Eight hours. Six friends. Five survive

Roadtrip in an RV that breaks down in the middle of nowhere with no cell service? Yes please. This was a fast-paced, page-turning thriller that keep you at the edge of your seat. Very different vibes from A Good Girl's Guide To Murder which is one of my favorite YA trilogy of all time. I love Holly Jackson's writing, everything flows. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would since I was not liking the characters and I'm a character driven reader, however, it didn't change the fun of reading this at all.

Read if you like: Cat and mouse, friend groups, secrets and lies, trapped

This book takes place across eight hours, there are six friends, and one sniper.

Eighteen year old Red and her friends are on a road trip in an RV, heading to the beach for Spring Break. It’s a long drive but spirits are high. In true thriller book style the RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere. They now have no phone reception and nobody around to help.

The wheels are shot out, one by one, making this friend group realize this was no accident. There’s a sniper out there in the dark watching them and he knows exactly who they are. One of the group has a secret that the sniper is willing to kill for.

I screamed a little when I got this ARC. I loved the first two Good Girl's Guide to Murder books. This is a standalone thriller and did not disappoint. It grabbed me from the very first chapter. I do feel like it was a slow burn. It took a bit to get a good groove and have things laid out but it was totally worth it. The majority of this book is dialogue. They are all trapped in the same space so the close proximity causes issues within the group. None of the characters are very likeable but I think it was on purpose. It was a tad predictable. I still loved it.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, the author, Random House Children's/ Delacorte Press for the gifted e-book. ❤️

📖My Thoughts📖

It started as a fun relaxing road trip in an RV. What they didn’t anticipate, was the nightmare that would change everything.

Well this was one hell of a “ride” if I’m going to be honest here. Never did I expect to be completely glued to this book the second I started it, hanging on to every single word. It was full of twists, and was very gripping and intense. I didn’t want to tear myself away from it until I found out what happened. It’s not very often that I find myself completely engrossed in a book, but this one had me sucked right in. This was a fast paced thriller that to me, seemed to be the perfect length. I’m hoping upon hope that there’s a sequel, but even if there isn’t, I’m very satisfied with the ending. Holly Jackson did an amazing job writing this one! If you’re looking for a good thriller to read, be sure to grab a copy of this one! You won’t regret it!
Thank you Netgalley, Random House Children’s and Holly Jackson for the opportunity to read and review this book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

You know a book is good when it leaves you in ruins. I just finished Five Survive an hour ago, and I was left traumatized and shocked, tears streaming down my face. I have never been one to read thrillers, but this one had me hooked. It had a bit of a slow start, but the second half made up for the slower beginning. I ended up binging over half of the book in one sitting, and there were so many twists and turns that I had whiplash by the end of it, totally shocked by almost every one.

Despite the fast moving plot, I feel like this book was very character driven. Each character was really well-written, and I never found myself forgetting who was who (which can be hard when there are six main characters in a standalone book). In a book where every character is under suspicion, I feel like Jackson did a great job showing different tells and casting the right amount of doubt on each character. Not every character was likeable, and everyone most definitely had flaws and secrets, and I got to watch how they all did under the pressure of an active shooter. I didn’t expect to become attached to the characters, but I found myself becoming more and more paranoid and scared as things happened and secrets were revealed.

What really stood out about Five Survive was the ending. The entire book had been building up the tension, and there was an explosion of secrets at the end that was shocking enough to make this book a five-star read. If you like thrillers and books with lots of shocking twists, I highly recommend this book, though you will probably be a hot mess by the end of it!

Thank you to Netgalley for the e-ARC of this book. I LOVED AGGGTM, so I was expecting something equally as binge-worthy and Holly Jackson DID NOT DISAPPOINT!!

I binged this book in 24 hours, I felt on edge and anxious while reading the pages and wondering what was going to happen next, and adding in the sniper really just gave me the EXTRA ANXIETY to the whole equation.

I have to say I didn't love how predicable parts of the ending were, some of the twists I saw coming, but others had my JAW on the floor!!

I can't wait to read anything and everything else Jackson writes!

Holy smokes y’all! Five Survive was one wild, crazy and suspenseful rollercoaster ride that I couldn’t put down!

I’m not able to write much for this review or I’ll end up creating a whole barrel of spoilers, but here is what I can say:

If you are looking for a story that will keep you on the edge of your seat while you hold your breath then this book is for you! When I say that it is an intense and emotional ride, I’m being deathly serious. It is a book you will pick up and then not put down till you turn the final page, because this is exactly what happened to me! Oh, and maybe don’t start it at bedtime like I did, since it took a while to get my heartrate back down.

So, go grab a copy, strap yourself in, and enjoy the ride!

Thank you, NetGalley and RandomHouse Children's, for this gifted ebook in exchange for my honest review.

Six young adults set off on a spring break trip in an RV and are besieged by a sniper who wants one of them to reveal their secret. It’s not a spoiler to tell you that five survive in this nonsensical trudge of a YA not-much-of-a-thriller.

The author made her name with <i>A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder</i> and sequels, but this veers unsuccessfully off into new territory. Red and her best friend Maddy, plus their friends Simon and Arthur are being chaperoned by Mandy’s obnoxious older brother Oliver and his girlfriend, Reyna as they drive their RV down to Florida for Spring Break, but one wrong turn and loss of signal and they find themselves in the wilderness. When a sniper shoots out their tires and gas tank, they have no clue what’s going on until he communicates that one of them has a secret that they need to confess.

The novel is set over the course of one tense night so it’s sort of in real time, depending on how fast you read. The six fracture over the best way to get through this ordeal but the sniper seems one step ahead of them at every turn. Oliver appoints himself the leader but it is clear he has favorites who he will protect at the expense of the others.

I found this long night to be quite arduous and wanted the gunman to hurry up and just tell us who he’s looking for and what their secret is, but for a not particularly credible reason (beside shortening the novel by a few hundred pages) he doesn’t. This is but one of my gripes with this novel and I’ve hidden the rest below behind the spoiler curtain. The resolution, when it comes, is a good twist but I was ready to wave the white flag and confess <i>my</i> secrets long before it came.

The characterization is limp. Red has a dead mother, Maddy is protective of her, Simon is theatrical, Arthur is nice, Oliver has wide shoulders and is a bully, Reyna is his girlfriend. Despite spending several hours in their company, we learn little more than this.

Because of the author’s highly rated previous novels, we’ll get this for my school library and I’ll make a better go of recommending it than this. But between us chickens, don’t bother.

Thanks to Delacorte and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

So let’s slip behind the spoiler curtain for a second for me to have a couple more gripes.

Arthur is communicating to his brother, the sniper, using Morse code! Somehow he manages to get a message out that Oliver is climbing out of a back window. In Morse. Red notices that Arthur is fiddling in his jeans pocket a lot but a message that length is A LOT of fiddling to the point that the other five would probably think he was up to something extremely icky.

There is some very dubious morality going on. Arthur merrily shares that his Mafia family kill people who have betrayed them or otherwise crossed them, but he seems to be fine with that and Red still seems to have a crush on him

Why on earth would an assistant DA offer $20k to a mentally unbalanced teenage girl in exchange for her claiming to have seen a Mafia boss shoot someone? And why this stupidly elaborate plan to get Red to confess her source when they could have just grabbed her and pulled her fingernails out?

My one pet peeve with Holly Jackson is that often times her British is showing when she writes about American teens. I'm not sure why it doesn't get caught by editors but there were a few instances where I was like...yeah no thats not how it's said here.

Not as good as Good Girls Guide to Murder but a captivating book none the less.

#FiveSurvive:

Thank you @delacorte and @prhaudio for the gifted copies [partner].

Y’all know in hot tub time machine when all these wild things happen to Crispin Glover’s character, and we keep waiting for the accident that took his arm? That’s how I felt the entire time reading Five Survive. First, I kept thinking only one would survive, but then I remembered what the title was called 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ Each close call had me thinking, “oh this is it” and it wasn’t 😂 Up until the very end, it felt like a Russian roulette of who would not survive.

This book was wild y’all. I didn’t know who to trust, why I was trusting, and if they were hiding more than revealed. (Spoiler: they were) This was a heart pounding thriller from start to finish. I’d LOVE to see this on the big screen because this was written perfectly for cinema.

Audio was wonderful!! Emma Galvin had me on pins and needles while listening. A perfect counterpart to Jackson’s writing, I could feel the anxiety in her reading.

Overall, another solid Holly Jackson YA read! The ending had me shocked and the letter in the end had my eyes bigger than saucers. Thank you again @delacorte and @prhaudio for the gifted copies! Five Survive is out 11/29.

This book was a massive disappointment. I hate to say it, I was really looking forward to it but, this isn’t it.

For one, al of the characters are annoying. I couldn’t get behind any of them. It was just irritating to read when a lot of them were on the page or talking.

Next, it was boring. It’s supposed to be a locked room mystery with six teens all with their own secrets but this book was so boring. And then at the end, the resolution is just rushed through and that was a massive annoyance as well.

Red is suffering from some sort of memory issue but we don’t ever find out why? And the way the book starts threw me. I had to read it several times to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. I hated being in her head. I wanted the book to be over.

Then there’s the fact that detail about the RV takes up a ridiculous amount of space in this book. It didn’t feel like it was making me claustrophobic while I think was the intention. It was just annoying. And I didn’t even care when the characters started dying because I didn’t care about them.

Everyone says her previous works are amazing and maybe I’ll read those. But this one? This was a weak read. It should have been shorter, some things feel like they’re there just to be filler. And even though the book is fast paced, it slows it down.

It takes place over a handful of hours and maybe this would have done better shorter.

I dunno guys. This was a miss for me.

I give it a two (2) out of five (5). Weak characters are always the biggest heartbreak when it comes to book and I really wanted to like this. But just couldn’t.

I revived the eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to them and the publisher.

Five Survive is the latest thriller from Holly Jackson and she did not disappoint!

Our main character Red Kenny is heading to celebrate spring break with her friends in an RV. However, after getting lost and suffering from flat tires, the group becomes stuck in the middle of nowhere. Soon they will realize that this is part of a bigger plan and not all will make it out alive.

Overall, this was a solid, fast pace read. Jackson does a magnificent job of pacing and making me stay intrigued throughout the whole book. I devoured it in a whole day because I couldn’t wait to find out the ending. Speaking of- the ending was fantastic. Would definitely recommend to everyone I know.

Twists and turns, ups and downs. Overall very engaging and thrilling book. Definitely did not see the ending going that way!

Five friends hop on an RV to the Gulf Shores for spring break… but will five survive the night trip?


High school senior Red and her companions are pumped for their spring break trip. Having gotten an RV for free, everything is like it’s supposed to be. That is, until direction are lost, wrong turns are made and the RV suddenly gets a flat tire. Then, other tires are shot at and the friends are on an unknown road, with no cell signal. Just the company of a sniper wanting a secret that one of the five has hidden.

Holly Jackson’s latest young adult thriller, Five Survive, kept me on the edge of my seat throughout reading. The twists and turns, although some predictable, wanted me to punch some characters, root for others and fight for one to reveal their secret. The pressure was on, I’m sure, for Jackson to write something alluring after the high success of her Good Girls Guide to Murder series. Readers, fear not. This one is one you’ll want to put on your tbr and devour.

Five Survive is a tense and riveting thriller set in a 31-foot RV. I enjoyed Holly Jackson's previous series, The Good Girl's Guide to Murder series, so I was excited to read her new standalone novel.

The story follows six young people who are traveling to spring break in an RV together. Shortly before reaching their destination, they become stranded without cell service. They soon realize their vehicle has been sabotaged and are trapped and under attack.

It is a tense, closed room mystery, where the characters try to figure out why they're being targeted and how to escape. The characters are well drawn and the plot is action-packed. The ending was satisfying and surprising. I listened to the audiobook, which was perfectly narrated by Emma Galvin.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for providing this ARC. All thoughts are my own.

For fans of And Then There Were Four by Nancy Werlin and the movie Wrong Turn...

Five Survive features six friends on a Spring Break road trip who get stuck in an RV on a deserted road with no cell service and a sniper trying to pick them off. Red and her friends aren't sure why this is happening to them, but the bright red dot of the sniper's rifle scope definitely means it's no joke, and when the sniper recites each of their names, they know they are definitely his intended targets. Not everyone will make it out alive, and not everyone is telling the truth -- someone's secret is going to get them killed.

Thoughts: I loved Holly Jackson's Good Girl's Guide to Murder, so I was excited to get my hands on her latest novel. Jackson knows how to build the suspense and this entire ride is tense, with readers confused as to who they can trust. None of the characters is truly likable, which just adds to the suspense. I didn't find this book to be as well-written or developed as Good Girl's, though. There is a lot of foreshadowing from the MC that makes it obvious she's hiding her own secret, and one character in particular is so annoying you can't help but wonder why everyone doesn't just stop listening to him and the orders he barks out. The ending had a few interesting twists, but Jackson dumps all of the plot resolution on readers in the last two-three chapters so I couldn't appreciate it as much as I had hoped. Not to mention that Jackson hints several times as to how the foreshadowing ties into the mystery, so any observant reader will guess the secret before the ending. However, this is a good book for YA suspense readers who don't try to read between the lines and I plan to add this to my HS library collection.

**Thank you, NetGalley and publisher, for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.**

I was very intrigued by the synopsis. It seemed like it this would be a fast paced read that would keep me on my toes. I was immediately drawn into the story due to the action and isolated location.

Then somewhere around a 1/3 of the way through I started to get bored. None of the characters were extremely likable. One of them drove me to the absolute brink with his choices and arrogance. I guessed the twist pretty early on. So, I also didn’t have the shock value of a reveal to fall back on.

I tried to remember that I’m not the target audience for this book. I think if my teenage daughter read it, she would really enjoy it. I think I’m just too much of a seasoned thriller reader to appreciate what this book was trying to do. I bumped up my rating a little knowing that someone else may love this book if they are part of the intended audience.

After absolutely devouring the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series — and rereading it often — I’ve been eagerly awaiting Holly Jackson’s next novel. While I love her writing, I did have some worries. I love the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series so much, how can her next book live up to my expectations? I’m very happy to say that my expectations were met and that I loved Five Survive.

This book took me on a rollercoaster of emotions and I loved every second of it. My favorite thing about Jackson’s writing is that she makes you feel something. Whether that’s happiness, anger, sadness, grief, fear — her writing brings out your emotions. There were so many times throughout my read of Five Survive where I was completely on edge. At one point I was literally crying and shaking because I could feel the fear and anxiety that these characters were feeling. I just love books that make me feel what it is that the characters are going through. Unsurprisingly, I found myself staying up well past midnight (about three am to be exact) to finish this book, as I have done with every one of Jackson’s previous novels.

I highly recommend Five Survive to anyone who liked the A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series, or likes mystery/thrillers in general

4.5 Stars!

Five Survive is the story of 6 friends who have rented an RV to drive to the beach for spring break. On the way, a wrong turn gets them stuck in the middle of nowhere with a sniper hiding in the woods. We learn that someone in the group has a secret that the sniper is willing to kill for.

This book had so many great twists, I couldn't put it down. The story sucked me in and I felt like I was trapped in the RV with our main characters. It was very interesting to see how each person dealt with the situation. I found myself actively hopping for one character in particular to not make it (terrible I know but they sucked).

I am a huge fan of Holly Jackson's "A Good Girls Guide to Murder" series and I think I might have liked "Five Survive" even more!

A road trip to spring break descends into nightmare.

Six young people have borrowed an RV to drive south for spring break: Red, her best friend Maddy, their classmate SImon, his friend Arthur, Maddy’s older brother Oliver, and his girlfriend Reyna. Late at night, they lose their connection to GPS and find themselves lost in a remote area and soon develop a flat tire. And a second one. They have no idea where they are, have no way to call for help, and find out that they are not alone. Someone is out there…..and he is aiming his gun at them.

So begins a nightmare. The unknown gunman has them trapped, and says that one of them knows a secret that must be told. If the right person comes forward with the desired secret, the others will go free. If not, they won’t make it out alive. The six friends plot to escape and try to find a way to connect with the outside world, but the shooter is one step ahead of them each time. Panic sets in, nerves are beyond frayed, and it turns out they each have a secret to tell. But whose is the right secret? And will they tell it in time to save the others.

I have read and enjoyed Holly Jackson’s true-crime inspired “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” series. Five Survive is a more traditional whodunnit, but with a very contemporary spin. As the story unfolds, the reader learns more and more about each character and the dynamics between them all. Alliances form and shift under the strain of their situation, decisions are made and actions taken, and it may all end in tragedy. While this latest work is young adult fiction, I would recommend it to adult readers as well. An intricate plot, well-formed characters, and the many twists and turns make for a quick but engrossing read. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s for the advanced reader’s copy.

Thanks to Delacorte Press and Netgalley for an eARC version of this book in exchange for an honest review!

My Rating: 4/5 stars

My Thoughts: This is a locked room mystery about 6 friends who go on an RV trip down to the gulf coast for spring break. All of a sudden they realize that they’ve fallen into a dangerous situation. 5 survive…. 1 does not. Who will it be?

This book at first was a bit slow, then it goes from 0-60 very fast. Which I personally don’t dislike. I thought it was engaging, fast paced, and had me at the edge of my seat. I finished this 400 page book in less than 3 hours, that shows you exactly how fast paced it is! I love Holly Jackson’s writing and the atmosphere that she creates with her writing. I truly felt terrified of what was going to happen next.

I’ll admit, the main mystery wasn’t much of a surprise but the details surrounding it sure were! I’m not a reader who needs plot twists and to be tricked, I actually enjoy guessing whodunnit. There definitely were twists and turns I wasn’t expecting. I’d definitely recommend this for lovers of YA mysteries specifically but any mystery lover could enjoy it. It was pretty thrilling so I think thriller lovers will like it as well. To be honest, anyone could enjoy it!

Go get yourself a copy when it’s released this Tuesday, November 29th 2022!