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 taut yet winding mystery that will keep readers guessing.
In this thriller, a flyer on the cheer team at her small-town Texas high school is dragged back into the awful events that claimed her best friend and her boyfriend.
Senior Iris Henley was horrified when her boyfriend, Rocky Koenig, and her former best friend, Lynette Zeiger, were found dead in a presumed murder-suicide the previous school year. She and Lynette, whose drug use was spiraling out of control, had already fallen out, but Iris had no idea Rocky was cheating on her with Lynette. But when anonymous social media posts claim that Iris herself is responsible for their deaths, her life becomes a nightmare of accusations and betrayal. Employing first-person, present-tense narration that feels immediate and anxious, this mystery builds steadily over the course of 25 days during which Iris feels increasingly desperate and unsure whom she can trust. Her troubled relationships with her friends and family are multidimensional and render her a sympathetic and likable narrator, who worries about her own reliability as she was drunk and high the night of the deaths. In particular, a subplot involving Iris’ growing understanding of her younger sister, Noelle, lends emotional depth to this whodunit. The central cast is white, and surnames suggest that some members of the supporting cast are Latine, including Iris’ best friend.
A taut yet winding mystery that will keep readers guessing. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9781250323835
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
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