Four Found Dead

ehhhh it was alright. I'm glad it kind of explained why he went after them instead of just leaving. If I think too much on it the reasons will probably crumble though. Also, this is the most confusing mall layout I have ever heard of. I had absolutely no idea where they were ever.

But, not bad. I will probably recommend this one because the tension IS there.

Finished it in a day. Really suspenseful.

what a completely tone deaf book for the society this came out in.

this is a “night at the museum” (but in a mall) meets a glorified active shooter situation.

i really hated:

-the fact that clayton's character was so underdeveloped. yes, i know he's the psycho who did all this. but the FACT that we didn't know until the very last chapter WHY he snapped, it made it all hard to not think there was a something much bigger in play only to be dissapointed.

-the fact that hudson's character was so red-herring-ish. seriously. ALL book i kept wondering when hudson was gonna turn on jo and the others. there were so many examples of him being shading but closing the door from the theatre, conspiring against summer, the weirdly revealed seizure disorder are just a few.

-the fact that it was not every poorly written. i've heard of great premise but terrible execution but this the complete opposite. this is terrible premise with the best execution it could have possibly had. i was genuinely anxious while reading and wanted to know what happened next. i think the chapters were very well spaced and paced out and each little insert between chapters came together so nicely at the end.

it's a 2.5 for me, luv.

First of all, thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for the review copy!

Four Found Dead starts with a group a teens on their last night at Riverview Theater, the last remaining business in the otherwise abandoned, dilapidated mall that is scheduled to be torn down. They plan on locking up and leaving their job - and their unstable supervisor, Clayton - behind them as they all move on to hopefully bigger and better things. But after an almost-violent encounter between Clayton and his angry wife and a major power outage, the group gets separated and finds that one of them has been murdered. What follows is a fight for survival, and as the title implies, not all of the remaining characters will make it out alive.

Hmm, so, okay...the good: I love the setting! A giant abandoned mall is a GREAT place for a slasher. Malls in general are great when utilized in the horror genre. I mean, look at Dawn of the Dead or the even more highly-rated classic, Chopping Mall:



Sadly, no killer robots to be found in this book.

The main problem with this is it's way too long, and the suspense is undercut by repetition. I took to annotating every time certain things were mentioned / phrases were repeated almost verbatim, but I was running low on sticky notes by the end and had to give up. It was also very tell tell tell, which is fine to an extent in YA books but teens aren't stupid, they can figure things out without holding their hand every step of the way.

I feel like I'm being overly negative! There were positives. Again, there was the fun, creepy setting, and I appreciated that it was pretty fast-paced (things start happening right at the 10% mark, which I think is perfect for a slasher) and the interspersed news clippings and such were fun. For me this was a two-star read, but I could see teens being entertained by it and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to them if they are already fans of the genre.

”Maybe we all have to make peace with that night, with the fact we're here and they're gone.”

I'm not usually a fan of young adult thrillers/slashers but this book surprised me and I found it difficult to put it down once I picked it up.

I would love to see this in movie form. The suspense and mystery were fantastically written and I was left trying to piece together what was going to happen next.

Jo was such a strong protagonist. She had been through a horrific trauma earlier in her life but she still managed to remain level-headed and act courageously in this time of crisis. I also admired her passion for becoming a doctor because of everything she's been through, it was a little detail that I appreciated being included.

I'm intrigued to read more from this author. This was great!

Thank you to NetGallery and SOURCEBOOKS Fire for providing me this arc!
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.