Deadstream is a YA horror/thriller where a young girl watches her favorite streamer begin to act strangely and wonders if he is actually in trouble or putting on a show. As she begins to unravel the mysteries behind his behavior, Teresa comes across something even more sinister than she could have ever imagined...
Right away I was hooked when reading this. I could not put it down! The mixed media elements really sold this for me and made this such a fun read. Being able to see the streamers' chats and various Reddit threads sprinkled throughout the novel really made me feel like I was on the internet watching this all unfold.
The imagery throughout really made this creepy! I was very spooked at some parts. The author did a great job starting the novel off with such an unsettling beginning from the famous streamer's POV. I even laughed at a couple points because the author captured the obnoxiousness of certain live stream chatters and Redditors perfectly.
If someone read this who did not know much about streamer culture, then you might struggle a little bit with this as a LOT of streamer terms are used throughout. But, if you love tech horror or internet settings, I would highly recommend this novel. It gave a little bit of "The Ring" or "Unfriended" vibes and I loved every second of it. While I found the ending somewhat lackluster, I think the journey to get there more than made up for it. Not to mention, Teresa is very relatable to me. She suffers from extreme anxiety/agoraphobia. Sometimes her constant swirling thoughts of what ifs made ME feel anxious too! I think exactly like that sometimes so I could definitely relate to her and I appreciate her character growth. Not just with her anxiety, but also with her gender identity. I thought it was handled in a well written way and very mature for a YA book.
Overall I give this a 4/5. I had a great time and I recommend this to anyone who loves tech horror. Make sure to grab a copy when it publishes April 1st!
Thank you to NetGalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

My thanks to NetGalley and Viking/Penguin Random House for the ARC of "Deadstream" in exchange for an honest review.

Here's a thoroughly unnerving cautionary tale for social media streamers and everyone who's addicted to them worse than opioids. What happens when you come across a literal Ghost In The Machine.......and you end up with a site whose only 'live' part is the equipment still trained on your dead body.

By the time the dust, clicks and corpses settle, you're thinking a whole bunch of these people would've been better off if they slammed their laptops shut and stuck to reading a good book.

Probably not this book, though, since it would give them Deja Views all over again......and once again put them in cross hairs of the entity who uses click bait as live bait........

Since there's already been a host of movies using this very same premise, I understand what author Rom Romasco-Moore was trying to accomplish here. In book form, our lead character could be rendered with far more nuance and depth than we'd ever find in a 90 minute horror movie

And that in fact is what 'Deadstream' does for teen Teresa.. She's been deeply traumatized by a car accident that left her with severe injuries and killed her best friend. Now terrified of the world outside her room, she's self-imprisoned herself there, spending her days on her own streaming site and following others who've achieved cyber-superstardom..

But what's going with 'Brick' the most followed and admired of those stars? What's that shadowy dark figure sneaking up behind him? What happened and why does Brick now spend endless hours in an eyes wide open catatonic state? An elaborate prank? Or something way too scary to think about......

As other streamers fall victim to the same otherworldly phenomenon, Teresa soon finds herself in a desperate battle with a horrific entity whose predatory stalkings show up clearly on the livestreams, but not in the real eyesight of its prey. The stuff of nightmares for sure.

For me, there were equal amounts of 'likes' and 'dislikes' here. As you would expect in this story, the author laboriously replicates all the online chatter surrounding the catastrophic events unfolding in real time. I guess this would count as a plus for people who think the online chats shown in movies go by too fast to read..........but after pages and pages,of that dross you may find yourself skimming through it like I did.

What gripped me far more - when book gives the stream comments a rest and goes back to the plain old fashioned telling of Teresa's dangerous duels with the world-wide-web wraith.

A perfectly suitable choice, if you'd rather spend a cozy Friday night home instead of rushing out to the multi-plex to see this week's new horror movie.......(which you could probably stream a few weeks later with your own home-cooked popcorn......)

**Initial Reaction**: 8
**Characters:** 9
**Setting:** 10
**Plot:** 8
**Pace:** 7
**Style:** 8
**Ending:** 10
**Enjoyment:** 10
**Oh Snap!:** 3/5
70 + 3 = 73 / 16 = 4.5625
Rounded Rating = 4.5

After witnessing a supernatural entity attack her favorite streamer on livestream, Teresa tries to get to the bottom of what's happening before the entity claims more lives, those of her online friends and even her own.

First of all, I did have fun reading this. I read it in two sittings, and I really enjoyed the mixed media aspects and the focus on online interaction. I thought those things were integrated well and felt mostly organic, and the concept of the story itself was fun.
However, while I loved the concept, the execution fell a little flat for me. As a horror story, a lot of the horror elements felt arbitrary and while I think they wanted to connect to the larger theme they never really quite got there for me in any way that felt satisfying or made sense. While it touched on a lot of interesting topics (internet addiction, online community, parasocial relationships, mental health issues, death, grief, afterlife, etc.) it never really brought any of them home or into a clear focus. It all just felt a bit scattered and never fell into a coherent structure for me.
Still, I had fun reading it. I would recommend it as a fun little popcorn read, because who doesn't love an internet based horror story.

Thank you to Penguin Teen and Netgalley.

Huge thank you to Netgalley and Viking for an opportunity to read this book as an ARC!

Please check CW/TW before reading this book!

I love a good YA Horror book and the description for this book left me intrigued so I decided to give it a shot. We start this book off with a very traumatized and somewhat "broken" Teresa who is just trying to get through each day one day at a time. She reminded me a lot of myself at that age so I was able to relate with her throughout a lot of her story. The depictions and representation of her trauma and how she deals with it was well done and played naturally into the overall storyline, the one thing that kept me interested in finishing the book. There is also really good LGBTQIA+ representation throughout the story.

The actual plot is where things fell off for me pretty quickly. I didn't find myself really interested with what was going on and it almost felt too out there. It strays so far from the picture painted within the description of the book. I think the creepy parts that the author tried to play into were almost overdone in a sense. And the writing style of this book really through me for a loop. It felt very choppy and forced in a lot of scenes.

Overall I think this book would be great for people looking to dip their toes into the world of YA Horror and wanting to start off with something that is really out there!

👾 4.5 stars 👾

Thank you to Netgalley and Viking Books for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Expected release date: April 1st 2025

Plot ~ After a traumatic accident, Teresa refuses to leave her room and instead finds comfort in the streaming community under her alias "Replay." This comfort comes crashing down when her favorite streamer sees a shadowy figure in the background of his stream and becomes catatonic before dying days later. This shadowy figure is now haunting other streams, including hers, so it's up to Teresa to step beyond the walls she’s built and protect her community.

~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊~͓̊

I really enjoyed this book! Plot-wise, it's like The Ring, but with a modern twist and, in my opinion, a more interesting antagonist. I loved the media mixed throughout this book (the screenshots of live chats, discussion threads, DMs, etc.) and the accuracy of the social media used. Most authors writing modern day teenage characters tend to over-exaggerate the slang, social media activities, and how people act online, but Mar Romasco-Moore hits the nail on the head. Even the Reddit activity (tendency to upvote/downvote) was perfectly accurate.

The only character we really get to know is Teresa and she's okay. She's not a character I can particularly relate to as a cishet, non-traumatized girl (lol), so I can't speak as to whether she was accurately written. What I can say is unlike some other portrayals of anxiety/panic attacks/PTSD, hers don't feel forced. It's a center part of her character but it's very organically written and actually adds to the story.

I wonder if part of this book isn't an allegory of the internet. The way some online exchanges are written, the characters' motivations, and the climax seem to have those undertones. It feels like this book shows the positive side of the internet - forming a community, finding your identity, etc. - and meshes it with the negative side by adding supernatural elements to represent the negative. If it's intentional and I'm not just reading too much into it, it adds so much more substance to the book.

A super entertaining read! I'm definitely checking out some of Mar Romasco-Moore's other books :)

I like the idea of this book more than I like the actual book. The REAR WINDOW-ish, WOMAN IN THE WINDOW-ish vibes mixed with modern internet culture should have been a W, but I was mostly just confused. I really didn't understand the last 1/3 of the book, and the light gray font the ARC had for some of the text messages didn't help any. That being said, I can see teen readers connecting with this book more than I did, so I will probably still get it for my library and hope they like it more than I did!

This book gives me Unfriended and It Follows Vibes, which I love. This is a YA Horror/Thiller.

After her best friend dies in a car accident, Teresa has become agoraphobic. Even leaving her room is too much. She interacts with the outside world through her computer. Online, she is known as RePlay. This is where she lives, where she comes to life with others. She and her group of friends help each other get more views. While doing a React video to another streamer “Brick's” Video, she uncovers a mystery. Things start to go wrong not just online but also in real life. From Phantom Stalkers to a Mysterious Illness. Can Teresa figure it out before she ends up offline permanently?

This is a fast read with a nice buildup and edge-of-the-seat suspense.

This novel blends ghost story chills with Creepypasta-style horror in a modern setting where livestreaming, social media, and internet folklore collide.

Teresa has been housebound since a car accident took her best friend’s life, leaving her with a debilitating panic disorder. Seeking connection, she turns to streaming, where she quickly gains a following—but her fragile fame soon leads her into a terrifying digital nightmare she never could have imagined.

This book delivers a fun kind of spooky, balancing eerie moments with heavier, well-handled themes. As someone with panic disorder, I felt that aspect was portrayed authentically, adding depth to Teresa’s struggles. I also appreciated the strong LGBT+ representation woven into the story.

As a fan of Twitch, Creepypastas, and ARGs (Alternate Reality Games), this book felt tailor-made for me. The formatting was a standout—using a mix of texts, video transcripts, and online interactions to reflect the way people communicate today. However, at times, the multimedia style felt overwhelming, even for someone who enjoys mixed-media storytelling.

When it comes to scares, the book delivered solid creepy moments, though I wouldn’t compare it to The Ring as some have suggested. Instead, it offers a thoughtful exploration of the internet’s dual nature—its power to both uplift and destroy. While I personally wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, I think younger readers and today’s internet-savvy generation will find it especially engaging.

This book was so different, the style was something I was not used to, and the whole plot is WILD, reminds me of the movie The Ring, with that edge of spookiness. Teresa suffered something horrible, and she had immersed herself into the life of streaming and that’s a whole other world. I wanted to like this book, but it was a little hard to follow what was going on at the same time. But I was not the intended audience for this book and that’s ok. I know a few people who would love this one.

I wasn’t expecting to finish this book in one sitting, but I honestly couldn’t put it down! It might not be my typical read, especially since it's YA, but I found it enjoyable and intriguing. If you loved ‘The Ring’, you'll appreciate this one.

After the death of her best friend, Teresa feels her world shrinking until she only feels safe in her room. To pass the time, she immerses herself in streaming, both as a viewer and by creating her channels. When one of her favourite streamers begins to act strangely, Teresa finds herself at the centre of a plague spreading through the internet, infecting people until they die. Can she figure out how to save herself and the people she loves?

The social media and streaming were executed accurately, which is quite rare in some cases. The bots also appeared very realistic! However, I must admit that I didn't enjoy reading the text messages; I found them somewhat annoying, but that’s just my personal preference.

Thank you to Netgalley for my ARC.

Teresa hasn't been able to leave her house since the car accident that killed her best friend left her with a debilitating panic disorder. She becomes immersed in streaming for a social outlet, and finds herself falling quickly from a tenuous fame into a much darker world than she could ever imagine.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Viking for Young Readers for this digital e-arc.*

Such a cool concept and idea! The main character can't leave the house after an accident and gets drawn into a scary online world. Love the LGBTQ+ representation.

I ended up DNFing this after about 20%. I was not a fan of the writing style, and I didn't feel the characters were strong enough to make me care about what happened to them.

Let’s get one thing straight before my review…I never want to see the comment “OPEN THE DOOR” on any of my social media platforms. EVER! 😵‍💫🙅🏽‍♀️🫣

I’m a thriller and gamer girlie all the way. As a gamer and someone who watches livestreams, I find books like this interesting. Mar Romasco-Moore’s writing was fantastic and they embraced the internet culture in a way I haven’t seen. The way they unpacked live-streaming, influencers, LGBTGIA+, and the overall social media culture while adding a paranormal twist to it was incredible. Whenever I find a thriller with a video game/social media plot, it’s an automatic buy for me. This definitely gave a more modern vibe of “The Ring” and other video cam/social media horror films.

I honestly felt like one of the streamer stuck in the trance while reading “Deadstream”. I could not pull away from my kindle screen. What I liked the most was the formatting of the chat rooms throughout the story which gave it even more of a streaming feel. How the online voices chimed in constantly in the background gave me chills especially seeing how followers in the chat reacted to real life danger when they are behind a screen and keyboard. Also I love books with articles, text messages, emails, and footage. This makes reading more engaging.

The ending was a bit abrupt to me and felt like it was rushed but I was happy that Teresa got a second chance to save a friend because of everything she went through in the past. Her character showed a lot of growth in the end and I know it was hard for her to navigate through her anxiety and fear. I was happy that she overcame the challenges and started to get her life back.

Thank you to Netgalley and Viking for an ARC ebook copy for review.

I remember when I was a teen (so long ago now, ugh) and the internet was a new frontier, and watching horror movies come out about the dangers lurking behind the screen for those who dug a little too deep. This book definitely brings those movies to mind, but updated for the newer age, where the internet has now cemented itself into a permanent and just normal aspect for the newer generations.

The story follows a girl suffering from trauma and agoraphobia who is trying to break into the streaming community, and finally hits is big when someone she "knows" from online is killed while on their stream. She tries to capitalize on their death a bit by digging into the mystery, and slowly more people start being affected by a dangerous entity who seems to be targeting streamers.

While I definitely felt a bit too old for this story at times, I think the young adult group will enjoy it. It touches a lot on the idea of loneliness and the need to fill that void with an online persona and a constant influx of information rather than letting yourself just feel emotions. There are some legitimate creepy scenes, although sometimes I got tired for reading names like "sparkle kitty" and the chat boxes.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with an eARC of this title.

The first of many times I read the word "rizz" in this book, I knew this book wasn't meant for me. I liked the concept. I really liked the chat parts. I just could not get past the language. There is a whole lot of Gen Z slang in here, and to me it just made everything a little silly. To be fair, I find myself drawn to young adult books less and less frequently, and this one read very young adult. I think if I was the target demographic I probably would have had a decent time with this one. Unfortunately I'm old and it just didn't work for me.

This one I’m sorry to say just was not for me. I’m
Not sure of it was the writing just feeling stilted or the actual plot being too predictable but it was so hard to get through. I have read a couple others from this writer that I loved but, idk…

Thank you NetGalley, Penguin Group Young Readers and Viking Books for this arc.

Unfortunately at 17% i will have to dnf. I wanted to enjoy this due to the description but the way this was written is not for me. I hope this book finds the group of people that will love it and wishing the author much success.

I thought this was really interesting! I liked the gaming/streaming aspects. Sprinkling portions of chat throughout the chapters was a cool touch.
I found the idea of some kind of contagious possession via streaming really gripping. "Video games are going to rot your brain." I'm sure we've all heard it before.

Teresa's struggles with agoraphobia and anxiety were upsetting. Especially coupled with the fear of the "possession" being behind a door - how could she leave her bedroom? No door is safe.

I like that she kind of got a second chance to get there in time, save her friend. I really felt for her and the guilt she carried for Becks. I can't imagine having to carry that at such a young age or any age really.

I thought the ending was a bit abrupt, but other than that I had a good time with this.

TW: agoraphobia, panic attacks, death by falling, death by firearm, death at the hands of someone else, car accident+death.