A high-stakes hide-and-seek competition turns deadly in this dark supernatural thriller from New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White, perfect for fans of Stephen King and SQUID GAME. This was once again an amazing story! I felt like it followed the novel fairly well. Having read it last year I can’t recall all the finer details but the story at large stays the same and even knowing what happens I still found myself taken by surprise on occasion.

Hide by Kiersten White: 9780593359259 | PenguinRandomHouse

Content warnings for: PTSD, trauma, violence, gore, murder, abusive parents, alcoholism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, betrayal

Read Hide by Kiersten White

i was expecting a Battle Royale kind of story, and it wasn't until i had the ARC in my hot little hands that i learned this was a rework of the minotaur/labyrinth myth, an unexpected supernatural angle which forced me to recalibrate—and if i'm being honest— lower my expectations.

Hide by Kiersten White - Grimdark Magazine REVIEW: Hide by Kiersten White - Grimdark Magazine

Should the contestants hide individually? Form alliances? Something sinister was definitely occurring. Heavy footsteps at a slow deliberate pace...the distant scream of rusted metal... It was an abandoned Amusement Park, closed after a five year old girl vanished within, her patent leather shoe caught on the branches of a topiary. "Slowly what didn't crumble rusted and what didn't rust leaned. All the walkways were lined with impassable shrubbery, undergrowth turned into overgrowth, wild plant life was riddled with thorns." Guaranteed to be THE book of the summer. Cinematic in scope, breathless in suspense, this book is a rollercoaster of pitch-perfect horror. Eliza Jane Brazier, author of If I Disappear and Good Rich People The Olly Olly Oxen Free Hide and Seek Tournament rules are specific: 14 competitors, seven days. It’s basically children’s game. The award is: 50K!

I will definitely keep looking out for Kiersten White’s work in whichever format it comes, but I *do* think I’m done with theme park horror for a while! 🤣 People pretend things aren’t wrong, even when they can feel the truth, because they’re too afraid of what it means to look right at the horror, right at the wrongness, to face the truth in all its terrible glory. Like little kids, playing hide-and-seek. If they can’t see the monster, it can’t get them. But it can. It always can. And while you aren’t looking, it’s eating everyone around you.” I actually was expecting something different to this when I went into it, some more horror and less adventure. Not that there isn't horror and gore of course, and the monster too, but it wasn't what I expected. So now she's seen it. She knows what's out there. It doesn't make anymore sense than it did before, but at least she can move from horror - the fear of the unknown - to terror - the fear of the known. Terror is almost a comfort at this point, a familiar friend." Thank you so much NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy in exchange for my honest review!