I love a good spooky middle grade read! While this may not be a new favorite i did enjoy the hide and seek element and story telling. I felt the characters needed some work and growth but overall I had fun and recommended it to my boyfriends niece and nephew

Melodramatic in some places and somehow not emotionally weighty enough in others. That ending was awesome, though. I’ll probably check out whatever the author writes next if it comes across my radar.

I originally wanted to read this book because it felt right up there with Katherine Arden's <i>Small Spaces</i> series . . . and I was right! Perhaps not as <b>creepy</b> but still pretty good. And great for young ones getting into chapter books that need a lot of action/happenings.

There were a few occasions where there was no empathy between the characters but I just thought it was more of "we don't have time to worry about this" and less "I don't really care about you" at the time. In retrospect, I guess it could definitely be the characters just had no empathy.

I think the story is pretty straightforward, there was nothing left to really interpret or try to figure out. Holly and Hector are taken into the forest to play a game of Hide & Seek. They encounter other boys and girls that were taken for the same reasons.

I can't give away too much without spoiling.

Overall, this was a good spooky story for middle-grade readers.

This is super spooky! It gets into the scary stuff right away, which is fantastic, and I think it will be popular with middle grade readers who have liked other scary books like Small Spaces. It's very readable and exciting and has a good amount of real scare factor. Scary stories that play off of regular childhood things turned evil, like hide and seek, are super popular, so I think this one would do well at my library.

My jam is definitely spooky lit and this one is perfect for fans of Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon and the eerie vibes of The Stitchers by Lorien Lawrence and Small Spaces by Katherine Arden. I was pulled into the lives of Holly and Hector and needed to know how they were going to get out from the Hiddenseek. A great cast of characters, a transforming “It”, dark hidden caves, and potentially being frozen into statues…forever. Readers will love this one!

The only thing worse than being found while playing hide and seek is not being found at all. When Holly was playing hide and seek with her brother, Hector, and his friends, she wasn’t found. She came out of her hiding spot and saw a man, named Oliver, who told her he must take her to a place called The Hiddenseek since she lost the game. Hector also wasn’t found, so he was sent to The Hiddenseek with Holly. Now, they’re in an even more dangerous game, being chased by It, a witch who can turn them to stone if she catches them. Holly and Hector have to win the game to save their lives.

Most kids play hide and seek, but usually the stakes are not as high as they are in The Hiddenseek. It’s not fun to not be found, because, though it could mean that you found a great hiding place, it could also mean that the other players forgot about you. Holly and Hector, along with the other kids they meet, were all tricked while playing hide and seek and not found. This was the ultimate worst ending to a game of hide and seek.

This was a spooky story. The kids were transported to a forest with a deep history. They had to figure out why they had been brought there before they could find their way home. I would have loved this spooky horror story when I was a kid!

The Hiddenseek is a creepy middle grade story!

Thank you Penguin Teen for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.