legitimately forgot i had even started reading this and i dont remember even one word of it

i cant even pretend to care enough about religion to read this book

i think im just not the target audience for this book. its not bad, its just DEFINITELY not my style

oh, this book was an ENTIRE mess. it was like a D-list indie horror movie as a novel in the worst possible way. oh my god.

the set-up is fairly standard and boring - a group of teenagers getting locked up inside a mansion with a crazed killer is hardly the most unique or interesting preface - which failed on every level of making it a good read.

first off: the characters are some of the most annoying, privileged brats you could ever meet, which is quite unfortunately the point of their characters. they are - with few exceptions - wholly unlikable; the scant few i liked were only the least annoying of the bunch, and the last remaining are characters we hardly met before they died so i dont have much of an opinion on them. everyone was also very, VERY one dimensional.

second: the killer, gage the clown. he was like an unholy mix of a demonic mary poppins (where did he continue to pull murder weapons from???) and a kind of god, capable of being everywhere and nowhere all at once. even with the 'twist' (i use that as lightly as possible as it was the most obvious part of the book) it didnt make his character make sense. like a killer clown is standard enough for bottom-of-the-barrel horror like this, but for him to be as omnipresent as he was is just ridiculous. the beginning and first few kills werent that far fetched - slicing and stabbing and using garden tools are all boring and predictable but make sense - but after that it just gets downright silly. like, how did he get a miniature horse into the house? how did he possibly have hundreds of mice at his disposal? he also somehow had bear traps? none of the later kills made any sense and truly took me out of the book; it was comical, and i know it wasnt meant to be. the neighbours death was also strange; he just had a bomb he could manage to somehow wire through the doorbell that would explode under her? sure. why the fuck not. not to mention the biometric padlocks he uses to close the doors...oh my god. things really were written to just be as absurd as possible with no real rhyme or reason: it was ridiculous to be ridiculous, not to be interesting.

third: the story, or lack thereof. i truly understand what the author was trying to get across, but my god did it fail. the main character, noelle, is one of the most useless protagonists in a horror book ive ever experienced. for someone who CONSTANTLY mentions how shes the ultimate 'Final Girl' she constantly fails at every turn (also, if you constantly need to say how good of a final girl you are, youre NOT as good as you are). like i understand she must be panicked and stressed beyond belief in this situation, but she fumbles so many situations in the end its pathetic. the end bit was especially bad, when she leaves a knife on the bookcase NEAR THE CLOWN??? at that point i mentally checked out and sped through the book as fast as i could; it was so, so horrible. the 'plot' was shoehorned so forcefully into the story that it was clear the author just had things she needed to say and she didnt care about working it into the story craftfully. i agree that the horror genre especially needs more diversity in its leads and a Black female lead was something i was really interested in reading, but this book failed on every front. its not a worthwhile addition to the genre it tried so hardly to emulate. its hardly horror - the mishandling of EVERYTHING by the characters is more stupidity than scary and the clown was, as i stated previously, ridiculous - and even its slasher elements are just shoddily written gore with a thin veil of a 'got'cha!' over it. noelle only stays alive because the author kept her alive, not because she did anything in the story to protect herself.

fourth: this story falls into the predicament of 'im not the killer, im BETTER than that trope'. like...please. by the end of the book, gage has killed nearly everyone in the house; it wouldnt be murder if anyone killed him, it would be self-defense. besides this:

NOELLE ENDS UP KILLING HIM ANYWAYS.

there were multiple options to have killed gage throughout the book (the one that sticks out is when they use his thumbprints on the locks to try and get out; they had a knife. it would have been SO EASY to kill him then and get out.) and they just...dont? like the alternative is that YOU die!

fifth: the killers reasoning is absolute and utter bullshit that holds no water. you mean to tell me he did all that because theyre rich and privileged??? it just seems as though the author couldnt get a good enough reason for this whole mess and picked the easiest one she could.

another thing: the motivation to not leave because it's 'raining and cold and they cold get hypothermia :(((' is just so flimsy of a reason. they were literally IN A MANSION. raid some closets, put on as many layers as you can handle, and leave. there is absolutely NO possible way the house was as locked down as it ended up being in the beginning; as is evidenced by the fact that they ended up outside more than once. it would have been hard, yes, but not impossible.

last nitpick: why were charlie and maddie introduced as dating, then later in the book only referred to as friends? i realize thats something thats very small in comparison to the rest of the story, but it baffled me. why isnt that something that was kept straight???

overall, dont waste your time on this book. its not worth it, at ALL.

this book is truly fantastic. its gory, its brutal, and it pulls no punches & softens no blows as it tells its story and this makes it the most visceral telling of queer personhood i can remember reading.

going through the story as benjis body is rotting from the inside, transforming into something he never wanted to be, never asked to be, never consented to be is such a horrific way of showcasing what its like to be trans and to not be allowed to be yourself; what forcing down the purest version of yourself does to you, how it can kill you. it was done so beautifully and so tragically and it just...illustrates it so well. the ultimate conclusion of benji becoming seraph, the end form of what he was turning into the whole story, was done so wonderfully, as well; how he gets taken over by rage and bloodlust when hes back in the cult he was raised in, how seraph awakens then as hes back to the abuse and transphobia he was raised in...it truly is poetic. he ends up the savior the Angels raised him as, only he's not their savior and he never was.

and nick...oh, i truly do love his character so much and i only wish we got into his mind more because hes such a beautifully written autistic character, which is, sadly, a rarity. hes so authentically written and represented and i felt so much of myself in him and his subtleties. his hatred of being touched, his stimming, his masking, his constant need to have it all together even when he wants to fall apart...it was so well written and i truly appreciate him so much. hes so, so special 💖

this book has so much heart and hope, and even though the story is over, i know these characters can claw into the dirt and pull themselves from the Hell theyve been plunged into. i know that they can survive and, as said near the end, maybe they can even grow up. its the least they deserve.

the small issues i have with this book - i felt the writing was a bit weak at points and i wish benjis time in the ALC was a longer portion of the book because i do feel that part was lacking; we dont get to know much of the other characters as much as i'd like - definitely dont retract from how much i enjoyed it because what the book does and the story it tells are much greater than any flaws it has. thank you Andrew Joseph White for this wonderful book 💖💖💖

genuinely cannot stand theo like if he were a real person i would not hesitate to knock his teeth in. thats all goodbye

feel like im going crazy reading the reviews for this book omg...ive never been so far in the minority for a book before??? like damn i Legitimately hated this one 😭😭😭 i wanted to like it bc i generally like this authors books a lot, but this one was SUCH a fucking miss for me. like...theo is insufferable; im sorry but it needs to be said. i feel sympathy for what happened to him and my issue isnt that hes gone through trauma, its that he such an incompetent adult and that he gets feelings for auggie. auggie, the newly 18 year old kid where theo is pushing 30 like dude. dude fucking back off??? literally pissed me tf off god anytime theo was in the book (the entire time since hes a main character) i wanted to fight him. god. this book only gets points bc somerset is there. like literally thats all i rated it for.

been a Hot Minute since i read this book, but overall i remember being kind of disappointed in it compared to the other books by gregory ashe :/ i did like it, but i wanted it to be just...more. just more everything, really. i feel like, compared to hazard and john, north and shaw didnt get as much depth for their characters and story. i did love them, but i just feel like they could have been so much more. and...idk, i think shaws virginity being a center point for who he was made me think it was going to be a much bigger deal than it was, because it just...it seemed like that plot-point fizzled out? im not really sure how to explain it, but it just didnt come across as it having as much meaning on as there should have been. i did like the end though, where he gives norths husband what he deserves, like i wish shaw was like that more through the series as a whole.