Author: Tirzah Price

When Julie goes missing, everyone is devastated–her friends, family, and her brand-new husband. Everyone except her best friend, Elise. Elise isn’t sure how she knows this, but she’s convinced that Julie will return. Their other friends Molly and Mae think that Elise is in denial and needs therapy…until Julie does come back, exactly two years to the day she went missing, her memory completely gone.

Everyone is overjoyed, of course. When the friends decide to have a reunion at a boutique hotel, they think it’ll be the perfect chance to reconnect. The second Elise sees Julie, she’s shocked at how emaciated and unhealthy she looks, and alarmed by her weird appetites and mood swings. Things get worse when, as the weekend progresses, odd things start happening and tensions begin to rise. And once the thought takes hold in Elise, she can’t shake it: What if this isn’t really Julie?

This book creeped me out in dozens of small, unsettling ways, which is my favorite brand of horror. The little incongruences, small chills, and downright weird things are easy enough to brush off at first, but when they start stacking up it creates a terrifying situation pretty quickly. That’s definitely this scenario, and you can’t even blame Elise, Molly, and Mae for ignoring the warning signs because they want so badly to be thrilled that their friend returned. Interspersed throughout Elise’s narrative are flashbacks and memories to the years when Julie was gone, which adds great insight into her emotional state and her faith that Julie would return. This adds some nice emotional heft to the story, and readers can understand why her friends are so important to Elise when every other area of her life is a mess.

I also love a good creepy setting, and Harrison did an amazing job with the boutique hotel here. This is no Overlook Hotel or Bates Motel setting, but a trendy, chic spot that is so over-the-top in its design that it leaves the friends feeling isolated and unsettled. The design elements (including that screaming hot pink of the cover) add great tension to the weekend, and I found myself both wishing I could see this hotel in person and also adamant that I wouldn’t get within fifty miles of the place. The story is a slow build, but when shit gets real, it’s very scary and this book goes in a direction I didn’t expect! If you want a creepy book that explores the nuances of female friendship and you aren’t creeped out by a bit of body horror, I highly recommend this one!

Jessa-Lynn Morton has been trying to maintain her grip on her family ever since her father died by suicide, and it’s not going well. Jessa steps up and takes over her family’s failing taxidermy business, struggling to keep it afloat and find new clients even while her mother seems to be sabotaging Jessa’s efforts by rearranging the animals in erotic scenes every time her back is turned. Meanwhile, Jessa’s brother grows more and more distant, and Jessa’s niece and nephew are largely unsupervised after the sudden disappearance of their mom, Brynn. Jessa is struggling to come to terms with Brynn’s absence as well: Jessa was in love with her, and she and Brynn carried on a sexual relationship both before and after her marriage to Jessa’s brother. As things get dire for the Morton family, Jessa will need to learn that the key to keeping them all together is to cede control.

Arnett’s writing is very sharp, funny, and unexpected. She moves back and forth between the present and Jessa’s past with Brynn to tell the story of a very dysfunctional family trying their best, and how Jessa’s preconceived notions about herself and those closest to her are sometimes her biggest adversary. It’s hard not to feel for her as she tries to do everything “right” in the wake of tragedy and tremendous guilt, and it takes a while for her to understand that her process of grieving is not the same as others, and that’s okay. She makes inadvisable choices while mired in her own grief and frustration, and she is hopelessly hung up on a woman who has never treated her well, but she also cares deeply. Her love is what made me root for her, even when she said or did things that I couldn’t get behind. This is a deeply-felt, strange book about love, grief, and family that will certainly stick with you.

Ada is about to head out on a week-long Hawaiian vacation with her parents and two sisters when she catches her boyfriend cheating. Considering Ada just decided she was ready for sex, this is a pretty big blow. But things go from bad to worse when her step-father bails on the trip at the last minute, and then on their first day in Hawaii, Ada walks in on her mom having sex with someone who definitely isn’t her step-dad. With this explosive secret eating her from the inside out, Ada navigates a week in Hawaii with her over-eager five-year-old sister, her know-it-all older sister, and a potential crush.

I am a sucker for a good family drama, and the idea of a teenage girl knowing her mom is cheating without being able to let on that she knows to her sisters or parents sounds like torture if it were happening to me…but reading about it happening to someone else was super engrossing, with many cringe-worthy moments. The backdrop of a gorgeous Hawaiian vacation just adds to the tension, as does Ada’s complicated relationship with her older sister, Afton, who is acting odd and distant during the trip.

What made this book an instant must-read recommendation for me was that this story was full of surprises, and even though Ada feels helpless and caught up in circumstances beyond her control, it’s how she responds to these situations that facilitates her growth. At first, her reaction is essentially, “Eff it, if everyone is having sex, I’ll do it too!” This attitude leads her to a connection with Nick, who is sensitive and kind, and becomes Ada’s unexpected confidant in her family drama. When he and Ada agree to have sex and make a plan, it doesn’t go quite the way they imagine, but it does force Ada to confront the root of her problems and actually talk to her family about what she saw, even if she does go about it in an incredibly awkward way. This is a sex-positive YA novel that speaks frankly about the considerations of having sex for the first time, both physical and emotional, and takes a nuanced approach to relationships. I highly recommend this to anyone who likes books about complicated relationships of all types, and characters learning how to navigate them with humor and grace.