Title: The Mary Shelley Club
Author: Goldy Moldavsky
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.
Release Date: April 13, 2021
Pages: 472
Book Source: Netgalley ARC

“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.” – Amazon

Kim’s Review

The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky was a very fast read for me, and it’s hard to believe it’s close to 500 pages. The way Moldavsky combined Rachel’s past trauma, the Fear Tests, the club getting together outside of school, and the usual teenage drama was a perfect mix. As a fellow horror lover, I thoroughly enjoyed all the horror references and I so wish I had a group of friends like that in high school…. At least the horror movie watching part, not so much the part where people start getting physically hurt!

horror movies are full of tropes and the main characters fit nicely into those tropes (mean girl, broody guy, nerdy guy, final girl). Even though you knew where these characters fit, I would have liked to have seen more development with Felicity and Thayer. And while I knew who the bad person was early on (watching all those horror movies may have helped), I did enjoy their reason being basically that they are a sociopath… I love when a horror book ends, but still leaves you with questions or the possibility of a sequel. And Moldavsky executed that nicely.

For those who don’t read/watch a lot of horror, I can see this YA novel giving them some chills. And for those of us who do enjoy horror, I think you’ll like all the references and it’ll remind you a bit of a few different horror movies mashed together… which to me, was very enjoyable.

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