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INTO THE SUBLIME by Kate A. Boorman Kirkus Star

INTO THE SUBLIME

by Kate A. Boorman

Pub Date: July 26th, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-19170-0
Publisher: Henry Holt

Four teen girls embark on a thrill-seeking quest that goes horribly wrong.

The story starts at the end, at the very point of rescue, when the survivors are exhausted, injured, and barely intelligible. One girl is missing, two are taken to the hospital, and Deputy Vargas stays behind with Amelie, the one who will tell their story from the beginning, the one who is covered in blood—but not her own. Amelie, Devon, H, and Gia got together to explore an underground cave system that local legend says contains the Sublime, a subterranean lake with mystical powers that can change something important for those who find it—and who are willing to face their greatest fears. The four barely know each other beyond having met at Dissent, a group for those seeking extreme challenges, and each one harbors a secret reason of her own for hoping to find the Sublime. Amelie’s ostensible excuse is a commitment to her late cousin—but is her account reliable? The more she gets into the tale of their misadventure, the more Vargas questions whether what she is hearing is the truth. This disorienting, claustrophobic, and genuinely frightening thriller follows the four girls as they descend into the darkness. With well-developed, sympathetic characters, a taut plot, and an unreliable narrator, the novel straddles the line between mystical and psychological horror to keep readers guessing to the end. Amelie and Devon are assumed White, H is Korean, and Gia is coded Latinx.

A sublimely scary thriller.

(Thriller. 14-18)