Campfire

This book did a good job keeping me engaged to the end, despite its flaws. I was really invested in Maddie for the whole story, as well as in the mystery of the explosion that killed her mom.

The second story told around the campfire was one of those “Mentally Ill Person is Actually a Dangerous Killer” stories that I really dislike. Stories in that category are popular but reinforce negative stereotypes of people with psychosis and contribute to violence against them. People with psychosis are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators, in part because of these inaccurate, harmful portrayals. The emphasis on the patient's flat affect as something scary also put a bad taste in my mouth, as someone who has flattened affect due to being autistic. I was also disappointed that this campfire story didn't have a twist, like the head doctor being the actual killer who was framing the Scary Mentally Ill patient. (That's a story I'd like to read: Mentally Ill person being framed as the killer but ends up a hero, subverting these tropes.)

Aspects of that framed story were also problematic: what hospital gives patients full responsibility for administration of their own medications, especially antipsychotics? A person in a hospital who has psychosis is more likely to forget whether they've taken their meds, panic, and accidentally overdose. And it would have been completely believable for the hospital to have sedative autoinjectors on hand, so the employees could have subdued the killer.

Moving on to the outer narrative. Where did the ATV go? And why didn't Caleb have an emergency satellite phone on his person at all times, and why wasn't the shed with the supplies locked? There has to have been a protocol for what to do in the event of a camper dying other than just leaving the bodies and relying on a single radio. At no point was bear safety addressed realistically: I've camped in places where bears are, and a very big safety thing is that you should never have food in your tent. I can accept that Mark was ignorant, but Caleb should have said something about not keeping food or garbage in tents, and keeping garbage away from the campsite. Caleb should have had bear spray on him as well (if Mark had done actual research in his paranoia he would have had bear spray too, but I'll allow that Mark is not good at finding good information sources). I am not content with Caleb's explanation of no bears on the mountain.

I can accept that from Maddie's point of view, Charlie suddenly changed from being a sweet protective loving older brother, but it would have been more believable if she'd in hindsight seen signs of things being not-right, like how Tommy's anger issues were evident with his smashing his coach's car. (Side note: Chelsea dismissing that as Boys Being Boys with All That Testosterone was kind of bizarre though. Maddie should have had Lots of Doubts in response. What experiences has Chelsea had that make it normal and okay for men to commit extreme premeditated property destruction in response to being benched??)

Charlie being secretive without Maddie realizing it was hard to believe, unless Maddie is established as completely oblivious in general (which she wasn't). Charlie would have had an observable pattern of entitlement over women long beforehand if he decided to kill Dylan for mentioning the possibility that circumstances might make them need to break up in the future.

I understand that this was supposed to be a slasher thriller and that the genre is supposed to be about killers having motives that don't make sense, but I firmly believe that the genre can still involve authorial commentary about how real mass killings are overwhelmingly part of a pattern of the killers' entitled thoughts and actions. I feel like authors have a responsibility to include details like entitlement, in a time when mass shootings are so frequent in the U.S., and mass shooters' histories of entitled behavior are glossed over in favor of stories like “he did it because he was Crazy/autistic/bullied.” Mass killers almost always have a domestic violence history.

I can imagine a story where Charlie uncovers this conspiracy about the circumstances of his mother's death, and makes choices other than “Murder everyone involved and any witnesses who won't keep quiet.” I can also imagine a slasher story where Maddie has been worried about Charlie's becoming weirdly distant since their mom's death (maybe getting into fights at school and struggling with academics?) and hopes the camping trip will bring them back to how close they were before, but the story otherwise progresses as written.

I gave this three stars because I believe that the slasher genre can do better, even with the constraints that details about the killers' justifications for murder should be minimal. The book kept me engaged despite its issues, and I enjoyed it overall. The scene that reveals that Maddie likes to imagine being chased by monsters during her runs was really well executed; I was convinced she was really in danger in that moment.