Hide: The book you need after Squid Game

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However, I don’t think any of us could have expected that she would churn out such a dark and gutting social commentary for her adult debut, and she would do it so well. White's ( The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein) adult debut still feels fundamentally like a YA novel. Her attitude did get to wearing pretty thinly on me too, she wasn’t remotely likable so it was hard to root for her at all. But I thought that, for the most part, she gave at least a little bit of a glimpse into all of their psyches, and let us see why they would agree to this strange contest through their motivations and bits and pieces of their backstories. Haunting, startling, unrelenting, and unexpectedly heartbreaking, Hide draws you inexorably in among the thorns and rust, where the monsters are both intimately familiar and horrifyingly unfathomable.

I was in the dark for a lot of the plot, until I started to realize just what the broader picture was, influence wise, and once I did I became all the more invested in seeing how it all played out. But as players develop alliances and rivalries, it becomes clear to some that there’s more than money at stake, while others uncover the horrors lurking in the park. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.Despite having 14+ characters introduced almost all at once, it was not hard for me to recognize them all through the frequent POV changes in the novel.

But the story fell short for my expectations based on the strong opening and the excellent scene setting. But though her adult debut is very much a grisly tale of horror, it also features many of the same elements that make White’s other worlds so appealing, from its fast-paced, page-turning plot to its diverse cast of memorable characters and the complex, often unlikeable heroine at its center, who is wrestling with a dark past of her own. Kiersten White tells her inspiration for writing this book, and it made me understand the terrifying atmosphere in this story.

I think maybe this also connects to the slight feeling of this erring on the side of YA and perhaps the older side of the YA market might enjoy this one more than I did. The competitors range from internet influencers looking for viral content and tech bros hoping for a chance for some face time with the executives of the extreme sports company sponsoring the event to a young woman trying to rebuild her life in the wake of an abusive relationship and a rural gas station attendant who just wants to make some real-life friends.

In short: This place is terrifying and would have been equally so without the addition of a slightly demonic supernatural element. Rather, they were brought here to die at the hands of a devilish monster summoned here in generations past to protect Asterion. All in all the story is very chilling and you can actually feel yourself in the abandoned park as you wait with the others all day in your hiding spot and hope your don’t get found! And I’m not going to spoil to much here in terms of big details, but the way that White handles this story, with nods to Greek mythology as well as very real issues regarding the idle rich vs an ever more strained lower class, is a well balanced take on all the things she seeks to take on. I'd wanted to read the full-length novel this graphic adaptation is based on since its release but I hadn't yet gotten around to doing so.Horror hide and seek in an abandoned amusement park – this was one of my most anticipated reads of 2022. Often sad, interspersed with lighter touches of humour, the book is a record of lives that function without families, jobs or prospects, yet are still portrayed with a sense of dignity amid the depression. Ava has a lot of great lines and some great characterization, and I was very invested in hers and Mack’s relationship as well as their wellbeing. That being said, this is a book that takes the author from her usual YA genre into the adult genre and for me this still felt a little on the YA side. I would be quite interested to see what type of monster is created for the show compared to my imagination.