to be perfectly honest, this plot was fantastic but just executed very poorly. I thought it was going to go in a way different direction than it actually did, and I was a bit disappointed, sadly.

books that hook me in like natalie richards did in the first chapter are usually such a win for me! from the very start (and of course, the title), the reader knows that four people will end up dead. but the mystery surrounding the circumstances and the chance is what keeps me going - and revealing the killer also in the first chapter was a poor move, in my opinion.

by revealing the big "plot twist," the rest of the story felt boring and repetitive. I felt like I read the last chapter of the book first before going back to the beginning and starting over.

thank you to netgalley and sourcebooks fire for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

rating: 2.5 stars
wine pairing: dry creek zinfandel

I'm not sure if I misunderstood something in the beginning, or if the writing was unclear, but I didn't fully connect to this novel. It has an interesting premise, but I don't think it delivers. I think this one would actually be better as a movie; its more of a visual story. I enjoyed that it was set in a newly-shut down movie theater, and the tension was definitely there. There was something missing for me, though.

I received an advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

For an easy read this book still gave me such a great story. There was always something happening and throw in another twist and it finished with a bang. Well done

This was a fast paced thriller with an interesting setting. I liked that the story dove right in, giving us news blurbs about the murders then immediately introducing the cast. This was easy to follow and almost sped by with the amount of tension and action.

We really only got to know the main character Jo, since there wasn't much time to delve into the others. I would have liked a bit more backstory on everyone and think this could have been a bit longer to accommodate that and flesh things out a bit more.

The ending wasn't really a surprise or a twist for me, but I did enjoy reading about Jo and the others struggling to hide from a killer and escape with their lives.

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own. Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire and NetGalley for the copy.

This is a solid title. A dead mall is an excellent setting, and the author does a good job creating suspense. Ultimately, I don't think this title was for me, but other readers will certainly enjoy it.

Jo has just finished her final shift. After closing down, the Tempest Theaters and the attached mall are scheduled to be demolished. When the power goes out and their manager disappears they are stuck without any keys and their phones are still in the theater safe. Then they find a co-worker dead. Now they must escape into the shuttered mall and try and find an unrestricted exit. Who will make it out?

Four Found Dead is a thriller where you know how many are going to die and you are trying to figure out who is next. It isn’t hard to believe that the situation would happen and readers will wonder how they would react to each of the events. Richards did a wonderful job inserting information about each character as it was needed instead of trying to develop them early on. A fast-paced read that will leave readers breathless at the end.

Four Found Dead is a phenomenal YA thriller from start to finish. Filled to the brim with twists and a captivating plot, this one is sure to keep readers hooked. The ending is completely unpredictable. The characters are well-developed. The story is incredibly fast-paced. This is one not to be missed! Highly recommended! Be sure to check out Four Found Dead asap.

Four Found Dead was a thiller ride full of secrets and murder. It is set on the last night of closing movie theater attached to an already closed mall. Once the movie theater closes, the angry manager won't open the safe with everyone's phones and keys and lights go out. As the group tries to figure a way out, the murders begin. Who will survive the night and who are the four dead?

The first hundred pages were slow. Several comments were made by the characters that aren't explained until much later in the book. We learned who the murder was very early on, so it lacked suspense. However, as the cat and mouse game progressed the book gained everything it was missing. In all, Four Found Dead is an enjoyable book.

This is a face paced, cat and mouse chase game kind of book. A group of teenagers is being “hunted” inside a locked mall by a killer whose identity you know right from the beginning. What you don’t know or ever find out is the motive behind this crime. A little confusing. This was just an OK read for me.
Thank you NetGalley, Sourcebooks and the author for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Jo and her coworkers are showing the Tempest Theaters' final movies. As they clean up their workplace for the last time, their boss is confronted by his girlfriend. Then the lights turn out. Then someone turns up dead. Jo and her friends are forced to flee into the abandoned mall the theater is attached to with a killer in pursuit. Jo is forced to confront her past as she fights for her survival through the night.

I was very intrigued by the premise of this book as a slasher fan and with the great promise in the title of Four Found Dead. While the book did not meet all of my expectations, I did enjoy a lot of it. Richards has a lot of fun with the setting of the dark abandoned mall as the characters scramble through empty stores and back passageways looking for an escape. The book has a lot of tension and twists, and while not all of them worked on me, it kept me wanting to keep reading. Once I figured out who each character was, I became a lot more engaged in the book, since the opening is a bit overwhelming with all eight coworkers being introduced at once. The finale has a great set piece and I enjoyed Jo's character and her development throughout the book, as she made for a sympathetic and easy to root for protagonist.

Thank you to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for a copy of Four Found Dead in exchange for an honest review.

Four Found Dead by Natalie D. Richards is kind of a locked room thriller set in a movie theater which is closing and the adjoining mall which is also closed. After the last show, Jo and her co-workers are waiting for the manager to give them their keys and phones so that they can leave. Certain events end up with Jo discovering the dead body of her co-worker. And that's how the entire journey of them trying to escape the killer begins. It started off really well. The writing was good and you could feel the tension and the emotions that were being experienced by the characters. But slowly I started to lose interest in the plot. You know from the beginning who the killer is and how many people get killed. The rest of it wasn't enough for me to continue reading with interest. I did finish it but it was really difficult. If it wasn't for the review, this would have been a dnf. I would not recommend this book but I am interested in finding out what this author comes up with next because there were glimpses of great potential in this one.
✨
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an e-arc. All opinions expressed in the review are my own.

In Sandusky, Ohio, the once thriving three-story shopping mall is closed. Only the attached movie theater, Tempest Theaters, is still in operation, or was. At the start of Four Found Dead, Tempest Theaters has just shown its final movies. It's the last night of operation before it will join the rest of the mall in closing forever.

Jo and her six colleagues have locked the doors and their final clean-up at the theater has begun. It's bittersweet, but the friends are looking forward to going out and grabbing pancakes together after they leave.

Unfortunately, an unexpected altercation, involving their super-buff, jerk of a manager, Clayton, ends up putting their pancake plans on hold. They just want to get the heck out of there, but Clayton is spiraling and he's not letting them out.

They're literally unable to leave, as Clayton is the only one with the keys to the exit doors. After they finish their tasks, they quietly try to figure out what is going on with him. Maybe he has finally lost it? He seems dangerous.

Oh, also, the icing on the cake, Clayton's no phones on shift rule, allows him to lock-up all of their phones in the office safe at the start of the night and he isn't opening it now. Thus, the friends have no means of communicating with anyone outside of the theater. As the tension and anxiety continues to rise, the power goes out. They are left in almost complete darkness. Then the screams begin.

One dead body in the employee locker room starts it all. It's clear it wasn't an accident. The girl whose blood-curdling shrieks brought the others to the locker room to make the grisly discovery, is barely coherent. They can't get anything out of her, but they all know who did this...

The remaining coworkers, Jo, Hudson, Quincy, Naomi and Summer, need to find a way to escape. Clayton is lurking in the dark. Their only possible way out just might be through the boarded up, abandoned shopping mall.

I started this book on Sunday morning and finished it Monday. I could not put it down. I considered calling in sick to work, LOL. I haven't devoured a story like that in a while. It's such a compulsive read.

I loved the setting of the theater and abandoned mall. It was easy to picture every single scene in my mind. The lack of power, boarded up doors and stores made in particularly eerie. I felt like Richards did a great job portraying that.

Personally, I think this would make a fun movie. I would love to see a Netflix or Hulu adaptation. There's certainly plenty of abandoned malls around for them to film at...I also really enjoyed the pace. The tension continued to build throughout as the characters became more and more desperate for escape.

Jo was an interesting main character, as we learned a bit about her past, which included another traumatic and terrifying event that truly shaped who she had become as a person. There was a lot for her to prove to herself in the current circumstance.

The entire drama has a real survive the night feel and while it isn't mysterious per se, I definitely second-guessed some things and some character motivations. What this is though, is definitely a high-stakes, action-packed, drama-fueled Thriller. I found it entertaining as heck and am so glad I had the chance to read it already.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Sourcebooks Fire, for providing me with a copy to read and review. This is the exact kind of story I have been craving lately!

Hello! Today, I’m back with another review, this time for a YA thriller novel. I stumbled across this one on NetGalley last year, and it sounded pretty interesting. The premise sounded like it could keep me on the edge of my seat, but unfortunately, I found it kind of meh.

In this book, we follow Jo, a high school senior who has just completed her final shift in her local movie theater before it closes forever. But as she and her friends prepare to go home for the night, Jo sees something that scares her just before the power goes out. After stumbling across the body of one of her coworkers, the rest have to try and get out of the locked building through the abandoned mall before the killer strikes again.

One thing I liked about this book was that it was very slightly mixed media. Between some of the chapters, you get emails or newspaper reports about events that happened because of this book. There are also parts of a letter that one of the characters left for the others, which you read in full at the end. I enjoyed these little bits as they get you thinking about who died and what happened. We’re getting just a glimpse of the future, but we’re still left with questions about what’s happening in the movie theater.

That said, my intrigue wasn’t very high throughout this book. It started well; I was interested in what would happen. And my first evening reading this, I was sure I would get through this book super quickly. Unfortunately, I quickly stopped caring. I can’t pinpoint what or why it just put me off, but reading became a struggle.

The characters were interesting enough. I did feel for Jo; she went through a shooting when she was younger, and dealing with a shooter again must have been horrible. But I do feel like maybe more could have been done with that? I didn’t feel very attached to most of the characters, so even the deaths didn’t bother me much.

Honestly, I’m struggling with writing this review. I only read this book a few days ago, and I’ve already forgotten most of what I thought. It didn’t stick with me, and I just didn’t care enough.

This book was readable, and I’m sure plenty of people will love it. It just didn’t stick out to me.

This was such a twisted thriller. We follow as a group of coworkers after their last shift at a theater. Their plans of celebrating their last shift with some IHOP pancakes are shot when they find one of their coworkers dead. They end up fighting for their lives while a killer hunts them in a shut-down mall connected to the theater.

This was more of a thriller than a mystery; however, the mystery elements tied the whole plot together. We learn who the killer is very early on, which surprised me. Her books usually follow more of a "whodunnit" format, but it worked well in this. I think if the killer had been kept a secret, it would have detracted from the tense atmosphere Richards created.

This book was hard to put down. Every page was tense and filled with action. As it literally says in the title, four people end up dead. There are eight people at the start, so you are on edge the whole time, counting down, trying to figure out which characters will be left standing. This was a great spin Richards put on the novel.

If you choose not to pick this one up, reconsider. You will not regret reading this one I promise.

(Review has been posted to Barnes and Noble under username Berriesandbooks)

Intriguing plot line but wow you really need to suspend disbelief for a majority of this book. Personally I would have enjoyed more of the backstory before we dove into the plot on certain characters. It felt incredibly disjointed at times and the main character flashbacks combine with the medical knowledge they had at 16 was a huge reach. Additionally I felt the author was forcing certain storylines and playing to the audience with being over the top with the inclusivity. Mentioning that one of the victims had same sex parents added absolutely nothing to the storyline and almost felt like an afterthought. I was personally put off by the age difference between the manager and his employees, this book is geared to young adults and the Summer/Clayton storyline felt like a horrible reason for the killings.

This will be a popular thriller read in my high school library. I was so excited about this one for the premise, but knowing the "bad guy" at the beginning kind of took the wind out of my sails. Not a bad book, but the repetitive nature of this one made it not my favorite.

I wanted to love this but I just couldn’t.
This is a fast paced slasher but I don’t feel we were given enough time to get to know the characters for us to care when they’re dying. I love the idea of the book I feel I would’ve just enjoyed it better if we had more time with the characters.
Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the e-galley.

I did not enjoy reading this at all.

The story is thrust into violence almost from chapter 1. I didn't feel as if I was even given a chance to get to know the characters before they started dying. The balance of violence and action to plot skewed too heavily to violence for my tastes. I guess I'd assumed there would be a little more mystery to the story, but this kind of felt like a book version of a 2000s slasher film at times.

Some people may like this, but it was just too violence heavy without enough character development for me.

Well I think the premise for this one sounded great. Unfortunately the execution fell flat for me. There were too many characters introduced at once and by the time they started dying I just wasn’t invested in any of them to really care.

I did enjoy the little news snippets between chapters.

Also, the reveal of things at the end was pretty lackluster.

***** I have received and read an e - ARC from NetGalley in exchange for giving my honest feedback. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.*****

I give it a 1.5/5, rounded up to 2/5.

I feel like this is a first draft that was rushed to be published instead of a carefully polished novel.

The elements are there- locked room style, an abandoned mall (always a great option for a fun read), murder, mayhem, and a movie theater (again, always a fun location to work with).

We’re introduced to too many characters way too fast. I know that four people are going to die (thanks to the title), but I don’t need to try and juggle all of these people. And the characters themselves seem underdeveloped. I couldn’t really connect with anyone.

The plot was straightforward and I never felt surprised at any point.

I’ve read some of Natalie’s books before, and this didn’t feel like it was up to her usual high quality work. It almost felt as if she might have come up with the basic plot, it the book was ghost written under her name.