The Mary Shelley Club
-
-
4.2 • 22 Ratings
-
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
New York Times-bestselling author Goldy Moldavsky delivers a deliciously twisty YA thriller that's Scream meets Karen McManus about a mysterious club with an obsession for horror.
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Following a home invasion that leaves Rachel Chavez and her mother feeling unsafe in the Long Island suburbs, they relocate to Brooklyn, and Rachel's teacher mother takes a job at the Upper East Side's tony Manchester Prep. Rachel enrolls as a junior but fails to fit in, instead spending her free time bingeing scary movies to work through her trauma. After witnessing a frightening party prank, Rachel tracks down fellow Latino Freddie Martinez, whom she believes to be responsible, and talks her way into joining the Mary Shelley Club, a secret society, cued as ethnically varied, whose members—nerd Freddie, jock Bram Wilding, misanthrope Felicity Chu, and comedian Thayer Turner—share a passion for all things horror. At first, Rachel enjoys the sense of power that accompanies participation in the group's "Fear Tests"—scenarios staged to terrify their peers. Before long, however, her new friends' fun takes a sinister turn. This twisty tour de force from Moldavsky (No Good Deed) is at once a gripping teen melodrama, an incisive meditation on fear, and a love letter to horror and the genre's tropes. Vividly sketched characters, crafty plotting, and an adrenalized pace conspire to captivate and confound readers through the unsettling close. Ages 14–up.
Customer Reviews
Solid start
Not too scary but very clever in premise. More interested in the future (possible) installments