4 stars

You can read all of my reviews at Nerd Girl Loves Books.

This was an intense YA mystery/thriller about six friends headed to spring break that get trapped in an RV in the middle of nowhere by a sniper intent on learning one of their secrets. The story is told from the perspective of Red. Her mother, a police officer, was executed on the job 5 years ago and her father succumbed to alcoholism. This, as well as having little to no money, set her apart from other teens. Her best friend Maddie and a few others, however, have her back and make sure that she's not left out.

The story was well paced, although it did slow down a tiny bit in the middle. As you would expect, as the teen's situation becomes more intense, some people's characters are challenged. If you've always wondered what would happen if put in a life and death situation with a group of your best friends, reading this book should terrify you. Some will give in to fear, others will problem solve, other will do what needs to be done, and others will be so desperate that self-preservation is their only driving force. It was fascinating to see how the situation played out over the eight hour time period, and how many secrets the friends were keeping from each other. There were definitely twists and turns I did not see coming, and every chapter I kept changing my mind as to who was going to die.

This was a fun, twisty, quick read that I recommend you check out. I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley and Random House Children's, Delacorte Press. All opinions are my own.

I absolutely LOVED this book!! It takes place over the span of 8 hours which makes it an intense, thrilling, emotional, amazing ride! The characters all have such unique personalities that this book is in no way boring, it keeps you guessing how the characters will handle each thing next. This book was read in one sitting! This is a book to run and get as soon as it is out!!!
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Childrens for allowing me to read this.

So good! So, so good! I was literally on the edge of my seat waiting to see how this all played out! The pacing was perfect. The dialogue top notch! The setting was out of my nightmares! I do not like the idea of being trapped! With each new secret revealed, I found myself more and more invested! I didn’t see the twists and turns coming! Go in blind, you’ll thank me later!

One of my favorite books this year! Can’t wait to dive into Holly Jackson’s backlist!

I was super stoked to see that Holly Jackson wrote a stand-alone YA crime thriller! I loved her Good GIrl's trilogy! You will love this fast-paced novel packed with secrets. Six friends are on their way in an RV to enjoy a spring break on the beach, but they end up in the middle of nowhere with no cell service and a sniper lurking in the darkness with demands.

The novel takes place within a span of eight hours. Each character has some degree of unreliability and you will find yourself second guessing their integrity. Everyone has something to hide, and by the end of the novel, you will find out a little dirt on each one of the six main characters. The sniper is only interested in ONE secret, and he's not afraid to take down anyone that stands in his way of uncovering that secret.

Red is my favorite character, and my heart just truly hurt for her. Her mom was executed five years prior and she carries the guilt of her last words to her mother just mere minutes prior to her death. She blames herself for her mother's death and she is still having trouble coping five years later. Her dad is a drunk, so she's pretty much been on her own. Her friends are more like her family, particularly the Lavoy's.

My least favorite character was Oliver Lavoy. He is controlling, smug and just plain crazy. He really cared about no one but himself and preserving his family name so that his mother would become district attorney, a position she's been working toward for a while.

If you're one of those readers that can read a whole book in one sitting if you're invested from the very beginning, then prepare yourself to cancel all of your plans the moment you pick this one up.

Special thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Did you know that the Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series is one of my favourites ever? No? Why not? I talk about it constantly because I absolutely adore the world that Holly Jackson has created there. The original UK editions are set in my home county of Buckinghamshire and mention places that I’m intimately familiar with, which is probably why I’m so connected to the series. Five Survive is a little different in that the original version is (I think) set in the US. There were no rewrites for this one!

Due to the setting, Five Survive has a bit of a different vibe to it than AGGGTM. At least, I think so. I’ve not read the US editions of AGGGTM so I can’t say how American readers will feel about the vibe in general. Something about it felt very strange in the beginning and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I was a little disappointed at first because I was expecting to want to devour this book from the start, but instead it took a good fifty pages to grab me.

Once I was grabbed, however, I was grabbed. I read the entire rest of the book in just one sitting because it was so enthralling and it had me on the edge of my seat. I was racing to find out what was going to happen to Red, the main character, and her friends. I figured one of them would be a bit dodge and I had theories on who it could be, so I had a lot of fun trying to sus out the story and figure out what was happening and why.

While I was disappointed by the change of setting, I can see why this book is only set in the US in both versions. There is absolutely no way in hell Jackson could have set this book in the UK and pulled it off. Can you imagine snipers shooting at a caravan in Buckinghamshire? I think not.

Five Survive is certainly not my favourite book by Holly Jackson because there’s no way it could beat her original series. I was very attached to Pip and Red didn’t have the same charm. I was actually a bit confused by Red’s characterisation for most of the book and I do wonder what the edits did to her character. By the end, though, I was quite worried about what was going to happen to her.

I really enjoyed my experience with Five Survive and I can’t wait to see what Holly Jackson comes out next. I will keep hoping she returns to writing books set in Buckinghamshire because I truly believe that’s what she does best, but this book and setting certainly had its place.

I could not wait to read this new novel by Holly Jackson. I am a HUGE fan of her DGGTM series. This title was different than her previous books, but I still loved it! So suspenseful! I cannot wait to recommend this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC.

This book kept me thinking. I thought I knew where it was going and some parts I did get but most of the twists I didn’t see coming!! Why did you put those kids through so much, Holly? Oh, and by the way, I really didn’t like Oliver one bit!

Red and her friends are on a road trip in an RV, heading to the beach for Spring Break.
The RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere with no cellphone reception. And the realize it isn’t just bad luck but a sniper has shot out all their tires. The sniper knows who they are and someone has a secret he wants and no one is leaving until he gets that secret.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Children's for allowing me to read and review this work.

I reallly enjoyed this book so much, I devoured this in two nights, I couldn't stop reading and I just had to to what happened in the end!!

good book and really enjoyed the characters and their journey. I liked the romance.. I enjoyed how the characters grew in the book and what happened.

I was so excited for this one, considering how much that I loved the GGGTM series. Unfortunately, it wasn't the banger I was looking for. While I did like Five Survive it wasn't the jaw dropper that the GGGTM, series was for me. I did enjoy that it was face paced and a super easy read. Holly Jackson, is definitely one to look out for in the YA thriller world.

This was a fast paced thriller that had me on the edge of my seat. 6 friends on a road trip in an RV when they take a wrong turn & someone out there wants them dead. The characters were all likable and I could not guess what was happening next. A must read for all fans of thrillers!

This fast paced thriller was hard to put down. I was at the edge of my seat the whole time. I’m recommending it for our state book award. It definitely has teen appeal.

When I say I wanted to love this book, I truly mean it. I ADORED GGGTM and the entire series - including the contested third book. But now that I’ve finished this book, I think I know why it sat so poorly with me.

First - it would be easy enough to forget that the author is not American, save for the very few times she says someone is “called” xyz name (instead of “named” xyz name). Why is this important? The plot of this story entirely centers around gun violence and gun trauma. Is it rampant in America? YES. Do we all have to live with that trauma and fear daily? YES. As far as I know, Holly Jackson hasn’t moved to the US - and thus, it feels like someone outside of the states capitalizing on this - not exclusively/uniquely American, but certainly significantly American trauma, and to put it lightly, that does not sit well with me.

As an offshoot of the above, the rest of the book felt like trauma porn. Gratuitous murder and rehashing of experienced trauma, violence abounds. Maybe I should’ve known better going into a book like this, but as I found Jackson’s previous books incredibly well done, I didn’t expect to find this one so unpalatable and disturbing to read.

I finished it quickly - there’s no doubt that she’s a strong writer - but truly felt unsettled and kind of violated throughout the whole thing. I know I’ll be the outlier and will certainly give this previously-beloved author another chance with whatever she releases next, but readers should know thyselves before getting into this one.

I saw some super mixed reviews on this book, and Holly Jackson is a super popular author of the bestselling series A Good Girl’s Guide to murder. I was immediately sucked into this book, I do think YA books are easier to reach but I was devouring it so fast.

However, even though I devoured this book there were so many things wrong with this one, it just made absolutely no sense that a bunch of teenagers was tangled up in Mafia messes. The characters were absolutely horrible and I did not love any of them - maybe that was the author's goal ??

I ended up giving this a 3.25 because I definitely wanted to finish and it was a quick read but the plot just made no sense to me and the characters absolutely sucked - which kind of seemed on brand with my review of her first book too but I know everyone loved those a lot more.

Red Kenny is on her senior year road trip from her home in Philadelphia to the Gulf coast with her best friend, Maddy Lavoy. Simon Yoo, their good friend since middle school, has borrowed an RV from his rich uncle for the drive. Maddy’s 21 year-old brother Oliver is their nominal chaperone, as he and his girlfriend Reyna are the only legal adults present. Rounding out the crew is Simon’s friend Arthur, whom Red secretly has a crush on.

As the friends make their way south, Red finds herself feeling increasingly antsy. She has a hard time concentrating on the road trip games Maddy wants to play, or remembering the questions she herself wants to ask. Granted, concentration has never been her strong suit – at this point, she’s just happy to be graduating high school. As night falls and the friends look for their RV campsite, they find themselves lost in an area with no cell service and, thus, no cellphone GPS.

When the RV’s tire blows, it looks like another unfortunate incident in a string of bad luck. As they work to change the tire, Red realizes she needs to pee: not a possibility in the RV when it’s jacked up on one side. Maddy isn’t thrilled at the idea of Red going off into the woods to relieve herself:

QUOTE
“You can’t go on your own,” Maddy said, grabbing her arm. “It’s pitch-black.”

“I have my phone.”

“No, but, I mean it might not be safe.” She breathed out. “What if there’s an axe-murderer or something?”

“No axe-murderers in South Carolina,” Simon said. “Only in North Carolina. It’s chainsaws you’ve gotta watch out for. And vampires.”

“Chainsaws. Vampires. Got it,” Red said. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

“Vampires <i>love</i> peeling eyes.”
END QUOTE

Spirits stay high as the six friends get the RV back in working condition and hit the road again, on their way to an uninhibited time on the beach. But someone out in the dark has other plans for them. Soon enough, the friends are trapped in the RV, with a strange voice in the darkness telling them he’ll let the other five go if one of them gives up the secret he’s looking for.

Oliver quickly takes charge. He’s convinced that their tormentor is targeting either himself or Maddy, as their mother Catherine is a high-profile assistant district attorney. But as the six terrified roadtrippers work to outwit their jailer, they soon discover that little is as it seems. Each of them harbors explosive secrets, and as the long night passes and tempers fray, relationships will be tested, if not outright destroyed. And, as their jailer has promised, not all of them will make it out alive.

This young adult thriller detailing the road trip from hell is tautly woven and highly suspenseful. The first half of the novel brings to mind classics of the genre from the 1980s and 90s, as written by bestselling authors like Richie Tankersley Cusick and R. L. Stine. Our damaged characters long to taste the freedom of adulthood, indulging in banter, romance and perhaps unwise behaviors as they unwittingly barrel from a teenage rite of passage into a living nightmare.

But Holly Jackson goes deeper. Red has untreated PTSD from the death of her mother when she was thirteen, compounded by her father’s subsequent descent into alcoholism. Worse, Red blames herself for what happened. While she can usually float through life without thinking about her mother’s death and her own role in it, the stresses of this road trip bring them all roaring back to the forefront of her brain:

QUOTE
[B]ecause she was crying, cursing her mom for leaving them and letting the world fall apart without her. Cursing herself because, actually, Mom wouldn’t be dead without her. It was Red’s fault. She broke the world, she took her mom out of it, and didn’t know how to put it all back after. What would Mom say to her now? Mom used to fix everything; found Red’s keys when she lost them, pulled those silly faces in the mirror to make her snort on a bad morning. Red could almost hear her voice now, the way she leaned into the word <i>sweetie</i>, warm and bright, but she pushed it away under the static of all those bad memories. Everything came back to Mom somehow, but Red couldn’t drag her into this, she didn’t belong. Mom was dead.
END QUOTE

Red’s struggle to find the inner strength to survive the night with her friends, and her assignation of self-blame, stand in stark contrast to Oliver’s self-serving machinations as the night progresses. It’s rare to find such a brutally honest portrayal of a privileged young man whose arrogance and sociopathy are treated, under normal circumstances, as leadership and drive. Will his plans get them all out unharmed as he claims, or are they merely a stopgap while he works to save his own skin?

There were definitely loose ends that I wish had been better addressed in Five Survive, but overall, it was an absorbing, complex novel that hearkens back to the pulpy golden age of the YA thriller while still holding up against its modern adult counterparts.

This locked room young adult thriller was another interesting concept from Holly Jackson. It was fairly dark for being a young adult novel. I enjoyed the short chapters that moved the story along. It did feel that the book was a bit too long, at times feeling a bit long-winded and repetitive. The overall twist was interesting. Although I didn't enjoy this novel as much as Jackson's A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series, I still plan to read future books from this author.

I loved chatting about this one, and ended up rating it 3.5- I strongly prefer stories with unreliable narrators to be told in first person, so that impacted my experience of it somewhat. I also felt like the plot got a bit muddy at points, BUT if you enjoy YA thrillers I would totally recommend giving this a go.

Thank you so much @netgalley & @prhaudio & @delacortepress !

I really liked this one. There were a lot of layers to the story and I figured a few things out but I was surprised by many things. I wavered back and forth about how much I liked Red. Actually all of the cast, but I did want to know what the secret is, so I kept reading. The reader is in Red’s head through the book and she is slightly off and I was wondering if she was reliable. This was pretty well done because I had a hard time figuring out if I was just reading too much into it or if she was unreliable.

It is fast paced and there was a cat and mouse aspect that I appreciated because you weren’t sure who the second player was. That was a new twist to me. We were never really exposed to the other party until the end. What kept me from giving it five stars is the mixed message. It reads very much YA but these 18 year olds have access to a quite nice RV and are driving from PA to the gulf coast.

One last thing I liked was at the end, instead of having a character narrate what happened to fill in some plot holes, the author choose to have a police transcript, news story and letter. That end of thriller narration is a trope I never like, but this softened it.

I was able to flip back and forth from the ebook and the audiobook and loved Emma Galvin’s narration. She brought the story to life and I was slightly more interested in listening than reading.

Holly Jackson is the best in the genre in my opinion. I tore through Five Survive just like I did all of her other books. The premise is fantastic and the execution is just as good. A rarity in this genre. If you like cat and mouse type stories, run don't walk.

In this book, we follow six high schoolers as they attempt to take an RV to Florida to get to Spring Break. One wrong turn and four flat tires later, they realize they have been steered here by a Sniper who is watching them from afar and wants a secret from one of them. All six of these characters are dying to survive this night.

As with many others, I was an enormous fan of the first two books in the Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series. I didn’t like the third book because it felt completely different, and for lack of a better term, felt like it jumped the shark. The events felt unbelievable and the characters just weren’t as likable.

Unfortunately, I felt the same about this novel. The characters were overall flat or unlikeable, some of the choices made no sense, and Red’s character growth, in the end, does little to make up for her lack of it throughout the rest of the novel. I wanted to like this book, I really did, but I didn’t feel like the events of the title were believable enough to make the suspenseful aspects as terrifying. . Even the twist fell flat for me, as while I didn’t guess it, it also wasn’t really surprising. And a tiny pet peeve- there is so much repetition within the novel that it becomes tedious. While Red appears to be suffering from PTSD, and perhaps repeating things is her coping mechanism to stop thoughts she can’t handle, it went past serving the purpose to add empathy for her character or furthering the plot. Instead, it distracted from the plot and did not create an understanding of Red's mental state. And finally, the ending really didn't work for me.

If you really liked the third book in Jackson’s previous series, I think this book would really appeal, for me, this just missed the mark.