This book was tough to put down and while I found the ending to be relatively predicable I still found it very surprising and well done. Really good YA horror and considering its subject matter I had a lot of fun reading it.

Taylor was a great character and her narration was both hilarious and heartbreaking, which is what made it fun for me. The book felt too referential at times but I also really appreciated its self awareness and its use of reference to critique racism within the genre.

Thank you to netgalley for providing a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review ☺️

Camp Lanier follows Taylor, a Black private school student who gets sent to a community service program for at-risk youths at a summer camp after getting caught shoplifting. The camp is surrounded by a haunting urban legend that claims an all-Black town was forced to create the lake. Rumor has it underneath the water lies the original town. Taylor believes it’s just a scare tactic to keep kids careful when swimming. Except, the family who runs the camp keeps making thinly veiled, racist comments. As Taylor bonds with a fellow camp counsellor and other at-risk youths, things turn from bad to worse. She can hear someone screaming at night and Taylor has to figure out the truth before she ends up like the people in the lake.

This is such a fun horror! It’s so reminiscent of Get Out. I loved the setting—summer camps are so superior for horror. This is a great summer or October read. The plot is really engaging, and while there were a couple slow points, it kept my interest. There’s definitely a haunted and hunted kind of vibe throughout the novel. The atmosphere was on point. While I found some parts predictable, it was still enjoyable. The ending was well done and satisfying.

I liked the main character. Taylor was a mostly smart mc. I liked that she knew the classic horror tropes and was trying to keep herself safe. Victoria was a really good friend and I enjoyed their scenes together. I liked Mia and Liam too—they were good additions once Taylor met them. The history scenes were really interesting and the lake lore was fascinating.

Overall, this is a fun horror novel if you loved Get Out or horror set at summer camps!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Sterling and Stone and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for my review.

The cover and subject of Lake Lanier caught my attention. This was a quick read, got done with it in only a few days, but it was very well written. Usually I don't go for YA, but I still found myself enjoying the story and the chills Barzey weaved into many of the scenes. Perfect read to get me into spooky season.

This is a great YA summertime read. It is spooky, has relatable and lovable characters, and checks the boxes for what I wanted to read as Summer turns into Fall.

Let me start by saying, I wish I had not just read The Reformatory because I think I was unable to give this a fair chance. The stories are very similar with this one feeling like a YA or softened version of Tananarive Due‘s haunting tale. That said, I enjoyed MC Taylor who is easy to cheer on, subtle nods to the hope genre that are scattered like easter eggs, and the author’s note at the end that show us the real and horrific truth that spawned the idea for this story. The topics explored here (racism, classism, homophobia) are done so with a somewhat mild approach which did not feel necessary. Our history is ugly and I think it is always honest to show just how ugly. I wish the author had leaned into these themes more heavily into the story rather than in the authors note. If you follow this book with The Reformatory, rather than the other way around, this serves as a good gateway to very dark and real terrors in our history that is more suited to a younger audience.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Sterling & Stone for an ARC of Camp Lanier! I just want to start off by saying that Barzey KNOWS his horror trivia! When he quoted Rob Zombie's Halloween, (Which I knew the line right off the bat before it was clarified) I knew I was in for a treat, I don't think those movies get enough love so I appreciated his little nod to it. Where do I really begin with this novel, I loved everything about it. Taylor is a final girl that I can really get behind, no stranger to tragedy but still with a fighting spirit, what is not to love about a character like that. She gets her eyes opened up to a lot more than she ever could have bargained for, and without spoilers I really love the answer to her why me? "Because you've been dying to scream, and I hope if I pushed you long enough, you'd scream for us, too." The fact that this book is based off history is beyond devastating, but I love that Barzey's objective is to educate about it, they say if we do not learn from our history then we are doomed to repeat it. The fact that I have heard that Sun Down towns STILL exist just sickens me. We really have to do better than what we are doing now. Taylor doesn't want to be the typical "angry black girl" but she gets her point across with her flow of words and her confidence. I loved this character so much and I would love to see more of her in the future. Barzey does such a good job of incorporating current events as well as the past and he is just so educated over the things he writes about (not just horror quips) I want to say so much more about this book, it was sad and scary and moving and I blew through it because I just couldn't put it down. I look forward to reading all of his catalog because I know for a fact that he will NOT disappoint.

Another book I was so intrigued to read because of a beautiful cover. This is a YA horror book. It was easy to read and can easily be read in a sitting or two.

I enjoyed this. I didn’t have high expectations knowing it was a YA and would be a little on the juvenile side. But to me it was not bad at all. I think this can definitely still read by adults of all ages.

It was nostalgic in the best ways. Summer camp, backstabbing friends, deeper meanings beyond the little things and undertones of greater world issues going on as well. It was also Ghosty, creepy and fun.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this! It’s a bit shorter than I wanted it to be. I wish we had more time with these characters and build up to the climax because the ending seemed very rushed.

I used to be a GA resident and have heard rumblings about Lake Lanier which is what drew me to this book! I think it was a bit young for me but over its great read for the fall season!

*Thank you so much to Netgalley for the e-ARC!

I am not typically a horror fan, but I really enjoyed this book! It was a very enjoyable and fun read for me.

This book will have you hooked and on the edge of your seat. Even though I enjoyed this book, there were a few parts that were predictable and I think this took a little bit away from the story line.

This did have kind of a supernatural aspect to it, which I have never read before, but it wasn't anything that would be considered 'too much'. This book had just enough horror, mystery, and camper slasher to make it a very interesting and quick read.

I will be looking for more books from this author in the future, and will recommend this book to all of my horror friends.

I love me a good ghost story. Camp Lanier is definitely that. I only recently moved to GA myself but I've heard all the stories about Lake Lanier and it was fun knowing a bit about the lake going into this story. I feel like I devoured this book it was written so well. I will definitely be watching for more from Sylvester Barzey.

I absolutely loved a specific line "Let the world see your rage" That's going to stick with me

Very unique story...I found it entertaining! With the fiction world full of the same retreaded storylines, it was refreshing to see something different. Very well done for an "indie" writer!

This book is amazing! There's a few words missing, misspelled words, added words, and wrong names used, but the book was so enthralling it was easy to overlook those mistakes. It also hit a little close to home. Where I was born in Ponca City, OK, there was a town nearby called Kaw City. In 1975, the town was flooded to make Kaw Lake and rebuilt nearby. In the 90s, some of the bodies and caskets buried there made their way to the surface, and many people have drowned in it, including Craig Strickland. So this book was perfect for me.

The author really captures the teenage voice, part cocky, part terrified, and part naive. It was easy to believe the story of Taylor, Oscarville, and Lake Lanier. I also liked that the author included a history on Oscarville and Forsyth County at the end.

The only part of this book that didn't work for me was a part near the end, but I won't spoil it here.

Thank you NetGalley for giving me the chance to read this book ahead of time in exchange for a review. You should read it!

I wasn't sure what to expect while I was going into this, but I am so glad that not knowing what to expect was the case!

The characters aren't as complex as they could be, but any minute complexity missing from those characters was redeemed by the urge to keep reading.

The story starts with a general sense of being dropped into a conversation already in progress. Which is a risky bet, either you will leave your audience eternally confused or you will summon their immense curiosity to keep reading. Sylvester Barzey won that bet! After the second scene you are in. You want to know about the past and you want to know about what's to come.

Overall, this was a nice atmospheric horror novel with some great creepy scenes that will keep you hooked, and I look forward to reading other novels from this author!

This is a fun read.

Very suitable for older MG or younger YA readers.

I liked the diversity and the social issues that were brought out - and I didn't think the author sacrificed story for messaging. The story was definitely there!

It's a little creepy and I liked our MC.

A good spooky yarn!

I found this to be a poorly written young adult book. I also didn’t get much of a horror feel from it. The overuse of cliches was overwhelming. I felt the characters were either underdeveloped or difficult to relate to. The main character was annoying and too inconsistent. The plot focused on a lot of racial aspects and seemed to be a strong drive in the book but was not properly explored. The rest of the characters were stereotyped and hardly interesting to read about. There were too many ideas packed into one book, with none of them properly explored. A better idea would probably have been picking a few topics and working on them thoroughly.

This started out as a fun campy thriller that I was quite enjoying. It did become a bit predictable at some point, which took away some of the thrill and excitement, and because of that, the overall experience for me.
I did enjoy the supernatural aspect of the story, I thought It added an extra dimension to the regular campy slasher theme. I am a sucker for a good haunting 😁. I thought the writing Itself was pretty decent and I would definitely read something else from this author.

Overall I give this one between 3-31/2 stars

I was looking for an easy horror summer read when I came across this one which immediately grabbed my attention.

The story is simple, a black teen is sent to summer camp to do community service after she is caught shoplifting and her “friends” put all the blame on her.

Said summer camp is built next to Lake Lanier, a real place in Georgia with its own deep-rooted history. And while I had no prior knowledge of the legend of lake Lanier, after looking it up beforehand I got even more excited to start this book and see how Barzey incorporated this into his story.

And it definitely didn’t disappoint.

The book starts out a bit slow. We get to know our main girl Taylor, her “friends” and learn how she ended up at camp Lanier. While all of this is important to the story, it took up 25% of the story and I felt like this would’ve worked equally well with a few shorter scenes. Especially considering the book is only around 200 pages in total.

But despite this, I kept wanting to pick this up and continue reading and I’m glad I did. Once we’re past the 25% mark and the story at the camp starts, everything really gets going. What follows is a fast-paced story which can be best described as part ghost story, part slasher in which the lines between what is real and what isn’t start to blur.

Taylor starts to see and hear things other people don’t and while reading I was just as confused as she was at certain moments. What is real? What is in her head? And even then, did that specific event she's seeing really happen at one point or is she making everything up? The story keeps you guessing in that regard and that adds to the overall spookiness of the story.

The history told through Taylor's experiences is really interesting. The whole legend of Oscarville and Lake Lanier works really well as the setting for this story. Barzey does a great job of incorporating the history into the story without it becoming too much of a history lesson or info dumping. Seeing that I didn’t really have any prior knowledge, I love how much I learned from just reading this book. There’s even an author’s note at the end going into more detail on how this is a fictionalised version of these events.

These vision-like experiences Taylor has are also where the horror comes in. I went into this without any expectations on how scary this was going to be as I’ve seen other people complain about the lack of horror. But after reading I have to say I disagree. There’s a lot of degrees to horror and the use of it and this falls into one of the lower categories. To me this story contains just the right amount of gore and scares for a YA novel. There is some blood, but nothing over the top and I found the story to be very eerie and atmospheric at times. Enough to make you wanting to keep reading all the time.

While we’re at the subject of horror, I also loved the many horror references. Some of them are so sneaky you might not even pick up on them if you’re not an avid horror fan. I thought this was very nicely done and clearly shows Barzey knows his horror, which I always love to see. I think I got most of the references, but some are a bit more obvious than others. I won’t go into detail as it’s more fun to figure it out by yourself, but one of my favourites was a podcaster named Gale Prescott.

Even though this is a horror story, the real horror isn't the scares or the ghosts or the blood and gore. No, the real horror here is the racism interwoven throughout the whole book. It reminded me of the movie Get Out in a way and even the author has made the same comparison, showing how it has been one of his inspirations in writing this.

The racism is always present in the story in some way. Even if not overtly stated at all times, it’s very clear the black people are treated differently from the white people. At camp Lanier there is a separate place for all the delinquents. Almost unsurprisingly, they’re all black kids. They are forced to work, live and sleep under bad conditions while all wearing the same red jumpsuit. It is very clear what Barzey is going for here without actually saying the words.

The subtle racism and not so subtle racism was very eye-opening to me as a white reader. It wasn’t just Taylor who picked up on it while it was happening, I did too. To me, this all felt very well done and very realistic and it helped me see and experience what it must be like for black people to constantly have to deal with these experiences when I don’t have to worry about any of this. This definitely added another deeper layer and made it so much more than just a fun slasher/ghost story.

At only 200 pages this is the perfect pick if you’re looking for a quick, fun, spooky summer read and I definitely recommend it. While it has some darker themes, it was never handed too heavily. This being based on actual events gave the story an extra dimension. The characters are likeable and even the ones that aren’t have their reasons and that makes them real. To me Taylor very much has a teen voice which made her feel like a real teenager and her snarky humour made me chuckle quite a few times. The story was a bit predictable as I guessed who the killer was about 80% in, but this didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story.

I will definitely pick up more of Barzey’s work in the future.

*Thanks to NetGalley for this copy. I leave this review voluntarily and all thoughts and opinions are my own.*

Great book. Although it felt very YA to me that is expected given the ages of the primary characters. I loved the creepy feel of the horror aspect without going too far. The mixing of elements ... urban legend, psychological, etc keep the story interesting and hard to put down.

This YA horror novel seamlessly blends supernatural elements, historical fiction, and classic slasher vibes. The story takes places along the banks of the scenic Lake Lanier as we follow Taylor trying to finish her part in a community service program without another hitch.

However, the eerie atmosphere and suspicious disappearances of campers quickly lead her into a mystery that runs deeper than she ever imagined. As we did deeper in to the urban legend of Lake Lanier and the tragic history of Oscarville, it becomes obvious that the ghostly sightings and campfire tales have more truth to them than one might expect.

Taylor teams up with Liam a fellow camp worker and dives into uncovering the dark secrets of the camp. As the situation continues to get worse and the ghost on the edge of darkness turn to slashers actively hunting for victims, a tale of revenge begins to unfold.

Taylor is a compelling protagonist. You want her to succeed and survive, and her journey to the heart of the mystery keeps you hooked. Although the story is short, Taylor's background is well explored, with a strong sense of trauma that drives her actions from the start. Her personality is also incredibly relatable—her thoughts and reactions, especially during the spooky scenes, make you think, "Yeah, same, girl."

Pros:

Protagonist: Taylor’s character is vey relatable, with her witty comments and reluctance to be the horror movie cliché despite never having seen a horror movie is humourous on its own. Her well-written character is authentic, making her easy to root for.

Loosely Based on Historical Events: Sylvester’s decision to intertwine the real history of Oscarville and Lake Lanier with the fictional supernatural plot adds a layer of depth to the narrative. After reading the book it is easy to go down the rabbit hole of the real Atlanta Ripper and learn a little more about the history of Georgia.

Atmosphere: The camp's eerie atmosphere and mysterious lake create strong campfire horror vibes. The view of the lake which would otherwise be very scenic and calm, is instead turned into terrifying, as if something or someone is about to jump out of a bush to grab you right there. The supernatural elements feel well-integrated into the story, with ghost sightings and strange disappearances adding suspense.

Pacing: The book is short and thus very fast-paced, hooking the reader from the beginning till the very end. This one is page-turner and before you even realize, the book is finished.

Cons:

Predictability: While the novel offers an interesting premise with a great atmosphere, well seasoned horror fans will find the plot and some of the twists very predictable. Some of the story arcs feel formulaic but does not take away from the suspense of the overall story.

Ending: The conclusion feels rushed and a bit disjointed, leaving some plot points underdeveloped. It could have benefited from a more polished wrap-up and better resolution for certain storylines.

Character Depth: Secondary characters like Liam and Mia feel a little underdeveloped compared to Taylor, with their motivations and backstories not as fleshed out as they could be.

Conclusion

This novel stands out for its unique mix of urban legend, historical events, and YA horror tropes. The incorporation of real-life tragedies like Oscarville into a supernatural mystery sets it apart from other camp horror stories, making it educational as well as entertaining. Taylor’s humor and relatable reactions make her a standout protagonist, while the eerie camp setting delivers on creepy atmosphere.

Scope for Improvement:

Deeper Exploration of Racial Themes: The story could explore the racial and social themes more thoroughly, particularly how Taylor’s experiences as a Black girl in a predominantly White environment affect her decisions more and how she deals with the ramifications of her own actions as well as the action of those around her.

Character Development: Developing the secondary characters more fully and creating more complex relationships among the cast could enhance the emotional depth of the story, particularly in moments of tension or danger.