This is one of those books that pulls you in with an intriguing premise but falls short in execution. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to the initial excitement. While it ticks off all the inclusive boxes, the character development leaves much to be desired. There's a lot of telling and very little showing, especially for a Japanese Jumanji-type concept where I expected more vivid depictions of the games. Connecting with the characters and envisioning the challenges was a struggle, and, ultimately, I couldn't get into it.

Four years ago one of five friends did not return from a night out together. The four remaining lied about where they had been and said they had no idea what had happened. Now they are drawn back to the site of the incident and made to finish playing a game they never knew they started.
Good story with interesting characters and a good twist.

Four years ago there were five kids that started a game but not all of them lived...
Fast forward to the Survivor's senior year. The estranged four friends reunite when the friend they left for dead (Ian) appears as a ghost.

When I saw Find Him Where You Left Him Dead on NetGalley, I instantly knew I wanted to read it sometime this fall.

This has a plot line that sounds amazing but my one problem with the story was more on the slower side. A thing that makes Find Him Where You Left Him Dead unique is that draws inspiration from Japanese Folklore. Also, this book is marketed as a book similar to Jumanji and I can definitely say that it feels reminiscent of it.

Logically I do not understand how the group friends realize that after 4 years they need to finish the game which will allow them to Save Ian.

Speaking of the group of friends, I could not connect with them and I struggled with remembering who was who since they all felt similar. Plus, with reading this as an audiobook, there was a ton of multi-povs. With the mixture of multi-povs, the characters feeling similar, and it being on audio, it just makes the perfect storm of being mega confused and causes it to track what is going on with each character.

With the game aspect in the book, I liked seeing the characters go through each challenge/levels since I thought each challenge/level was interesting.

If this book was a tad more longer, the characters more fleshed out with more defining character traits, and the plot more developed than what is, then I would have enjoyed this book more.

Find Him Where You Left Him Dead does make a great book to read in the fall/October and I can see people still enjoying this due to it being likened to Jumanji and it being a short read.

Find Him Where You Left Him Dead is a YA Horror novel that follows four teens Madeline, Emerson, Owen and Dax. Four years ago they "played a game" in a cave and their friend Ian went missing. After seeing Ian's "ghost" they have all come together to go back into the cave and find him. It is very much like a Japanese horror version of Jumanji. It has some beautiful elements where it ties together folktales, yokai, and realistic life experiences. However I was also quite confused at points. While the characters grew on me towards the end I felt no real attachment to what they were experiencing until I was nearly through with the book. I do feel like there were several areas in this book where it lacked in plotting and some things felt forced, as if they were forgotten and then suddenly remembered and thrown in there last minute. Overall it was enjoyable simply because the world building was fantastic, however the plot structure and characters certainly could have used a bit more work. As I said, I didn't care about them at all for most of the book.

Perfect book for YA readers who are interested in a book filled with mystery and suspense. The Japanese inspiration for this novel was clever and it will allow the kids who are into anime connect with the characters.

I think this would make a fun addition for a teen book club, as it has a twist that I didn't see coming, as well as references to manga and Japanese folklore. I really liked how the story wove in the idea of completing a game, just like the children's book-turned-movie, Jumanji. In fact, this book would be great for teens who are interested in role playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons.

I will definitely recommend this to our Teen book club, as well as our D&D and anime clubs.

Simmons delivered a fun and, at times, intense horror. However, the characters fall flat and dialogue is sometimes a little too heavy handed.

Thank you MacMillan and Netgalley for an advance readers copy of the audiobook.

Fantastic audiobook. The narration fit the story very well and I found the whole package captivating!

Full review:

**3.5-stars rounded up**

Find Him Where You Left Him Dead is a YA-Horror release featuring Dark Fantasy elements based on Japanese folklore. To my delight, eerie imagery abounds!

In this story, we are following four teens, Madeline, Emerson, Owen and Dax. Four years ago, they, along with their friend, Ian, played a game in a local cave, as you do. Unfortunately, Ian never made it out. He disappeared and is assumed dead. Unsurprisingly, the remaining kids were traumatized by the events of that day. A lot of blame got tossed around, anger and vitriol. They've been estranged ever since.

They never recovered from losing Ian and each struggled in their own ways. Madeline, for example, focused all her time on her swimming, cutting herself off from everyone. Taking it further, Emerson dropped out of school completely. All around, not a good time for anyone.

It's now the end of their Senior year. They're approaching adulthood, but things feel unfinished. That's when a haunting presence, who looks like the long-missing Ian, begins summoning the group of friends back together again. Reuniting, the group decides they need to finish the game they started all those years ago. They return to the cave to pick up where they left off. They're at a loss though. Ian's ghost dragged them here, but how is this going to help him?

As they restart the game, the teens are quickly sucked out of their reality and into a dangerous hellscape of Japanese underworlds. That's where they meet Shinigami, the wise old woman who finally tells them the rules.
Collect seven stones by completing seven challenges. They have until dawn, or they risk getting stuck in the underworld forever. If they're successful, it's possible they could return home with Ian at their sides.

This forces the estranged teens to put their grievances aside. They've got to forget the past four years of bitter dislike and come back to a place where they can work together effectively and efficiently. They accept the challenge.

I really enjoyed my time with this story. I found it to be incredibly gripping and unique. I loved all the dark horror imagery based on Japanese folklore and the gaming element, including all of the challenges, was just such an experience.

I loved how quickly Simmons started with the dark content. It's pretty much immediate, as you are meeting each of the four mains, you're meeting them as they are encountering the eerie Ian-image for the first time. I thought that was a great way to kick it off.

I've read a couple of stories that follow this type of trip through the underworld facing different challenges plot, but this is the first time that it was a group, versus one individual. I liked the group because it added a lot of interesting personal dynamics.

There were times, in a couple of the challenges, where the imagery for me did get a little muddled; like I couldn't really picture what was happening anymore. Overall though, I think Simmons did a wonderful job painting a picture for us on the page with her words. It was captivating. There were some great twists as well. A big one, I definitely didn't see coming. I wasn't expecting anything twisted, so good on Simmons for fooling me like that.

I would recommend this to Readers who enjoy YA Horror with Dark Fantasy elements, particularly if you are a fan of Japanese folklore. Conversely, if you love Japanese folklore, or Anime, I also think this one is worth giving a shot, even if you aren't necessarily a big YA-Horror Reader.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Tor Teen, for providing me a copy to read and review. I'm not sure, but I'm smelling a sequel on the horizon...

Do not let the target audience deter you on this one if you don't normally gravitate toward YA, this is a fun horror novel for all! I enjoyed the fast-pace and the character exploration. Overall if you enjoy fun spooky stories, and the idea of a creepy Jumanji, this is a book for you.

A fun, fast-paced horror novel to devour in one quick go.
I found myself a bit unmoored at the beginning, but found it easy to dive right into the story and let it take me along for the ride. While I had little to no knowledge of the Japanese mythology it draws from, I found that I believed each detail it used in creating this eerie otherworld.
Not a new favourite, but a solid story to send shivers down your spine this spooky season.

A high school game turns deadly, and now surviving members of the club are back together again, because they’ve been summoned by the ghost of their friend Ian. Their goal is to find Ian and bring him home, but that means restarting the game that caused so much deadly mayhem. The game is called Meido, and it’s a game without instructions, or without rules, a game so horrifying that it’s beyond imagining

This was perfection! I love the teen romance and the horribly scary setting. I loved all the protagonists.
I was completely enthralled.
You can't top the bad guys in this one.
The narration was the best narration I have listened to in a long while!

Audiobook Review - Find Him Where You Left Him Dead is perfect for YA horror fans. A Jumanji like plot and lots of twists and turns will keep readers hooked until the very end! Recommended for all YA collections.

The narrators did a great job with Japanese names and words, and delivered great emotion in the characters. I probably should have stuck with the audio for the whole thing, actually. Might have bumped it up to that 3-stars.
2.5 Overall. From the blurb, I figured I would love this book. It has horror elements, a Japanese Underworld setting, rocky friendships. But something about how it was put together made it a chore.

I loved the gory bits. The battles, creatures, villains and level of up-close body horror is great for teen readers. Creativity points all around. What I struggled with was connecting to any of our main cast. The opening was fantastic, getting to know little pieces of them as they are haunted by their past. However, it very quickly slipped into stereotypes, bland dialogue, and stilted clichés. That may have been commentary from the author about how horror movies tend to have specific roles to fill (Cabin in the Woods, Scream, the alluded I Know What You Did Last Summer), but it kept me from picking up the book to continue some days.

I would still recommend this book to teen readers who enjoy horror and are looking for something with unique cultural ties. Plus, the ending leaves it open to a sequel (which I probably won't attempt myself), so it's good for hooking reluctant readers.

P.S. Just a tiny, tiny thing, which may not make it to the final print. There was a line towards the 75% mark in which a creature is described as having "feet like a horse, cloven with a hock towards the ankle." That is definitely not Horse. Someone please fix that.

Five friends once played a game. And now, there are only four.

Madeline, Dax, Emerson, and Owen have spent the last four years telling the world they don’t know what happened to Ian. But they know. They left him behind. But now, they’ve seen visions and been given a warning: if they don’t go back and finish the game, Ian will vanish for good.

This book is full of Shinto tales, especially the creation story. If you’re familiar with these, you’re going to pick up on a lot of details that the characters miss, which will give you some clues as to what’s really going on. However, this book does a great job of fully explaining everything, in its due time.

The whole thing is steeped in tension and dread, but not gore or violence, which I really appreciate. There’s danger and harm, yes, but it’s the sense of foreboding that really does the lifting.

While summer is the season for ghost stories in Japan, don’t wait until next year to read this. Get it, before the last of the heat disappears!

This was a young adult Japanese inspired game based ghost story and it did not disappoint on the creepiness factor! 4 friends continue a "game" that was started 4 years ago that resulted in their friend disappearing and their friendship fracturing. When they enter the game they find out that they must save their friend before dawn or they will all be stuck in that world forever.

First things first, I listened to this as an audiobook thanks to NetGalley. The narrators did a fantastic job bringing the characters to life, giving them attitudes and inflections that really helped the story. The descriptions were creepy and gross and really fitting for the game world. You would get glimpses of foreshadowing and an inkling that something was off, but never enough that you were certain until the final reveals.

With that being said, a few observations. One, I feel like there were some parts that were written in hopes that it would eventually be made into a movie, like the characters stripping down to their bras/underwear to share body heat and then having to run around like that for half the book. Two, while the author does do a pretty decent job of wrapping things up (for now) there are still some elements that felt like they could have been explained a little bit better.

I still thought the book was definitely worth reading and I am 100% looking forward to the next one!

I read this book because the concept of the book seemed pretty cool and reminded me of one of my favorite childhood books, Jumanji. 5 friends play a Japanese card game in a cave, but 1 of them never returns home. 4 years later the 4 survivors start the game again to try to figure out what happened to their friend.

I liked this book, but I definitely felt like there was missing background/exposition between story lines. At times I was confused me and the writing made me wonder whether I spaced out for a few minutes. (Can report I double and triple checked that wasn't the case.) So while I thought the story was a good concept, I just don't feel like it was executed perfectly.

I liked this, but there are some pretty significant things keeping me from giving this any higher than three stars. The biggest problem being that several of the twisty details and reveals make no sense, and we get no explanations for them. Some of this I guess I can write off if it turns out this will be a series, which the very last sentence seems to imply is the intent, but I was left really dissatisfied and I don't actually know if this is book one, so I'm still counting this as a ding.

This is a story about five kids who started playing a Japanese card game, and then under circumstances they never talk or think about, left one of their friends behind for dead. Now, four years later and seemingly haunted by the ghost of their friend, they have reunited to finish the game in hopes that they can bring him back from the creepy Japanese underworld slash gameworld he has been stuck in for four years.

Right away, I thought the decision to have four POVs was the wrong one. This is a short book, and two narrators would have bene more than okay. I would have chosen Emerson, but probably Maddie would have been the one the author would have chosen, and then Dax. The decision to have all the kids be characters just meant that it took me way too long to actually get invested in the story and the characters, not until the 50% mark. And there really wasn't any narrative purpose behind having them all as POV characters.

The second thing, as mentioned above, is how incomplete this book feels. It needed fifty more pages at least. The ending was the worst, as we go from the kids playing the game, to somehow having everything wrapped up and fixed in literally an incident. I literally listened to the ending three times just to make sure I hadn't accidentally tuned out and missed something, but I didn't. It read like the author couldn't figure out how to explain what happened so she just decided to skip the explanation entirely. The explanation, and the climax, which is only the most important part of the book. I kind of can't believe her editor let her get away with it.

The game aspect wasn't really used enough, in my opinion. The only satisfying game portion of the book involved the kids playing Truth or Dare with younger versions of themselves. That was the only genuinely great part of the story.

There is also an entirely unresolved subplot involving an empress wanting to come back from the dead and rule the world. Again, if there is a sequel, I suppose this isn't an issue, but it's unclear.

All in all, not mad I read this, but I could have been reading something better.

No, just now this is not enjoyable I don’t like it. I don’t wanna talk about it I am uncomfortable don’t make me read it.No, just now this is not enjoyable I don’t like it. I don’t wanna talk about it I am uncomfortable don’t make me read it.

Rating: 3.25 leaves out of 5
-Characters: 3/5
-Cover: 4/5
-Story: 2.75/5
-Writing: 2.75/5
Genre: Horror, Mythology, Fantasy, Paranormal, Thriller, YA
-Horror: 1/5
-Fantasy: 5/5
-Paranormal: 2.5/5
-Mythology: 4/5
-Thriller: 2.5/5
-YA: 5/5
Type: Audiobook
Worth?: Eh, I guess

Want to thank Netgalley and publishers for giving me the chance to read this book.

Many who know me know I don't care for YA novels, but I have found that horror YA can be actually good. This book wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. I liked the concept of the story and what the whole point of it is.

There are two settings to this story and it just doesn't mesh well at all. There were also some subject matters in this book that I didn't agree with at all.