lid and is a source of ominous campus folklore. Addie becomes close to a group of other legacy students whose parents were linked through a strange class and an even stranger (and now mysteriously vanished) professor. The first half of the novel consists of slowly paced buildup, with clumsy interstitial chapters describing scenes from the Velde family’s home videos. The most interesting information is revealed through dream sequences and infodumps. Repetitive references to vibes and vibrations stand in for more evocative descriptions of horror, while the stilted prose hampers the story’s forward momentum. The romantic subplot (involving twin brothers) never quite takes off. Addie’s grandparents came from Belarus and Italy; there’s some diversity in race, nationality, and gender identity among supporting characters.
Melodramatic dark academia. (author’s note, content warnings) (Horror. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9798890030801
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Page Street
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A high-concept premise that falls short in its execution.
A teenage girl finds herself alone after everyone else in her town mysteriously disappears, leaving her scrambling to figure out how to find them all.
One late summer day, everybody in July Fielding’s town disappears. She is left to piece together what happened, following a series of cryptic signs she finds around town urging her to “GET THEM BACK.” The narrative moves back and forth between July’s present and the events of the summer before, when her relationship with her best friend, cross-country team co-captain Sydney, starts to fracture due to a combination of jealousy over July’s new relationship with a cute boy called Sam and sweet up-and-coming freshman Ella’s threatening to overtake Syd’s status as star of the track team. The team members participate in a ritual in which they jump off a cliff into the rocky waters below at the end of their Friday practice runs. Though Ella is reluctant, Syd pressures her to jump. Short, frenetically paced sections move the story along quickly, and there is much foreshadowing pointing to something terrible that occurred at the end of that summer, which may be the key to July’s current predicament, but there is much misdirection too. Ultimately this is a story without enough setup to make the turn the book takes in the end feel fully developed or earned. All characters read white.
A high-concept premise that falls short in its execution. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780593327173
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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