Raw honest thoughts. These are my thoughts so please don't judge me.
Found this book on netgalley and was drawn to it by the blurb. Never heard of this author before at least I think I haven't. But any ways I requested it based off the blurb and I honestly actually really liked this book. Kept me pulled into it. 5 star book. I also highly recommend this book. Already told a few people that they need to read this book and I so hope they do. Will be planning out the next time I read this book. Loved the authors writting style. Also this book helped me through a rough patch recently

Thank you to netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review. The following opinions are my own.

You said Jumanji butJapanese horror edition. What I got was... still under assessment. I was very excited for the premise of this book. But it fell sort of flat for me. I'll admit that when someone says horror I have very specific expectations. And unfortunately this book didn't do it for me. I found myself in a very big reading slump. But I finished it so I could at least rate it fairly.

Find Him Where You Left Him Dead by Kristen Simmons
4 stars

[Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group for giving me this arc to read and review.]

Five kids started a game and only four survived. Now, four years later, they start hearing from their one friend that disappeared and when they look for him, they get sucked into a game that will change their lives forever.

This book has Japanese-folklore and it reminded me a bit of Jumanji mixed with horror. The game within the book had a life or death scenario where all of the friends had to come together. Part of the game was very disturbing but written very well. There were parts of the book where I was on the edge of my seat because I just wanted the characters to get to where they needed to go. 

In the game, they have to follow these cards and they turn to a different stone each time the level is passed. There were seven cards but they start out with six. Throughout each round, you learn more about each character on their strengths and weaknesses. And the only thing I wished for more was that I wanted to learn more about Ian, who was the friend who disappeared four years ago. He’s this special friend that they all cared about and they go back to find him but we don’t know much about him. I wanted to know who he was when he was younger, who he was as a person, and what made him so special that made him the one to disappear. 

There was a twist toward the end of the book and that really surprised me. I feel like I should have picked up on it during one challenge but I didn’t and honestly, that’s what makes a book so well-written. I also really liked each characters personalities and when they started to change because of the game, it was done well. 

The only thing I wished the book did better was the ending. It always seems like the huge part of the book happens and then two chapters is what lies between the end of the huge plot point and the end of the book. It ended on a tiny bit of a cliffhanger, so it makes me wonder if there will be a second book to this one, but also it ended in a way that doesn’t always mean a cliffhanger. If there is a sequel, I definitely will be reading it. 

I don’t want to say much because I don’t want to spoil anything that happens in this book. All you should know is that you need to put this on your want to read list. It was very entertaining.

I posted my review to Goodreads and StoryGraph on May 21, 2023. I have linked my Goodreads and StoryGraph reviews below. I submitted my review to Barnesandnoble.com on May 22, 2023. I have linked my Barnesandnoble.com review below. I will post my review to Amazon.com on the book's release date, September 26, 2023.

Thank you so much to Tor Teen, NetGalley, and Kristen Simmons for providing me with an ARC of this book!

I want to start off by saying that I really thought I was going to enjoy Find Him Where You Left Him Dead. I have read two of Kristen Simmons’ other books, (The Deceivers and Scammed), and I was blown away by how compelling their plots were, how lovable the cast of characters in the books were, and how believable and heartwarming the characters’ relationships were. Plus, I am a huge fan of YA paranormal horror books, so when I first saw this book listed on Kristen Simmons’ Goodreads page in 2021, I knew I had to get my hands on it. A book in a genre I love by a favorite author of mine should have been so much fun to read, and I was fully expecting to adore this one.

I also want to say that I only request ARCs that I am expecting to rate 4 or 5 stars. Again, I went into this book really expecting to love it. Unfortunately, I was incredibly disappointed by it.

First off, Kristen Simmons begins this book with one of my pet peeves: introducing us to the characters by stating what hobbies they have rather than creating distinct personalities for them. Yes, I remember that Dax plays guitar and Maddy swims, but their voices were so unmemorable, and their personalities so bland, that I would not have been able to differentiate the characters if their names hadn’t been at the top of the chapters they narrated. It’s fine for characters to have hobbies, but I hate it when hobbies are the only source of characterization for a character, and that was definitely the case here.

The opening chapters of the story were fairly mundane, even though they each ended with a paranormal event. It’s strange how a certain writing style can turn what would be a terrifying event into a run-of-the-mill reading experience. I kept telling myself that the book would get better once the plot got going, but once the characters entered the underworld (Meido), my reading experience deteriorated further.

There’s a difference between having your characters be unclear about the world they’re in and just not explaining details that should be explained. I understand that Kristen Simmons made the stylistic choice for the world and the structure of the challenges to be confusing; however, that choice made it difficult for me to get invested in the story.

Stories that deal with survival games, like Squid Game, Alice in Borderland, and even The Hunger Games are compulsively consumable because of their rigid structure; we know that the characters are going into a game setting where the rules are unclear at first. But once the characters are in the arena, the rules are explained very clearly, so the audience can watch the games with bated breath, hoping that their favorite characters don’t break the rules, and knowing the exact moment when they do, because the rules are exact and absolute. Remember in Squid Game, when you watched a character make a crack in their ppopgi, and you were seized with horror, knowing what was about to happen as a result? There are no moments like that in this book.

It’s so hard to feel any sort of suspense when you don’t know what constitutes a mistake in Meido. It’s also hard to feel suspense when you don’t really get to know (and therefore don’t care about) any of the characters in the book.

The character relationships in this book are quite weak as well. The protagonists are estranged childhood friends, and the story is supposed to follow their journey as they repair their fraught friendships amidst the horrors they face in Meido. However, Kristen Simmons employs another pet peeve writing tactic of mine: she repairs the characters’ friendships by essentially making them forget that they stopped being friends. This really isn’t a spoiler, because the character relationships are such a weak element of the book, and the story is not impacted by them much at all (and yes, that is another problem I have with the story).

It is so uninteresting to read about a character relationship that is fixed with a convenient magic wand. This erased any semblance of tension that existed between the characters, and ensured that I wouldn’t be able to believe anything about their relationships with each other. There was no organic, on-page relationship development here; just the writing telling me over and over that these characters were best friends again.

There’s also a painfully forced romance that is created with a similarly convenient story device rather than any on-page chemistry building, which is yet another pet peeve of mine.

Continuing to talk about convenience in relation to this book, the story was not compelling during any of the challenges, because they were won so easily that there was never any time for me to worry about whether or not the characters would make it.

Kristen Simmons’ take on Japanese mythology and Meido was interesting, but even some of the myths present in the story were not explained clearly enough to haunt or scare me. For example, I did not know that Kuchisake had a sequence of asking questions that were impossible to answer until I looked it up. To me, Kuchisake was just a creepy, lovesick man, not a character who would either cut your face or flat-out kill you depending on how you answered his questions.

Also, there were several jokes about concussions here. One of them was along the lines of “Haha, she’s acting funny, has she sustained a trauma to the head?” Concussion jokes will never be funny. People who act strange after sustaining a head injury feel scared and out of control, and making a joke about it is cruel on a level I didn’t know Kristen Simmons was capable of. I don't think Kristen Simmons was being deliberately cruel, but it was thoughtless, and I'm sad that concussion jokes have been so normalized in media. I know several people who have struggled with long-term concussion recovery, and the innumerable amount of concussion jokes that pollute the media will never be funny to me.

Additionally, this book is not a paranormal horror, it’s a fantasy. A paranormal horror typically has a few elements of horror while remaining grounded in reality, and this book had a completely different world with a fantastical geography and fantastical creatures. Plus, since all of the creatures are revealed at once, there is no build-up of fear where the reader is wondering, “what could be behind all these strange occurrences?” There is no psychological aspect to the horror in this book at all, so to me, it’s not really a horror book.

I think this book would be more successful if it was marketed as a YA fantasy book, but even then, the characters are so one-dimensional, and the plot so half-baked, that I don’t see how anyone could enjoy this book without major revisions to the story. I know that I read an ARC, so I hope there is time for major changes to be made before this book is published.

The sentence structure of the prose was very confusing at times, which could be attributed to the fact that I read an ARC, or it could be a flaw in the prose, I’m not sure.

There were a few twists at the end of the story, some of which I was pleasantly surprised by, and one that was so blatantly foreshadowed, I saw it coming from the beginning. I appreciate that Kristen Simmons carefully planned the twists in the story, and that some of them were surprising while still being believable. That’s something I can always count on when reading a book by Kristen Simmons.

I am surprised that Kristen Simmons wrote this book, though. I am so used to reading compelling, stellar works of literary brilliance from her that I am truly baffled at how the amazing concept of this novel could be executed in such a lackluster manner. It was tedious to read, and it took me several months to finish because I was so uninvested that it was hard to pay attention to the story.

Overall, Find Him Where You Left Him Dead was a complete miss for me. If you’re looking for a compelling YA paranormal horror that follows a group of teens as they navigate a paranormal world and have to pass through different gates to make it home, I suggest picking up Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall instead. It has basically the opposite of all of the story flaws I’ve been talking about; it has memorable characters with believable relationships, lots of psychological horror and mystery, and a clearly-defined structure.

i’m gonna be honest, i DNF this one at 34%. I think it started off great, i was really intrigued to see where the story was going to go. The first couple of chapters where the friends get visited by the ghost were creepy. But the more i moved into the story, the less i cared. I didn’t have any attachments to the characters so nothing they did or say had an impact on me. I think i just went in expecting something else. Describing this as a version of jumanji is spot on, i just wanted it to be creepier i guess. But this is a soft DNF. I wouldn’t be against the idea of picking it up again and giving it a second chance. I like the writing style enough that i’d be interested to check something else by that author and the 34% i read were fast paced.

I have a little hard time finishing this book, and let me tell you why: The opening scene which should capture the reader's attention, was totally unsettled for me. We start with a protagonist doing some contortions poses to get later that she was in a pool hiding from a ghost. So, people that we don't know in an environment that hasn't been introduced to us.
I was excited when I get the approval for this book, but the story doesn't;t have much suspense, and I don't think is a thriller, as many reviewers mentioned before, the story is more of the line of jumanji.
Unfortunately I was invested in the reading. It wasn't for me but maybe is something that others would like.

This book gets compared to Jumanji a lot, and there is a definite similarity with it revolving around a game that takes place in an alternate, dangerous reality.
But make no mistake- Find Him Where You Left Him Dead is unlike ANYTHING you have ever read or watched before. It is not a single-genre book. This is part horror, part mystery, part coming of age, part thriller, and technically YA, though it oftentimes doesn’t feel like it. It’s dark, gory, fast-paced, and the story does a great job of blending elements from Japanese mythology while acknowledging their origin and also being unique in itself. It also is a beautiful representation of LGBTQ and bipoc characters, though I wouldn’t say it would fall under typical LGBTQ or bipoc categories.
Parts of the story could have been paced a little better, as some of it seemed rushed, but overall this was a solid read and I will absolutely be signing up for the second book in the series as soon as it’s written!

Another Hit by Kristen Simmons! I’ve loved everything I’ve read from her and this is no different. So excited to have received an e-arc! Such a fun premise and was executed perfectly!

This was super fun and fast-paced (from about 50% on). I don't think I fully grasped what this book was about until I started reading it. I was really a fan of the "Japanese Jumanji" aspects of this and thought it was a pretty accurate description. I am also a fan of the trope (maybe?) where ex friends/old friends gather back together to solve a mystery/uncover something or, in this case, find Ian. I love the presence of Shinigami and thought that the card game was interesting. I thought that all the aspects of this writing worked pretty well together, but, the beginning wasn't my favorite. I wasn't really hooked by each character describing/going through a supernatural experience because of the death of a friend--I don't know if this served the plot very well, and it made it so the book sort of felt like it started for real half-way through. Still, the second half of the book was really cool and interesting, I just wish that the entire book had felt that way.

I had such high hopes for this book, but apparently, Jumaniji is not my cup of tea. Teens will be drawn to the horror and thriller sequences in Find Him Where You Left Him Dead; however, many may get lost in the game and never finish.

Thank you to Tor Teen and NetGalley for this ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book; all thoughts and opinions are my own.

So this book promises to be YA horror story in which Jumanji meets Japanese Folklore. And, it does deliver pretty much exactly that. Why, then, am I left feeling kind of overall underwhelmed?

I suppose the best way I can put it is that this book to me only barely feels like the sum of its parts. It's a horror novel, but it's not, like, that scary. It offers a Jumanji-esque deadly "game" that the protagonists must beat, but the game mostly came across to me as a framing device to showcase a sequence of encounters with various creatures from Japanese folklore. And the folklore angle felt underutilised; I have only a passing familiarity with this, and I constantly felt like the narrative assumed I knew far more about this mythology already than I did.

I suppose maybe if you had a Japan-enthusiast teen on your hands (perhaps the manga-reading crowd?) they might get a lot more out of it than I did. But I don't really see it appealing to my general YA horror reading students.

So this book was described as a “Japanese Jumungi horror” which made me really excited to dive into reading. However the first part of the book is each chapter detailing a character that has a supernatural visit due to a connection over a death of a mutual friend-way too many characters to go through to finally find out what’s happening. When they all get the “game” part, and the action starts up, I just found my mind wandering while reading. It’s an interesting take on horror, but it never horrified me or held me in suspense. An original story that just fell flat for me

The pace is breakneck. And I had a puzzled look on my face most of the time I was reading this crazy ride of a YA thriller for the panel discussion!

As everyone is billing it as a Japanese Jumanji, it's got a little flair like Marie Lu's Warcross too, and a little Ready Player One with the references as the non-friends who used to be friends come together once again to try to find Ian, one that had been lost to them years ago but who reappeared to them on an anniversary. The quest then begins back in the cave. They meet Shinigami, an old woman and are reintroduced to the card game Meido that they never finished playing when Ian was lost to them.

Dax, Maddy, Emerson, and Owen were on different paths and now their lives converge again with mind-games, visions of the past and future, collecting body parts/fragments (reminded me of of Milledge's Mamo), and deal-making where they must outsmart/outwit. I think Stranger Things fans, especially the darker newer episodes, will buckle in for this ride.

That will be a NOPE from me. I took a chance on it and I could not get into it, it was too supernatural for me even after reading the description

This book was a really refreshing LGBTQ+ and racially diverse representation in the horror genre. The rep came naturally and wasn't a focal point of the story which is always needed. Super gory, fast-paced and intense. The coolest take on the Jumanji story!

I loved the concept for this but the execution fell flat for me. Perhaps it was a case of misled expectations? I was expecting creepy horror and a few edge of your seat moments. Instead this felt a bit more like Goosebumps than ‘The Forbidden Game’. If It’s YA, then it must be the younger end of YA. Love the Stranger Things style friendship that gets the story going but overall this was a bit light on feels too. Not my cup of tea.

Wow! Great book! The characters were well described and came alive as I read this book. There were times I couldn't put it down. The mystery of the cards was great and the twist and turn of the game kept me guessing.

I would immediately like to confirm that this is INDEED, Jumanji with the strongest horror vibes, and I loved every second of it. Big thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for the chance to review this book pre-release.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. It really was like Jumanji but Japanese inspired, just be forewarned it's much darker. The horror and mystery wove together in a way that made it hard to put down. Your constantly wondering if these friends will survive as this mysterious underworld is unraveled bit by bit. I especially loved learning more about Japanese Mythology that's not usually explored. I cannot wait to read more books by this author.

I love the way mythology was used in this. I can't vouch for accuracy but I can vouch for coolness. It was explained really well and integrated in the store beautifully. I zoomed through this book. It starts with action and never really ends. The game is terrifying but super engaging.