This was incredible!!! It was everything I could want in a thriller, and the fact that this is a story about writers and the joy and pain that comes with that is just an added bonus. Ande Pliego understands this genre well, and the fact that’s it’s a little meta just makes it all the more entertaining. I love when a fun cast of characters is thrown together in an enclosed place and are forced to work together as they are being picked off one by one. Every single person is hiding a secret, and I spent the whole novel trying to figure out each one. There are multiple POVs (and some of them secret POVs) that make this story a wonderful little puzzle box. I can’t wait to reread it and find all the clues. It also had a very satisfying ending which I think can sometimes be tricky to do with a story like this. Preorder now, it’s so good!!!

What did I just read?! I saw this hyped up on IG so I requested it on net galley to read. I went in totally blind, I honestly didn’t even know the genre. This one is a slasher horror story. Not my favorite type of genre but I must say it was done pretty well. I wouldn’t have picked it up had I known it was slasher bc I’m not a fan of all that blood and gore. This book centers around the author Alastor who has invited 8 authors to join on an island for a themed murder mystery writing retreat. We soon find out that each person there is hiding something and the book has the reader trying to guess the clues and match up each character with their crime. I found the characters hard to keep straight, this one might be better in an audio book form so you can tell who is speaking when.

Six authors are invited to anonymous author J.R. Alastor’s private island for a writing retreat but all is not as it seems. Mila, the event coordinator, has plans to murder one of the authors. She and Alastaor have games, trope-fueled riddles and jump scares planned for the guests, which should help Mila commit her murder without any the wiser. But then a plot twist occurs - a guest is dead and it’s not who Mila had planned to kill - and the narrative for the rest of the week has to change. In order to stay alive and make it off the island, Mila and the other authors must survive must make outwit a killer who knows (and has written) every trick in the book.

Good debut that was well written, but it took a little while to get into because there were a lot of characters to remember. But if you’re looking for a whodunit that isn’t obvious, You Are Fatally Invited is the book for you.

Wow! Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this one.
An anonymous author invites six authors to a private island for a writers retreat. Things go sideways fast. This fun, quick whodunit was a great thrill ride of ups and downs and gasps and “what the hell” moments.
I highly recommend this book!

BOOK: Not Nothing
AUTHOR: Gayle Forman
PUB DATE: August 27, 2024, by Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing
PAGES: 288
RATING: 5 STARS
GENRE: Fiction

A H U G E Thank You to @netgalley, @SimonandSchusterChildrensPublishing, and the author for gifting me an advanced digital in exchange for my honest review!

QUICK & SPOILER-FREE REVIEW: Oh, my HEART! This book is so SPECIAL! The friendship between Josey and Alex hits you right in your feels! It teaches the reader how to Rise to the Occasion of Your Life, and it supports the idea of not judging a person based off the worst thing they’ve done, but to support them for what they CAN do! This was so good I want to buy it for all my friends and family. It will stay with me for a long while. Run and read this one!

Thanks for the ARC!! A really fun debut novel. Pliego clearly loves the genre and had fun playing with tropes while subverting them. A "Cabin in the Woods" attitude aimed at a Clue murder mystery, twisting and turning all the way to the end. I don't love first person accounts of events where it turns out the person telling the story doesn't live long enough to have told the story, but that happens in a lot of books, so is probably more of my issue than an issue with the book. At some point it does start to make me feel like I can't trust the narrator though, which lowers the stakes of everything being told for me. A fun read, and great debut. Looking forward to future books from Pliego!

This book was pretty interesting. I haven't read anything from this author before, and I did enjoy it. The only downside was the multiple points of view. I usually do enjoy this but in this case, I had moments where I struggled to understand what was going on. It also was a slow started, but it did get better as you went along. Overall, it was a good book. I will be recommending it to other readers.
Thank you Net Galley ARC!

I just could not get invested in these characters- they bored me. The pacing was slow, and unfortunately I could not finish the book which is rare for me. This book may be appreciated greatly by others, but was not a good fit for me. Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher.

I did find this book to be an interesting read. I’ve always been a fan of multiple points of view and loved the way tropes were used in a new way.

But this book just seems sooo long. It wasn’t a book that had me hooked and reading and reading just to see how things turned out so each page felt like it took forever to read.

All in all it was still a good book and I’d recommend it to friends.

Gotta love an unreliable narrator and so many mysteries that you're not sure who to trust or what to think. This is a great mystery!

📖 Book Review 📖 When I started this book and found the illustration at the beginning, I felt like I was entering a game of Clue…except with a gripping story about a writer’s retreat in Maine (one of my favorite places to visit)! Andre Pliego has written an absolutely fascinating book with a concept with so many delicious layers, a sort of Knives Out thriller for book lovers that I am here for! You Are Fatally Invited is a fun, fast-paced thriller that will keep you on your toes until the very end!

The cover really drew me in for this book. It looked like a cover of other thrillers I’ve read, and enjoyed, in the past. I would say the story followed the same. It was a fun thriller, but more of thriller lite. I wouldn’t say I was hooked and couldn’t put it down but I was intrigued. Not particularly caring for any of the characters while loving a locked room mystery made it so I was sure to finish it…but wasn’t rushing to the end.

So I made it more than halfway through before I gave up.

While I appreciated the author trying to use thriller/horror tropes in a new way, it just…never overcame its own trope.

I got bored.

I found the pacing slow, as well. At 30%, I thought the book was almost over. At 40%, same. It just never ended.

None of the characters were particularly interesting to me and I didn’t care about our elusive author.

I’m sure that this will work for others…it’s just not for me.

• ARC via Publisher

Unfortunately this book was a miss for me and felt too much of a repeat of The Writing Retreat and others. The writing itself used an excessive amount of adjectives for simple moments and these descriptions were distracting and took away from moving forward with the story.

What I did enjoy: the multiple POVs were done well and I liked following the trail of cookie crumbs dropped for the reader to follow along as we try to piece the puzzle back together.

This book was an incredibly written journey through all the classic horror/thriller tropes. I was sucked in from the beginning and every chapter had me guessing and wanting more. Even when I thought I had an idea of what was going on, there would be a twist that I would never have seen coming that blew my mind in the best way. The imagery in this book was beautiful and chilling, almost like I could feel or see some of the things happening for myself. A definite must read for anyone who loves mysteries and thrillers, or anyone looking for a good spooky time read.

I haven’t had this much fun with a book in a long time. It’s even a book where all of the characters are written in first person! For the love of writing people, please STOP doing this. It makes for all tell and no show, and is most often terrible. Thankfully, Pliego manages to overcome this fatal flaw with a twisty turny plot, murders galore, puzzles to solve, wicked games and a whole lot more. Great fun.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early peek.

Interesting and well written I just personally couldn’t get into the story. Just a little slow and unbelievable at some points. A writer retreat with a twist. Honestly got confused at times to where the story was going and who was who. And the ending was dragged out a little much. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

OMG, you guys! 😱 This book is like ALL of my murder mystery dreams rolled into one! Imagine a super-exclusive thriller writer's retreat on a private island (cue the storm and cut-off communication, because of course). Six thriller authors, each a master of mayhem, get the invite of a lifetime, but uh-oh—things take a deadly turn. 😬

So, renowned anonymous author J.R. Alastor invites these authors to his boujee manor off the coast of Maine, but instead of showing up himself, he hires Mila del Ángel to run the show. And girl’s got a serious bone to pick with one of the attendees. Okay, so the setup is classic locked-room mystery vibes. You’ve got the dark mansion (seriously, the house is like Clue but creepier), secret passageways, and the looming storm that cuts off the island. But the best part? All the authors brought together are writing pros, which means there’s a game within a game. Mila's trying to outsmart them, but when bodies start dropping, it’s a total page-turner! 📖💀

The author absolutely nails the meta vibes, with excerpts from Alastor’s writing advice on fear and horror tropes. It’s like a delicious little wink at us readers. 😉 I was totally guessing until the end because, wow, the red herrings—they were everywhere! Like, I kept getting distracted by the gorgeous writing and those spooky, twisty descriptions. This book is giving serious Knives Out meets The Inheritance Games vibes, and I am LIVING for it. 😍

The only teeny-tiny critique? There was one little plot hole, but honestly, it didn’t even matter because the twists just kept on coming! The book keeps you hooked, and that ending? Well, I was SHOOK. 😵

I 100% recommend this to anyone who loves a good whodunit with all the classic tropes: spooky island, secret grudges, and so much murder-y goodness. 🌧️🔪 And trust me, you do NOT want to miss out on this wild ride! ALL the stars ✨

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC! 🎉

“You are Fatally Invited” is a murder mystery set during a mystery writers’ retreat on an island cut off from the world. The mysterious host is a famous writer who doesn’t appear in public so no one knows who brought them all together but he seems to know their secrets. It’s basically setup like a game of Clue and that’s mentioned repeatedly. I struggled to really get into the story until about 40%. It’s just written too pretentiously and the multiple characters POVs took a long time to keep straight. The big twist wasn’t nearly as shocking as it was laid out to be throughout the book. Overall, it was ok but just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book!

A twisty and mysterious story about a group of writers who attend a retreat held by a prolific but anonymous author, J.R. Alastor. Excited to learn from Alastor and possibly learn the identity of the famed author, they all are happy to participate in the games and events in store for them.

Mila has invited all of them at Alastor’s behest. She has her own plans for one of the guests, but soon more nefarious intentions are unveiled and Mila becomes prey to Alastor along with the rest. In order to get out alive, they have to go along with the remaining retreat activities, never knowing what secrets the others hide.

This was entertaining, but nothing remarkable. I was really impressed by the premise, but the execution was a little lacking. This is a solid debut and I enjoyed it.