Skip to main content

THE MARY SHELLEY CLUB

 



SYNOPSIS

When it comes to horror movies, the rules are clear:

x Avoid abandoned buildings, warehouses, and cabins at all times.
x Stay together: don't split up, not even just to "check something out."
x If there's a murderer on the loose, do not make out with anyone.

If only surviving in real life were this easy...

New girl Rachel Chavez turns to horror movies for comfort, preferring stabby serial killers and homicidal dolls to the bored rich kids of Manhattan Prep...and to certain memories she'd preferred to keep buried.

Then Rachel is recruited by the Mary Shelley Club, a mysterious society of students who orchestrate Fear Tests, elaborate pranks inspired by urban legends and movie tropes. At first, Rachel embraces the power that comes with reckless pranking. But as the Fear Tests escalate, the competition turns deadly, and it's clear Rachel is playing a game she can't afford to lose.

Title: The Mary Shelley Club
Author: Goldy Moldavsky
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Publication date: April 13, 2021


REVIEW

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐

I really try with YA novels, believe me, I do, but no matter how hard I try I can’t really connect with them and see what everyone else seems to do.

The premise of this one sounded so interesting. A mysterious club doing horror movies inspired pranks? Sold! Great premise, not so great execution.

I found the characters pretty bland. They were mostly rich, spoiled kids behaving obnoxiously like rich, spoiled kids just because they could. They were so immature I would have given them more than one slap. Funny thing was they thought they were really mature and had “the weight of the world on their shoulders” at 17 yo.

Another issue for me were the Fear Tests. While I appreciate how the author tried to tie them to different movies, I felt them lacking. For all their talk, some of them were pretty naive. Put a mask and…BOO!

It seemed like the plot was not going anywhere for almost 2/3 of the story, just a succession of Fear Tests and club meetings. The ending wasn’t satisfying at all, not only because it left things open for a possible sequel but because also left several questions unanswered. If the big reveal was supposed to make me shout “WHAT??!!” it just made me say “ok, whatever…” so…

Although it had some interesting aspects overall it was just an ok read for me.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

MURDER IN MANHATTAN

SYNOPSIS Glitzy parties, sightseeing at the Statue of Liberty and strolls through Central Park with Gladstone the bulldog… Lady Eleanor Swift is loving her first trip to the city that never sleeps, until she witnesses a murder! After crossing from England on the SS Celestiana, Lady Eleanor Swift sets up her home-away-from-home in a lavish apartment in New York City. She is soon the toast of the town, with no high-class soirée complete without her presence. Of course, she drags her butler Clifford and Gladstone the bulldog along to every party too. But when she witnesses the charming doorman of her building, Marty, knocked down and killed in a hit-and-run, she finds fashionable society suddenly closes rank. The only local detective interested in helping her find the culprit is street-smart beat cop, Officer Balowski. Resolved to get justice for Marty and his family, Eleanor searches Marty’s tiny apartment and is shocked to find five rolls of banknotes tucked under the floorboards. Money...

HELLO, IT’S ME!

  I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to read... MY BRAND NEW BLOG! (Look at me plagiarazing   drawing inspiration from Adele for my very first entry).                                                               She approves! So, if you're here reading this...THANK YOU for tuning in! For those who don't know me my name is Javier and after more than a year writing reviews on sites as Goodreads and NetGalley I decided to create my own blog to share my love of books with the world. When I first started writing reviews I was not able to put two sentences together, but as I kept writing I realized I had lots to say about the books I read. Rest assured my reviews will always be honest (no problems here telling when I don't like something) and spoiler free (I hate spoilers!). My personal preferences are:...

THE SANATORIUM

SYNOPSIS EVERYONE'S IN DANGER. ANYONE COULD BE NEXT. An imposing, isolated hotel, high up in the Swiss Alps, is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But she's taken time off from her job as a detective, so when she receives an invitation out of the blue to celebrate her estranged brother's recent engagement, she has no choice but to accept. Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge. Though it's beautiful, something about the hotel, recently converted from an abandoned sanatorium, makes her nervous - as does her brother, Isaac. And when they wake the following morning to discover his fiancée Laure has vanished without a trace, Elin's unease grows. With the storm cutting off access to and from the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic. But no-one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And she's the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they're ...