Little Creeping Things is a young adult thriller by Chelsea Ichaso. With a spectacularly creepy cover and intriguing plot, I was excited to dive in. Unfortunately, I guessed the killer's identity rather quickly, making the read far less engrossing than I was expecting. Even so, the writing was good, and I enjoyed the friendship between Cass and Gideon. If you enjoy YA suspense, twisty reads, and stories about the dark side of friendships/relationships, I recommend this one.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! No spoilers. Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Could not put down nor did I want to. Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Maybe even a book club pick.
Again Thank you for giving me an opportunity to review this book. I throughly enjoyed the book. I am going to be going back to this book for years to come. Can’t wait to recommend to my bookstagram pals. Thank you again for the chance to read and review this book.

I was provided a copy of this novel by the author in exchange for an honest review. All the following opinions are my own!

Little Creeping Things is….an interesting YA mystery/thriller novel. The story follows our main character Cassidy Pratt, also known as Fire Girl, as she becomes an unwilling witness to a crime she believes she inadvertently caused. Things escalate when the killer sends Cass messages threatening to use her reputation as the girl who once started a fire (accidentally) resulting in the death of a friend, and this causes Cass to keep secrets and pushes her away from the relationships that tether her to the world where she isn't who everyone believes her to be.

My first impression of this novel wasn't…great. The first quarter of the book felt very clumsy and forced, and Cass came off as an incredibly stupid protagonist. She makes decisions that couldn't possibly ever have a positive outcome and she has this sadhoe attitude that offended me and annoyed me at the same time, because I am literally the same. Also, I totally called the murderer at the 30% mark.

However, as I read on, I found myself oddly attached to Cass' characters and her relationships with the people around her. I found myself invested in her life, even if I thought she was being extremely stupid. Also, I was so invested in her, that I totally couldn't hold on to the conviction that the murderer was the murderer, so when the reveal happened, it wasn't a disappointment, just another addition to the plot. And it was fun!

The writing in the book was pretty standard YA mystery/thriller and didn't really evoke any special emotion from me. It did its job perfectly well, and managed to tell the story without distracting me from it in any way. The plot went a little all over the place, in my opinion, but it also managed to be coherent and made sense in its own way. My main issue was with the justification of the killer's motives. It felt like the killer was a killer because he just was, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. In a novel that is entirely about how presumptions of people and external factors like that can mould you into the person they believe you to be if you let them, the way the villain's character was handled felt a little unfair to me.

The best part, for me, were definitely the characters. Like I said, I found myself invested in Cass as a person and that's what saved this novel for me. Cass and Gideon's friendship arc, especially, ruined me. It definitely has to do with where I am, personally, as I'm reading this rn, but it still managed to make me super emotional and I cried and everything so bonus points oop!

All in all, this book is definitely just a fun read for the weekend if you're craving something a little twisted and creepy. It's not super scary, but it will hold your attention and it's a fun ride! And that's pretty much all I'm looking for when I pick up new thrillers!

Thank you to the publisher for an advanced copy of this book! Overall I enjoyed the story, but felt it was a little too young for me. The plot was quite predictable as well. I may have not been the best age range to review this particular book, but for young readers I think it would be a great book! Definitely would read more by this author. My overall rating is ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

I was first drawn to this book by the cover. It had a creepy, cool vibe to it. And I am all about a cover. Plus one point for this YA mystery!!

With that said, I am not a huge YA reader, but I do like thrillers and mysteries so I thought I'd give this a shot. I could at least see if it would be a book I'd recommend to my teen. The books don't always appeal to me, but I can see the draw for a younger fan. I definitely saw this with this particular book. The story has lots of high school characters and you get a feel for the hierarchy of it all. The cool kid, the bully, the best friend, the kid that's picked on, etc etc. They are all there. There's almost TOO many characters, but that's what set the tone and feel of the story. It left you with so many choices of "whodunit".

Cass is our unreliable narrator. She was a young girl when she started a fire that killed her friend/neighbor. Or so she thinks. She has no real memory of the event, except in flashbacks that are slowly filling her memory. Her past follows to her present and people call her Fire Girl. She is made fun of and bullied. Typical, awful high school stuff. She is not exactly a likable characters, but this is her story. She knows she always has her best friend Gideon and her brother Asher. They seem to be her constant.

After her tormentor, Melody goes missing is when the real story starts and we get to run around and figure out what happened and who did it.
A story filled with high school drama and so many possible culprits, you'll be sure to be swept up in the story. Some of the characters are more likable than others, but overall the story flowed well. The beginning draws you in, the middle is lagging a little bit, but it's the ending that really gets you. Even if Cass isn't the main character that I would like to have rooted for, she gets us to a satisfying ending that may just have you flipping right back to the beginning to see if you picked up on the clues.

A solid debut from Chelsea Ichaso that I will definitely be recommending to my teen that likes suspense and thrillers. 3.5 rounded up

My rating: 3.5 Stars

Thanks to a deadly accident when she was just a child, the town bully never let her forget the nightmare she survived, never failed to let her know she was blamed, but when Melody went missing, Cassidy knew she could help find her. The only problem, she also had joked about the perfect way to get rid of Melody, herself and someone may have acted on it.

LITTLE CREEPING THINGS by Chelsea Ichaso has a heroine who isn’t easily likable, doesn’t seem to want to make real friends and lives in her own dark world. Written for teen readers, who may understand the politics of school hierarchy, whether they tolerate it or not, there is lots of angst and darkness without that sense of “fresh” in the story line or a tremendous amount of depth in the characters.

One HUGE thing Chelsea Ichaso did get very right was the turmoil. Hang on for some great twists that readers will never see coming! Geared for teens.

I received a complimentary ARC edition from Sourcebooks Fire! This is my honest and voluntary review.

"My whole life I've been told I knocked over the candle that burned down the place. But I don't remember doing it." I shut my eyes, letting the image of my playhouse crashing around me flicker in the darkness. "Maybe I'm not remembering because"-my fingers twist the edge of the bedsheet-"I did something horrible. Like everyone says."......

Cassidy was just 7 years old when she survived a fire that killed her little friend. Fast forward to high school and Cass is known as “fire girl”, unable to escape her tragic past. Did she really start that fire? They say she did.

Now in high school, others are cruel, especially the dead girls cousin, Melody. When Melody disappears, Cassidy feels she may be blamed for it. She enlists her closest friend, Gideon, to help her.

Just when Cassidy has it figured out, it becomes a very dangerous situation. Cassidy has secrets she can’t share, not even with Gideon.

Where is Melody? The story was very captivating. I wanted to know if Cassidy was really who she was portraying herself to be. A thoroughly suspenseful tale!

Thank you Chelsea Ichaso, Netgalley, Sourcebook Fire

#Littlecreepingthings, #Netgalley

My thanks to Sourcebooks, the author Chelsea Ichaso, and Netgalley.
This isn't my usual kind of book. I kind of had a clue from the beginning about what was up. Still, I really liked this book. A lot, really! The fire girl was my type of gal..at that age! I also had a best friend named David, and he loved me no matter what!
This book was also a palate cleanser for me. I have found that I am in love with YA books. This was a good one.
I don't read crap. At least my definition of crap! This is a good and decent story. I found I was a bit anxious about the 2 main characters. I refuse to say more, because I caught on quickly. Other's may or not. It's still a good book.

This book was so tense and chilling. Really well written and great characters! I am so excited I got an early copy because it was jut what I needed to get me out of my YA Thriller/Mystery slump.

😨BOOK REVIEW😨⁣
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I just finished Little Creeping Things by Chelsea Ichaso. Here is a quote from this book that accurately describes how I felt while reading it: ⁣
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“You crashed your bike into a trash can. It looks like you hit your head on the pavement.”⁣
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Here is how the story goes... local teen Melody disappears (and is later found dead) and Cassidy thinks she can solve the case. She basically throws everyone under the bus to get there. Losing friends and family with her erratic behavior and decisions. Calm down and think of your options Cass!!! Also, Melody & Cassidy hated each other- so there’s that. And for some reason Cassidy attracts all the school hotties. Why do all the cute boys want to be her friend so bad?? She is clearly a basket case. Guys come on, you don’t want the baggage. Sorry, went off on a tangent there- the ending was pretty good. I only KIND of saw it coming. 😂😂⁣
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This book has a really cool cover... that’s about all it has going for it. I mean that doll is freaky. The story was okay, but not great. The main character Cassidy was highly unlikable and trite. I mean yes, her past is troubled but still. The characters were not well developed and I felt like the story had a jagged flow. Like things just happened, or a flashback was thrown in and I was like, alright we’re doin’ this. ⁣
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I really do want to thank @netgalley and @sourcebooksfire for this advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review. This book is out June 2! ⁣
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Please don’t not read (double negative, I know!) this because of my review- please read for yourself if you enjoy YA mysteries and drama!!⁣
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2.5/5 🌟🌟💫⁣
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Cass has always had her past follow her – when she was younger she started inadvertently a fire that killed her neighbour and friend, and she’s been treated like the ‘fire girl’ at school ever since. Melody has been particularly cruel, and Cass may have written a plan to rid the world of her, but she would never act on it. However, Melody has gone missing, and the clues to her disappearance are scarily similar to what is written in her private journal… Going to the police would be the sensible thing to do, but will they believe her? Wouldn’t it be better if she could solve the mystery herself first?

Little Creeping Things is a brilliant, suspenseful thriller that had me guessing until the very end. Due to Cassidy being unable to remember the fire from when she was younger, and only recalling snippets every now and then, she was a wonderfully unreliable narrator. Some of the relationships between the characters, especially Cass and Gideon, were a little frustrating at times, and I would have preferred it with zero romantic interest, but I will admit most of it was necessary, to add to the suspense of the mystery.

If you’re looking for a fast paced thriller with a bunch of intriguing twists, make sure you add this one to your TBR!

I absolutely loved the cover and the blurb. But once I started reading the book it just didn't live up to the hype. The "unreliable narrator" wasn't unreliable at all. Matter of fact, the killer is very easy to spot and its very easy to figure out the narrator isn't who she believes she is. I guessed something was up within the first couple of chapters, so this was disappointing. I do love where the title ties in. But overall, saggy middle and just lack luster. The voice was okay. Nothing special.

Little Creeping Things is a solid YA mystery. The ending was fairly predictable, as it often is for the genre, and overall I felt like the whole book was a bit formulaic for me. Outcast girl with a tragic past + a disappearance + creepy texts has been done before. Chelsea Ichaso's writing was solid and captured the torture of high school well, but there was something about the main character, Cassidy, that I was never able to fully connect to. Overall if you're a fan of the YA mystery genre you will probably enjoy Little Creeping Things as a book that fits comfortably within what you would expect.

This is a YA thriller with an unreliable narrator. Cass started a fire when she was a young girl and has been bullied since that time. Now someone has been killed and she’s determined to find out who did it.

Cass is a well developed character, although, as stated, unreliable narrator. She’s very scattered in her thoughts and can be a bit hard to follow at times. The immediate secondary characters are semi-well developed? The boyfriend character, we get a pretty good read on. The brother character is around enough that I could kind of figure him out. The rest of the cast was pretty much a mystery to me. I’m still unsure if that was intentional or just the author, since this is a debut, however it really didn’t work for me, as when the murderer was revealed I didn’t necessarily expect it to be that person, but not because I didn’t think that person could kill someone. It was because I truly didn’t know that person well enough to know whether I should think it was in their character or not. It was decent enough, but not awesome.

“I let those little creeping things embed themselves inside my brain, inside my very core, until they ate away at who I was”

Have you ever thought harm to a person who consistently made your life unbearable? Have you ever written those thoughts down just to get them out of your mind? What would happen if someone found your thoughts and acted them out? How would you explain your innocence?

Cass’s current situation is finding her thoughts of harm crashing into reality. She cannot stop the track it is about to take. Her burning past found a current flame when her classmate Melody Davenport, torments her everyday at school and in the community. Someone knows Cass’s hatred for Melody, they spare no detail in performing the harmful details she wrote down in her plan for Melody. Plunged into a situation where she remembers more images from her burning past Cass must use them to find the truth and the killer while trying to maintain her secret.

Chelsea Ichaso pens a fabulous debut novel being told by an unreliable narrator who is starting to unravel herself. Every character is intertwined to connect them all as suspects, but leaves you guessing who had the best motive. She spins a psychological thriller that will leave you guessing until the very end.

Thank you to Net Galley, Sourcebooks Fire, and Chelsea Ichaso to allow me to read this amazing ARC.

Little Creeping Things by Chelsea Ichaso is a psychotic and intriguing read, but in overall, it’s just….not enough.

Cassidy, the main character, is heavily flawed. She constantly alternates between broken and on the verge of a breakdown, which means that the narrative (not the writing style, but Cassidy’s consciousness) tends to be messy and all over the place. On one hand, I think this is a solid reflection of her mental state and provides the story with more depth. On the other hand, it can be frustrating to read because she’s so obsessive and gets stuck on things that’s the opposite of what she should be focusing on at the moment. I got so annoyed a lot of times that I couldn’t keep myself properly submerged in the story and that took away some of the suspense that I should’ve felt while reading.

The other characters, though, aren’t as well written. This applies especially to the more prominent secondary characters like Cassidy’s love interest and her brother. Her love interest is perhaps one of the better written ones as we can easily come up with reasons and understand why he does what he does, etc.. Her brother, however, is practically a ghost in the story although he’s present for a large part of it. The remaining side characters are very much two-dimensional and for me, this two-dimensionality is so strong that at one point when one of them did something out of character, it really felt out of character.

Other than that, the reveal on who the real murderer is pretty lackluster. Sure, I didn’t expected that person to be the killer (which is great since it’s no fun figuring things out early on), but…why? Why is that person the killer? Has that person always been like this? There needs to be more involvement from that person in the overall story for the reveal to have more impact because the lack of involvement has made this reveal feel very unexpected and not in the mind-blowing holy-shit-I-can’t-believe-this kind of way, but in the seriously-what-is-going-on kind of way.

All in all, Little Creeping Things is a good debut book. It has potential to be better and I think, with some fine-tuning, this potential can be achieved.

Overall this book was an enjoyable read. However, it was a little too much angst and somewhat predictable. But I did enjoy the book despite those things

I do enjoy a dark thriller, loaded with twists, which keeps the readers on their toes until the end and there have been plenty of YA titles in recent months to choose from. Chelsea Ichaso's debut "Little Creeping Things" is one to watch out for, led by a fine unreliable narrator who may be hiding something, or then again, perhaps not.

The main character Cassidy accidently started a serious fire when she was a child which resulted in the death of a neighbour. Although she cannot remember the incident she has never been able to move on, and even as a teenager is bullied because of it and is even called a murderer. .

One of the bullies disappears and the mystery thickens, written in a way in which the reader is never quite sure of Cassidy's involvement, which is complicated by the appearance of mysterious text messages. Cassidy sets out to solve the mystery, and perhaps unlock the secrets of her past, so make sure you hang in there for a very cool ending. There was alot of enjoy in this edgy thriller, which is an excellent read for teenage girls aged around 13-16.
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Love the cover of this book! Absolutely creepy ~ Cassidy is told she accidentally set a fire that killed her friend when she was 6 years old, and since that time her classmates have called her “firegirl” and bullied her pretty regularly. Especially vindictive is Melody Davenport, who was a cousin to the deceased child. (Cass is actually a bit of a bully herself, which is hard to understand since she hates being bullied, but oh well!) Melody ends up dead, and now Cass is determined to find out who did it, and she goes through a whole list of suspects looking for clues everywhere. She does have one good friend, Gideon, although he is getting a little tired of her constant complaining. Interesting read, a little bit creepy, a little bit mystery. Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC.

Not my favorite thriller, I wasn’t expecting this this be YA. So I was a little off out by that. But still a good read and very creepy and taboo. Thank you for the read