As somebody who spent her teenage summers working as a ride operator, it didn't take much to imagine the horrors that could take place during a Hide and Seek competition that was set in an abandoned, dilapidated amusement park. Who would want to be locked inside a place with rusted clown heads or staticky carousel music, anyway?

No thanks, on my end. Talk about creepy!

Then throw in a $50,000 prize up for grabs, a cast of fourteen competitors with haunting or tragic pasts, a Hunger Games-style daily elimination, deadly disappearances, and a sinister something that's lurking in the woods, and you're about ready to jump out of your own skin the moment you pass through the gates of The Amazement Park.

Without a doubt this is one of those constantly-looking-over-your-shoulder, jolting-every-time-a-branch-snaps, stuck-in-a-maze-with-only-one-way-out kind of books. It's atmospheric. It's deadly quiet. Wrongness growls from the woods they're hiding in, secrets howl from beneath the leafy soil they're running on back to camp, sending chills down your spine. It's menacing and gritty. In other words, it causes the erratic climbing pulse you seek from any good horror suspense novel.

Even though the protagonist is Mack, a twenty-something whose ability to hide well saved her life as a child, the story is told in an omniscient style that vaults between the different characters in a rapid, windy, rollercoaster-like fashion. While that does help to preserve and maintain the suspense, I believe it would have been more effective if there weren't so many characters to start. Fourteen felt like too many. Ten would have been preferable. Seven or eight better still. I found it hard to fully connect with the competitors, even the last remaining ones, because I didn't get as much time devoted to their backstories or development as I would've liked. I think the losses would've hit with more emotional gravity if I'd had more time with the characters.

That said, it wasn't difficult to become attached to Mack and Ava. They were my favorite of the bunch because of their tragic backgrounds and survivalist skills. Ava, in particular, with her leg injury and strategic thinking, gave off some serious Kaz Brekker vibes.

I will also say the ending felt a little abrupt, but I think that had more to do with me wanting more than needing more, if that makes sense. It could've been eerier as well but I liked it overall. Gave me the horror suspense fix I needed.

Extending my gratitude to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in exchange for my review.

*Will publish review to Tumblr blog - A Skirmish of Wit and Lit - on publication day: 5-24-2022

Loved it. Snappy, fun, scary, and fast-paced read. Great cover, btw.

A very simple premise - a child's game ramped up to the max combined with a great twist on the monster story with, for me, a dollop of Poe's 'House of Usher' vibes, and Lovecraftian tones.

It's also a great poke in the eye of reality TV shows and the prevalence of those shows and the 'types' that populate them. The author nails the stereotypes and satirizes them to an extent. I loved the way she used the same name for two of the characters and the duel for supremacy in being either 'Ava' or 'the other Ava' - the worst possible thing for a reality show participant being 'the other one.' That also put the actual worst possible thing to happen to them in context!

Loved the switches between narrators and points-of-view. The competitor back stories and those of the 'family' were briefly but effectively sketched.

If I were to pick one thing that I'd have changed, I'd have left the monster undescribed, let the reader fill that in in their own mind.

I can see this appearing as a TV series, would easily translate into a 6-6 part show with a bunch of unknown actors in the competitor roles and some of the great character actors as the family.

Many thanks to Del Rey and NetGalley for the chance to read this most enjoyable ARC.

"Olly olly oxen free. A gradual corruption of the phrase "All ye outs come free." But nothing is ever free."

Mack knows what it's like to stay hidden. Living in a shelter after a traumatic event that killed her entire family, she knows that nothing is truly yours and the only way to survive is to hide. When she's offered a chance to win $50,000 by participating in a game of hide and seek, she knows she can win. She was made for this competition. But so were the thirteen other contestants. They all have a reason for being there and for needing the money. And they all have superior hiding skills....after all, they've been hiding their whole lives.
Unfortunately, the stakes of this game are higher than any of them could possibly know.

WOW!! This book...I was not expecting what I got from this book! This is pure horror in the vein of splatterpunk writer extraordinaire Brian Keene (a high compliment). I don't want to give too much away because....DANG! I will say, for me, this book was a mash up of Squid Games and Children of the Corn.

At the beginning, there are fourteen contestants and it is hard to keep everybody straight for awhile. But each character does embody a tragic background (some of which are fleshed out better than others), and they all share a sense of loneliness and hopelessness.
The more you get to know these characters, the more attached you get and the harder it is when they get killed off. That emotional gravity is what makes this book so powerful.

Now that's I've highlighted all the good, I do want to discuss a few of the negatives.
This book is labeled as a adult fiction, but it very much reads as YA. All the characters are in their 20s, but they all have an immaturity level that makes them seem much younger than they are. Also, while I do consider this splatterpunk, it is definitely on the tame, censored down end of that.

My biggest qualm, however, is that the book starts getting PC towards the end regarding white privilege, class privilege and the divide between the Boomer Generation and Gen-Z.
While I appreciate these topics, some of them felt completely misplaced within the context of the novel (particularly the issues of white privilege, which seemed to come out of thin air). Class privilege was the only one that really worked and tied into the theme of the story, and I wish the author had left it at that.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the heck out of this book! I certainly recommend it for horror lovers, for Squid Game lovers, and fans of Brian Keene.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was only familiar with this author as a YA fantasy writer, so when this book came up I was intrigued to try it. And I’m so glad I did because I loved it! I was riveted the whole time. The abandoned amusement park was the perfect setting, and the gradual reveal of what was actually happening was very well done. The characters were well developed; the author gave most of them backstories and we read from their perspective on multiple occasions. Mack is a broken human, just so destroyed by her past that I don’t even know how she would carry on in this world. And Brandon 💔

Thank you to NetGalley & Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for this advanced reader copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Man, the simplest ideas are the best. That doesn't mean they're easy to pull off. @kierstenwhite's #HIDE is a Hide and Seek competition with a deadly secret. Omniscient narrative pulled off flawlessly, with characters as real as you or me. Creepy! Highly recommend!

Love the concept. The characters are all fleshed out nicely. The omniscient narrative works well here, and doesn't get lazy at any point. Love this book.

Three words: Terr. If. Fying!
Also insightful, empathetic, and, frankly, given the real life horrors of the past couple of years, darned near believable.
At this point I would be very unsurprised to learn a community of privileged families achieved their position and comforts through bartering the lives of others with an eldritch entity at little cost to themselves in our reality.
Recommended to fans of T. Kingfisher or N.K. Jemisin's Great Cities.

Potential spoilers: Hide gave me serious Cabin in the Woods vibes, all the way down to the nefarious, twisted ending. The character stereotypes were spot on, though trope-y at times, and I wish Mack's backstory had been more developed. Hide is seriously creepy and kept me up late at night (with the lights on!) to finish it. The only downside is that the ending felt rushed, especially to conclude on a cliffhanger.

The story was not my cup of tea unfortunately. In my opinion., it had so many characters that are stereotypes a good editing would have cut away quite a few of them. It is a great premise and I think someone else may enjoy it, I may have expected too much. The ending was worth reading the book.

Thank you to Net Galley for the chance to read and give an honest review.

I have only one question......When does this come to Netflix?!

I absolutely, positively, loved this book! From the first page I couldn't help but see the whole thing movie style and I just kept thinking that this book is the next Hunger Games. It has the same dark underbelly vibe while managing to stay appropriate for YA. I thought the premise constructed to explain how people ended up in this contest was solid. The characters were real and fleshed out well enough to keep them straight without being overly descriptive and boring. For some reason I liked the way she wrote that there were two different Ava's and how she described each of them so distinctly.

There were one or two things I thought were weird once it's put into context with what's going on. For example, why specifically two a day'? It made sense based on the original idea of what was happening, but not after you find out the end game. I kept waiting for there to be some reason for that, but it never really came through.

Still, this book was exceptional! I almost wish that the plot wasn't resolved so there could be more installations.

4.2/5 stars. This book was such a journey. I didn’t know exactly what to expect going into it and it ended up being a different kind of horror than I originally thought. This wasn’t a bad thing it just changed the overall feeling of the story and I felt that it made it creepier. The descriptions were wonderfully dark and creepy. I did like the writing style it felt like I was watching a movie almost. The short blips from each character and the large diverse cast was fun. Sometimes it did get a little confusing with who was who during the dialog but it didn’t make me dislike the book, I just had to go back and reread sections. I loved how nothing was as it seemed and we as the reader found out what was happening as the characters found out. Mack and Ava were my favorite characters. I really enjoyed how they progressed through the story even with the dark experiences that befell them. The ending was a little fast and unsatisfactory but just because I wanted to know more.

Overall I think this was a well done creepy adult debut for Kiersten White. I also think this would make a great TV series.

Thank you Random House Publishing/Del Rey and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

First and foremost, I want to express my gratitude for receiving and ARC of this! Got it down in 24 hours thanks to the holidays.

Now, first I want to say that I did really enjoy this. It was fun and creepy. While it wasn’t so much what I was hoping, it did prove to be interesting enough for me to tear through. The contestants, for the most part, are well fleshed out characters and I feel for them. The main characters especially. I love competition horror. Where games have to be played. This worked. As I went on, I got big Ready or Not vibes. I would totally recommend this book with that movie.

However, there are some issues I had. Again, I really enjoyed this. For others, these might not be as big of deals. One of the biggest is the way the central metaphor of the story was approached. I think the author was clever mostly, but at times it was a little too heavy handed. I agree with the sentiment but sometimes I was taken out of the actual narrative. Genre and speculative fiction have a long and storied history with stories like this. I just felt that it needed another polish. The only other real issue I had was the pacing of the reveals. I’m not sure if this is me or not. I tend to figure out twists early but I felt like the “big” reveal was a little too easy to catch onto and let onto too early. Again. This may just be me.

Overall I very much enjoyed this! I’ll remember to mark it’s pub date on my calendar and give it a shout out!

This review will be posted to my instagram, @bookishblondegirl, on 05/10/22.
3.5 stars rounded up.

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

14 people are brought to an abandoned amusement park for an intense Hide and Seek competition with a $50,000 prize. Mack feels like she was meant for this; after all, her knack for hiding has kept her alive. However, as the competition unfolds, things take a strange and sinister turn, and Mack and the other participants soon realize that the consequences for being found are a lot graver than they were led to believe.

Hide is Kiersten White's (who I know best as the author of the Paranormalcy trilogy) debut into adult horror, and overall I'd say that it was a solid first outing. This story was definitely not what I expected it to be; it was more layered and complicated. But, I liked that about it. I thought White tactfully utilized social commentary in this without said commentary overshadowing the more obvious horrors of the situation. I also thought the ending was great. I was certainly engrossed with this novel, and I read it very quickly because I couldn't seem to stop!

While I enjoyed the writing itself, the switching between POVs would often happen in the middle of chapters, and given that the book starts with 14 competitors, it was too much for me to keep up with. Given this, I was definitely more invested in the plot than I was the characters. I felt like there were too many for me to be able to get a good idea of each character, and therefore I wasn't invested (save for a few characters) in who was going to live or die.

I recommend this generally for fans of horror books, but especially those who enjoy a unique setting and intricate plot. I also think people who liked the movie Ready or Not might enjoy this. I look forward to more horror from this author in the future! Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for access to this title! Hide drops 05/24/22.

Hmm. So first of all, I think I went into this thinking it was going to be like a slasher in a theme park kinda thing. Well I was wrong. I’m not sure what I just read, but I’m still thinking about it so it must’ve left some sort of impression. I can’t decide if this deserves 3 or 4 stars.

A hide and seek competition! Fourteen competitors spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park. Don’t get caught and you win the $50,000. Seems easy enough. What’s the catch?

Mack is confident that she was made for this competition. Hiding saved her life when she was a child. Her family was not so lucky. As the competition progresses, Mack realizes that her competitors are disappearing one by one. She discovers the only way they will escape alive is by working together.

Something sinister is happening?!?

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This is my first Kiersten White novel. I really enjoyed the premise of a Hide-And-Seek game from Hell. The characters were likable and I found myself wanting to know what happened to them after the game was over.

So I have this thing about horror novels. I want to be scared. Like, SCARED scared. I want to turn on lights and look over my shoulder. Problem is, I've read so many horror novels and watched so many movies that it's almost impossible for me to actually get spooked out, which too often left me feeling disappointed in what I was reading, no matter how good the book was. But having come to accept that, now I'm just looking for that deep unsettling feeling that might not make me turn the lights on, but makes me deeply uncomfortable. Hide did that for me. The concept feels fresh and also very very pertinent to the world right now. Really enjoyed this, even though I wish the ending gave me a little more.

Absolutely Fantastic book! It kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish! This is the first time I’ve read this author and I can’t wait to find more.

HOLY CANOLI! If you want a fast paced, edge-of-your seat thriller, STOP AND READ THIS. This has so many amazing elements: an abandoned amusement park, creepy woods, multiple POV, unreliable characters, and people disappearing.

The storyline is so rich and well developed. The storyline toggles back and forth between the past and present. You slowly learn new information and then BAM it all comes together. The last 35% of the book I was frantically turning to the next page to figure out what was going to happen.

The “main characters” that this book focuses on are very strong won’t-take-any-bullshit people which I adore.

The way the author describes things in this book is so detailed that I honestly envisioned it like I was watching a movie. I could see in detail the rust that overtook the old rides or how the bushes were so overgrown it was easy to hide in.

I didn’t expect the turn this book took. Honestly, I didn’t know how it was going to twist but Kiersten did an amazing job.

The only thing I didn’t like was that it was a bit difficult keeping up with some of the characters simply because there were so many.

Hide wasn’t quite what I expected, but it was a fun, bloody romp nonetheless.

There’s a lot to say, but I’m not giving any spoilers, so I’ll keep it to the facts. The haunted amusement park vibe is SPOT ON. Kiersten White excels with third-person omniscient writing—she jumps from character to character, sometimes even taking a bird’s eye view of the story, and it all fits together seamlessly. While some of the characters were difficult to like/relate to, I appreciated the bond of friendship that slowly emerges, and there are some genuinely hair-raising moments. I got a vague Squid Games vibe, in a very good way.

One note: I’m ALL for free speech, so if an author wants to insert cheap shots at differing political views, that’s totally her prerogative—but they were unnecessary and awkwardly placed, clearly there to make a political jab. I come to fiction for an escape—not a rehashing of current political polarization. But thankfully, this wasn’t a focus.

Overall, if you like creepy amusement parks, atmospheric vibes, Squid Games-esque stories, you won’t want to miss Hide.

-A

I first heard of this book when the author tweeted about it. She said, to paraphrase, “Its about a game of hide and seek in an abandoned amusement park. Nothing could possibly go wrong”.

I decided to read it from that two sentence sassiness alone. I had never read anything by Kiersten so never realized she was a NYT best selling author. I just like her tweets.

The story of Hide is both obvious and surprising. After all, nobody writes a story about a hide and seek game in an abandoned amusement park that ends up with a lot of fun and laughter. People are going to die - we all know that going in. That’s the obvious part.

The surprise is who is dying, how and why. The story unfolds in somewhat compelling way. Fans of horror, suspense and fantasy will like this one. (I don’t love using the word fantasy when describing books because it can turn the masses away - but I mean fantasy in the sense that it isn’t real - like most of Stephen Kings books are fantasy).

The timing for this book couldn’t be better. Imagine Squid Games meets Hunger Games meets… well… Greek mythology.

That said, I had a few big challenges with the writing.

First, the characters. The book starts off with 15 or 16 people. You have no clue who is important and who isn’t so you try to remember who everyone is. At its worst, it’s impossible to remember. At its best, it’s utterly confusing and off-putting. Which leads to…

Secondly, there are two characters named Ava. I have no idea why the author decided to do that. I don’t ever remember reading another fictional novel where the author purposely used the same name for two people without it being critical to the story. Throughout the entire “Hide” novel, every time an Ava is mentioned (which is a lot) it accompanies a descriptor to try and help the reader discern the two Ava’s. Would it be so difficult to just choose a different name for one of them?

Third, the cadence. Truth be told, I didn’t love the first 2/3rds of the book. Due to my first point above, there was so much bouncing around between characters, there was very little character development. I didn’t build up empathy for any. Also, it’s not until the last third of the book that we really understand why this hide and seek game is happening. It’s the last third of the book that captivated me.

If only the book were structured a little differently, I think the entire thing could be significantly easier to read and more compelling. For instance, maybe if each chapter was written from the vantage point of a different character rather than bouncing back and forth between characters within any given chapter.

Anyhoo, I’m not the writer or editor - I just see a good story in here with potentially more evolved characters and sure would love it to burst out of the page a bit more.

That said, fans of horror and suspense should consider picking this one up. Regardless of my commentary, the storyline will stay in your head long after you’re done reading.



#netgalley #hide

I didn’t expect this novel to be such fun, but I devoured it over the course of a single evening. Hide is rollicking good time, beautifully paced, with twists and turns scattered through the plot, and surprising emotional resonance. I also didn’t think that any writer could keep my attention rapt with a cast of fourteen characters, but White accomplishes it well, introducing and fleshing out nearly all of them. When the gore comes, you feel each death which brings me to my favorite thing about Hide: it is almost shockingly poignant for genre fiction, the kind that makes you giggle and tear up and care and spend hours racing to the final page, but not speed-reading, that’s an important distinction.

White’s prose is right and efficient. There aren’t wasted words here. There’s nothing you’re going to want to glaze over and miss. There is also an unexpected, for horror anyway, understanding of trauma, both immediate and generational, as well as the violence and trauma of social class and of race, all of it handled deftly and thoughtfully. Would definitely recommend. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.