Welcome to Gardnerville.
A place where no one gets sick. And no one ever dies.
Except...
There’s a price to pay for paradise. Every fourth year, the strange power that fuels the town exacts its payment by infecting teens with deadly urges. In a normal year in Gardnerville, teens might stop talking to their best friends. In a fourth year, they’d kill them.
Four years ago, Skylar’s sister, Piper, was locked away after leading sixteen of her classmates to a watery grave. Since then, Skylar has lived in a numb haze, struggling to forget her past and dull the pain of losing her sister. But the secrets and memories Piper left behind keep taunting Skylar—whispering that the only way to get her sister back is to stop Gardnerville’s murderous cycle once and for all.
Publication Date: June 10, 2014
A place where no one gets sick. And no one ever dies.
Except...
There’s a price to pay for paradise. Every fourth year, the strange power that fuels the town exacts its payment by infecting teens with deadly urges. In a normal year in Gardnerville, teens might stop talking to their best friends. In a fourth year, they’d kill them.
Four years ago, Skylar’s sister, Piper, was locked away after leading sixteen of her classmates to a watery grave. Since then, Skylar has lived in a numb haze, struggling to forget her past and dull the pain of losing her sister. But the secrets and memories Piper left behind keep taunting Skylar—whispering that the only way to get her sister back is to stop Gardnerville’s murderous cycle once and for all.
Publication Date: June 10, 2014
This is the type of book that makes you feel a little crazy
when reading it. You never truly know what’s going on and you decide just to go
with it and see what happens. I enjoyed the novel, but at times I did put it
down in order to try and figure out what the hell I was exactly reading.
I love the author’s writing style and from the first page
her words drew me into the story. This is the second book I read by Quinn and
I’m always impressed at how she’s able to create a creepy mood for her novels.
The beginning starts with a bang with a flashback to the night Piper lead her
classmates to their watery death.
The world building was confusing at first and it did turn me
off a bit. However, I’m so glad I stuck it out because as the mysteries
unravel, so many things began to make sense. Gardnerville was unlike any town I
ever read about and I loved learning about the mythology of the place where no
one is sick but every four years tragedy strikes when a teen decides to go on a
murderous rampage.
Skylar is an unreliable narrative and because of her drug
use and depression, her thoughts are jumbled and hard to follow. It added to
the mystery, but I did prefer the narrative when Skylar gets clean and tries to
find out what exactly happened to her sister after the night of the tragedy.
It’s hard to talk about the plot without giving away
spoilers, but I did think I had a lot of things figured out from the early
pages. I was pleasantly surprised when some of the twists really made my jaw
drop. The book is a bit of a mind freak and it’s a novel readers will want to
pick up again after finishing to see if they can make sense of everything.
I’d recommend the novel to fans of edgy YA novels. The book
blends romance, horror and suspense in order to create a page-turning read.
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Thanks to the publisher for a copy of the novel for review!
Ah, the unreliable narrators can indeed make you feel a little crazy while reading, but I have enjoyed the well written ones that I've read where I question everything I read but still root for main character
ReplyDeleteI have been dying for this book to come out ever since I heard of it! It bodes well that you enjoyed it! I love unreliable narrators and don't come across enough novels with them, they may make you feel a little crazy, but I love it. :D
ReplyDeleteWow. This book sounds like a movie I saw recently where, every four years, the U.S. Government has a 24 hour block where people can do whatever they want with no consequences. Murder, rape, and robbery were all okay. Then the book sounds like an M. Knight Shyamalan movie with the twists and turns (you think you have it figured out, only to realize how very, very wrong you were) that leave you gaping. :) Very lovely review, Heather. I'm now itching to check this book out. haha! WRITE ON!
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