This book was on my TBR for about a year before my book club managed to pick it for our October pick. It was quite an ordeal to get the book though since there were no physical copies in my area, and ordering a physical copy of Amazon would have resulted in a hefty price tag. This is probably the first experience for me where ordering it in e-book form actually made a huge difference, price-wise.

The trouble obtaining the book none withstanding, it was a cute read. As much as a horror book can be cute that is. I have a weird love/hate fascination with the Bloody Mary mythos. Due to a traumatic childhood experience, this is one thing I will *never do again*. But I enjoy reading and being scared, and it seemed like it would entertain me. There were a few creepy moments, but I wasn’t as terrified as I expected or wanted to be. I figured there would have been a bit more based on the description, especially with the summoning scene. Don’t get me wrong, it was still enjoyable and creepy but I wasn’t not wanting to fall asleep at night or needing to read something else to take the scary edge off before closing my eyes.

One thing I will mention is that I did enjoy the teenage characters, which as someone who is approaching cranky old lady status, was surprising. Even the mean girl teenagers had their redeeming moments, few that they were. And Bobbie was smart and didn’t make a lot of stupid mistake, like other girls in her role in horror movies and books. There was also a fair dose of gallows humor with the teenagers, which makes sense since most people do turn to humor in scary or otherwise challenging situations. One call out is there were a lot of similarities to The Ring. Not enough to where it was the exact same story, but enough to where it was noticeable.
The pacing of figuring out the mystery behind Mary was well done over the initial four days. Towards the end, on the fifth day, it really picked up the pace and did well on building on the tension until the climax. When the mystery was finally revealed, I can honestly say that I was surprised by the entirety of it. And the ambiguous ending, including the epilogue, was well written as well.

Overall, I enjoyed and it was a pleasantly spooky book to read for October. It is also something I would read again so I’m not too upset I had to purchase it digitally. If you want a quick spooky read for a rainy weekend, this might do the trick for you.