Review by Booklist Review
Brie Turner just wants to start over: new school, new friends, new priorities--a new identity. Anything to leave behind the humiliating incident involving her family that made her switch schools in the first place. So when she helps Emily (queen bee of the Ems, the most popular group of girls in school) win a field-day race and gets invited to her birthday party at Wildwoods, the town's storied amusement park, Brie hopes she's finally found the fresh start she's been longing for. Except the Ems play mean, and when a game of Truth or Dare goes awry, Brie ends up trapped in the park's abandoned section, accidentally awakening a long-buried menace that quickly turns her social gamble into a full-on fight for survival. Dawson deftly blends roller-coaster thrills, scary-movie tension, and middle-school drama in this sharp, fast-paced story about friendship, family, and finding out what you're really made of when the true monsters show up. A perfect ride for fans of other spooky, suspenseful theme-park thrills, like Kiersten White's Wretched Waterpark (2022) and K. R. Alexander's Escape (2022).
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A sleepover at an amusement park in Georgia turns terrifying. New eighth grade student Brie Turner has her sights set on befriending the wealthy, pretty, popular girls everyone calls "the Ems"--Emma Bryan, Emerson Smith-Robinson, and Emily Bell. She's gleeful when a field day triumph leads to an invitation to Emily's birthday party: The four of them will have an overnight stay at Wildwoods, a nearby amusement park. But Brie begins to see a darker side to the Ems, especially when a game of Truth or Dare leads to her being trapped in an off-limits part of the park with "no adults, no lights, no working bathrooms"--on the anniversary of a 1995 accident that killed four teenagers. She encounters some older teens, CJ, Dawn, and Trip, who take her under their wing, and she revels in their acceptance and camaraderie, but she's soon plagued by dark visions and ends up in genuine danger even though her new friends put themselves at risk to help her. The frights are accompanied by strong messaging about bullying and the value of being yourself and finding friends who like the real you. Dawson's smooth writing brings the well-drawn amusement park setting to life. Characters are largely white presenting or racially ambiguous; Brie has tan skin that's "genetic," Emerson has beaded braids, and Dawn is Asian. A fast-paced roller-coaster ride of a novel that effectively blends the familiar with the uncanny. (map)(Horror. 8-13) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
