Horrifying. Sex tourism. Torture. I did not know this book would be as dark as it was. I did not enjoy it.

This book was interesting at times but it could have used for a good editing, much of it was too detailed, too slow and then rushed, so while it was interesting, it also took forever to read and as i said much of it could have been left out and still made the point. So wasn't really for me, i prefer faster moving thrillers

Thank you to William Morrow and Custom House and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Four contestants at a full-contact haunted escape house called the Quigley House play for a chance to win $60,000. Before completing the final room, a man breaks into the house and kills one of the contestants. Through a series of interviews, transcripts, and flashbacks, the mystery is unraveled to piece together the events from that night.

Hooweee talk about a page-turner! First off, I really liked the varied media formats used by the author to tell the story. Implementing flashbacks in a non-linear fashion mixed in with the transcripts to move us forward to the present day events worked well, and I didn't find the story confusing to follow. The writing was straight forward and easy to read.

The characters had their own distinct personalities, though I personally didn't find any of them to be likable. This may or may not have been purposeful in the context of the story, because the central conflict involved a critical member of the ensemble in solving a mystery. I jumped between many theories until the end, wondering who was involved in the final climax and how everybody would come together. The novel covers a wide variety of topics such as racism, exploration of identity, isolation and loneliness, obessession and fetishes, and political idealation. These topics are integrated throughout the story as the author explores the personal history of each character, how their backgrounds have helped shape their identities, and their motivations for joining the escape house challenge.

The story is revealed through multiple points of view, with the narrator role jumping primarily between the characters of Kendra, Jaidee and Leonard. The first rotation between their respective chapters quickly tells the reader how unreliable each narrator can be. This ramps up the mystery and suspense of the story, because no one sees things accurately. There are many moving parts involved in what happened that night at the Quigley House, and even the court transcripts from the cross-examination interviews do not give all the answers.

I enjoyed all the unreliable narrator accounts as this kept me turning the pages, but I have to say I felt the ending was a little abrupt. We know who the players are as well the murderer, and we discover the whys and hows of all the craziness that occurs by the end, but I would have liked to have more explanation added to definitively tie things up. I also think some of the topics covered in the story could have been explored a lot more thoroughly. It's not too much of a stretch to fill in the blanks, since as mentioned the author does spend a good amount of time fleshing out the characters' identities and motivations. But the ending for me was dark and bitter, with the resolution falling short. Overall I liked the story okay and I thought it had quite a unique premise and I enjoyed the mixture of suspense, mystery, and tension involved all throughout.

Well this wasn’t what I was expecting…

Quigley House is a full-contact haunted escape room...meaning the actors can touch you and do what they want to you. It’s famous for offering $60,000 to pairs of four people who complete each cell (room) without using the safe word. Only one group has ever won.

In 1997, four contestants from different walks of life make it to the final cell. Before completing their task, a man breaks into the house and brutally murders one of the contestants.

Reprieve is told via court transcripts after the murder, via the cells as the contestants progress, and through a few POVs leading up to the murder. It’s a social commentary on the world we live in, touching on racism, identity, sexism, etc. While I appreciate that, I can’t say I enjoyed reading it, nor did I walk away thinking it was profound.

It’s bleak and often annoying due to the mostly severely unlikable characters. I understand that’s intentional. However, the dialogue repeats itself quite often, as if drilling in a point that we, the readers, are already aware of. I felt uncomfortable, disgusted, and frustrated by the majority of the characters.

I wouldn’t call this a horror novel at all. While the scenes that flashback to the cells and the murder are indeed horrific, this book never surprises or throws out anything unexpected. Some of the POVs also read like YA, to the point where I literally had to browse the web and see if I accidentally picked up a YA novel. While it’s ultimately not YA, I don’t really know what it is.

And yet, I hit a point where I just had to see how everything played out. In a way, I became invested...and the last few chapters leading up to the murder were well done as things came together.

Ultimately, while I appreciated what the novel was trying to show, it didn’t astound or amaze me.

2.5 stars

Thank you to William Morrow and Scene of the Crime for an ARC provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Expected Publication Date: 10/5/21.

Review also posted at: https://bonkersforthebooks.wordpress.com

Thank you William Morrow and Netgalley for the opportunity to preview Reprieve. This is really different and took me by surprise in lots of ways.

A game that takes four people to Lincoln, Nebraska, into a house of horrors so to speak that is designed as an escape room. If you can outlast the other three without shouting out "reprieve", you will win lots of money. Sounds like a plan until someone is murdered - with the four people in the game, who dunnit?

The POV's of those indivduals is what makes this book interesting - all different and all the same. And they tell their stories and nothing is what is expected.
Like I said, this is different and the themes border on topics of interest today - good read - not for the weak of heart.
3.5 stars.

I need to lie down now.

It has been eons since I've started and finished a book in one sitting, but I could not stop. This combination of courtroom transcripts, with an incredibly rich buildup to the climax in Cell Five, was completely addicting. There's a lot for me to sit with and digest now; the impact race and gender had across the storylines, the range of pity and anger and frustration and joy I felt, quickly going from one to the other and not knowing which way was the *right* way to feel.

In short, I loved every minute. This will be a killer book for anyone tangentially interested in horror, especially in haunted houses and escape rooms.

This was everything I love in a good thriller - unreliable narrators, multiple viewpoints, and a plot that keeps you guessing until the bitter end. The concept was unique, and I think this perfectly primed to be a great read for Halloween! My one and only gripe is that it seemed like the ending was pretty rushed. The book spent the majority of the time developing and molding these characters with unique backgrounds and perspectives. Then, at the end, what happens to the antagonists and their families and friends seems to be an afterthought. Overall, I enjoyed the book, but think the ending could have had more luster.

Reprieve is certainly a page-turner, and I do want to like it. It's a novel on the longer side as they go, and as with novels of its length, it attempts to cover an enormous amount of ground: fetishization, minority-relations, gay politics in the 90's. I appreciated the structure of the book, in which transcripts / interviews / documents are interleaved with the actual events in the haunted house which are in turn interspersed with chapters of rotating narration by each main character. This all sounds a bit complicated but the pacing was executed with precision and aplomb. Mattson navigates narrative tension beautifully.

But there were just some areas of this book that fell short for me. The characters felt somehow... unreal, disingenuous, under-examined. There are certain turns at which important information was dispensed with almost perfunctorily. For example, Kendra's relationship with her father. Yes, Mattson had established an undercurrent of distrust mixed with vague suggestions toward a time in which it hadn't been so, and this later comes out in a moment when Kendra asks her cousin about his thoughts on her father, but it never really proceeds or deepens from there, there are no moments from which a reader can make their own evaluation of that question. It's just hazy.

Similarly, the passage with Boomsri in which her background story to becoming a prostitute is detailed in a single paragraph was an almost cliched treatment of what a writer might imagine a Thai prostitute to be: vague references to monsoons and illness. It didn't feel girded by the sort of research that lends real authenticity to a story. Particularly, the moments in which Mattson wrote as Kendra or Bryan just didn't feel sustained by a rich undercurrent of knowledge, lived or researched. The emotions didn't feel legible to me. The portions I felt were strongest were the Leonard and Jaidee narration--Mattson writes longing and desperation incredibly well.

Overall, Reprieve was a pageturner, and a valiant effort at wrangling social commentary into the structures of horror, but it fell short in its rendering of particular characters as fully-realized beings.

Wow! This book took me on a great ride! READ IT! If I say more, I'm afraid I will give away too much!

"Reprieve" is a slow burn of suspense, told through a mix of courtroom transcripts and narrative alternating between main characters whose lives are drawn together at Quigley House, a "full contact haunt" that becomes the site of a gruesome murder. That would be enough to draw me in, but the book doubles as an examination of racism and racial fetishization, gay politics and the American obsession with horror. Simply put, there's a lot going on here, which kept me turning the pages and kept surprising me. I struggled a bit spending time with so many flawed characters, but I realize that's part of the point, and all of it was hard to look away from even as the plot got more horrifying. Definitely recommend it.

This book grabbed me by the throat and never let go! A deep, nail biting piece of horror and crime fiction, but also something so much more. A powerful look at what happens and what we are capable of when our obsessions, fetishes, biases, and prejudices dehumanize those around us. I was completely riveted. The writing here is absolutely wonderful! Every character feels completely alive. The dialogue is honest and genuinely believable. While I know for sure this won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, for me it was an expertly crafted read. Give it a chance!

This read is certainly one that stays with you, willing you to turn the pages.

Reprieve takes on the deeply troubling, yet true and strange world of full contact haunts and turns it into a "why have they done it mystery". Told from various points of view the book breaks down each person and their motive to join the contest .I can confidently say, none of the characters are likeable. With that said, I think that was done purposely, although if it was I can't tell why. It might have been nice to have at least one character that grew a bit from their time in the attraction.

One qualm I did have while reading was the character of Jaidee whom is a gay exchange student that is painted as obsessive in his love interest of a straight man and in every interaction with men in the story whom he finds attractive. This felt a bit pointed for me as a person in the LGBT community, I cant necessarily say it felt quite right to be typecasting in a way. While I appreciated the complex take on race dynamics that accompanied Jaidee's story I feel that it would have been better explored without weaving it into a gay persons perspective given the stigma that surrounds gay men as a whole in modern day media.

Each room of the haunt is perfectly spaced between the perspectives of the contestants in it. The read has a psychological aspect to it that is enjoyable. While it may have been a bit easy to see the ending it was still fitting for the genre, It might have been a DNF for me had I realized that no twists would occur necessarily thus garnering only 2 stars for me,.

NetGalley provided this book to me in exchange of an honest review.

My emotions cannot handle this book.

I really felt... everything with this story. Fear, sadness, anger, love... literally the entire spectrum.

To me this is very much a literary mystery. Sure, there are some "horror" ish elements, but at its core this story is about a group of people overcoming traumatic events and having to face fears greater than they know. It is so, so raw a story. It is full of gripping narration and characters who you do not know if you can trust. I had to keep asking myself "is what I know right now the TRUTH or is it just what the author wants me to know in this very moment?"

If you like mysteries that feature a grand cast of characters that you might not be able to trust, pick this up.