The 25 lucky invitees to Camp So-and-So this summer are excited to attend. The camp is known for being exclusive, life-changing, and fun! But not everything/everyone is as they seem. Odd things happen at this camp. Downright strange things. Frightening things. Friendships are essential to the story but so is rivalry. There are humorous antics as well as some you may find significantly creepy. Unlike any other novel I've read, it is a must read for teens who enjoy magical realism. Hand to fans of TV's Stranger Things & the film Beetlejuice.

Really enjoyed the author's debut but this book is very muddled. Didn't get a feel for the characters or the setting. Took me awhile to finish it.

Quirky fun for YAs! I love camp stories (PeeWee Scouts back in the 90's). And I was a Girl Scout leader (same time period) Anyone who grew up enjoying camp, camp stories, scouting, will likely enjoy this book. It's dark, but fun and a quick read. Besides- it's summer! Maybe take the book with you on a camping trip and read it in a hammock in the shade of a tree!

Here's the strange thing about this book: I don't actually remember starting it.

I swear I was reading In The Night Wood - I know for a fact I was a few pages into it, actually - and then an inexplicable time slip happened, and it was an afternoon on my couch, and I was getting to know the cabins of Camp So-and-So.

I don't know how this happened. It's never happened to me before. The idea of reader lost time is vaguely unsettling, but also...if it is going to happen, there is no other book more appropriate than the strangeling that is Camp So-and-So.

Moving past the murkiness of my beginnings with this tale, the story itself is wonderfully odd. I absolutely adored this book; it was nothing like what I expected (I expected a...I don't know, Halloweenish summer camp tale?).

It's hard to define this story. I tried to explain it to other people and generally just trailed off into 'it's really weird, but in a good way.'

Five cabins, five sets of girls, five tropes, two camps. Even in its weirdest moments, this book manages to exude a sense of girl power, friendship, and capability; it may not be perfect, but it somehow juggles nostalgia, survival, and supernatural elements in a way that seems almost natural.

This book was... all the things. That's all I can say. Not what I expected AT ALL. From the very beginning you see all of these crazy occurrences and realize that this isn't any ordinary camp. However, based on the blurb itself I don't want to give any spoilers away as to the contents because the surprises are half the fun. I'll just say if you're looking for a little something different, this book is for you. I look forward to more from the author!

I could not put this title down - and Mary McCoy made my jaw drop more than once with this highly inventive story! I absolutely loved how she used different tropes of horror to turn the genre up on it's head. Additionally, constructing the story in six acts was genius.

The story of Camp So-And-So is so different. At first, it was hard to follow, and I was a bit lost trying to figure out in my own mind what this book was actually about. Each chapter has new characters and once I grasped that I relaxed into a creepy supernatural read. I was drawn in until I binge read the entire book in a couple hours.
This is a fun read for teens who like things like the LumberJanes and Stranger Things.

While I appreciate the clever and tongue-in-cheek, sometimes clever really just ends up weird. As is the case with this book. I was initially intrigued by all of the different directions it was taking but it didnt' take long for the novelty to wear off. To many characters without much depth. TOo many lots without clear direction. Too many narrator intrusions. TO many conflicting plot points.

Scheduled to post 2/28.

At first I was really disoriented by CAMP SO-AND-SO (as, I'm sure, were all the campers I was reading about). It's a very non-traditional story told from multiple viewpoints in third person omniscient that tells multiple stories that are otherwise connected, but functioning independently from each other. It's very strange but I adored the voice so I pushed through and I'm so glad I did.

What a fantastic story. Every time I'm surprised by a Carolrhoda Lab book and I shouldn't be because I've loved nearly every book I've read from them. They just know how to pick them. And CAMP SO-AND-SO is no exception. It's campy (ha!) but in a grounded sort of way that mixes in the supernatural and the faery world in a way that perfectly blends together. Despite the fact that you literally have twenty-five different characters you're following I never lost track of any of them (okay, I may have mixed up the girl in the orange hoodie and the girl with beads in her hair a couple times toward the end, but I think I'm a little justified there considering what happened between the two). They're all completely independent of each other and they stand out against each other.

CAMP SO-AND-SO was a downright fun book. It had the very quirky camp feel, but completely upended that entire trope on its head and nearly bastardized the whole idea. I loved it. I also loved that not everyone come out unscathed. Or at all. That appeased my blackened soul nicely. And the ending fit nicely with the overall tone of the book: fun and quirky with a dark underlying tone lurking just beneath the surface of the world McCoy created. Awesome.

It's a story that'll appeal to the younger reluctant YA reader for all the action and playing around the story does along with the older YA reader who's looking for something different, but still plays to known tropes within the genre (camping genre? is that a thing?). I was never a camp person (I was allergic to the outside when I was little, camp probably would have killed me) and CAMP SO-AND-SO made camp both appealing and appalling all at the same time. Although I'm pretty sure that was the point.

An excellent read, I highly recommend McCoy's book. There's literally something for everyone (a hint of romance, the supernatural, super villains, the outdoors, an epic quest, and stagehands!).

4.5

This will go live on my blog on March 3. Kellyvision.wordpress.com

Five cabins' worth of girls are at Camp So-and-So and each group is having a bad time (albeit to varying degrees). One is terrorized by a camp urban legend; another is randomly trapped behind a giant thicket (think Sleeping Beauty). It is not ideal. So exactly what is happening here? Who's behind it? Can the five groups figure out what's happening and save themselves?

This is a hard story to review. I liked one of the storylines a great deal (obviously the horror movie one) and was at least interested in the other plots. But I never really felt like anyone was actually in danger here. It all felt like an elaborate story that would reveal itself like a big April Fool's Day joke. (Obviously I'm not saying if I was right.)

Even so, I was never bored. And the characters are all likeable so I was hoping that they'd overcome Camp So-and-So. This isn't a bad book by any stretch of the imagination. It also feels much shorter than it is. I would read Mary McCoy again but I'm not sure I'd read any potential sequel.

Accurately described as Lumberjanes meets Cabin in the Woods, Camp So-and-So isn’t your average summer camp tale. From Cabin 1’s quest to win a competition with a neighboring camp to Cabin 2’s encounter with a murderer, to Cabin 3’s magical prophecy there’s enough action to keep anyone turning pages. And with so many stories going on, will anyone figure out who’s really directing the action behind the scenes before someone gets seriously hurt?

Though the idea of this book was interesting, the execution fell short. The characters were flat and underdeveloped, the multiple plot lines felt thin and more chaotic than urgent (and I'm usually a big fan of deconstruction), and while I thought the very end had a few lovely moments, overall, I was unsatisfied and left with too many unresolved questions -- which probably would have bothered me more if I had been able to develop any meaningful connection to any of the characters. Pretty disappointing book. I won't recommend it.

If only I could 5-star this book many times over. Can't wait for this gem to be out so I can buy the stars out of it. I initially was attracted to the title (best title of 2017, by far), but then the story sucked me in until I couldn't think of anything else but finishing it...and at the same time I didn't want it to end.
Loved it!

This novel was a very entertaining and quirky blend of horror, thriller, with a smattering of the supernatural thrown in. Probably aimed at children, girls most likely, of the ages 12+ it played around with the standard horror film setting of teens on a remote summer camp, with something nasty going to happen…. However, although the author I’m guessing was probably a horror film buff she has come up with an original and clever tale which should entertain younger teens. The camp is full of your average group of horror film teen clichés, drama queens, loners, those only interested in their hair and boys and lots of others. Split into cabins the dynamics of the rooms work pretty well and the tension builds when one girl disappears and rumours begin to circulate about nastiness happening in the camp in the past. The book has an odd structure which I think teens are going to have to concentrate on to follow the story, otherwise they might give up too soon. Along the way there are some decent twists, suspense and you can’t help but think you might be in a Friday the 13 Film and it was cool when the cabins actually begun to figure out what was going on. Actually, it reminded me of lots of other books/TV, but in a pop culture sort of way it most definitely turns into its own work as it runs with plenty of fresh riffs on this popular YA genre. Summer camps are very American, so I’m not sure whether an American audience with identify with it so much, but you will most definitely have a good laugh at some of the Councillors, one girl when she meets her Councillor is greeted with “If you bother me I will END you! Ouch. Recommended.