When the people going to a secluded island party get stranded in the middle of a storm things start going wrong. Meg, her best friend Minnie and a boy named TJ are just three of the victims stuck there. But will they be able to solve the mystery and find the killer before he finds them?
Trigger Warning: Suicide and mental illness.
I give this book 3 stars (out of five).
Bestfriends Meg and Minnie end up going to a party on Henry Island, it’s just for a few days and Minnie’s excited to have a good time at the party while Meg just wants to get to her room and relax. But the weather starts to get bad as they’re arriving and when they finally get to the house they realize that the party isn’t what they expected. There’s only eight other people and none of them are the hosts, TJ is one of the guests there, someone who both Meg and Minnie like.
All ten people realize they’re alone on the isolated island in the middle of a storm. People start dying off and it’s clear that either one of them is the killer or there’s someone else on the island. Meg with TJ’s help tries to solve the mystery but is constantly misled by planted clues leading her to suspect her friends.
[Spoiler warning, for the rest of the review]
Meg is the final person standing along with the complicated love interest in TJ in the end after an intense final battle with the killer Ben. Ben faked his death earlier along with the real deaths of the other people on the island, no one thought to check on him so he was able to follow the characters and set up some other things without them noticing.
He was targeting them specifically because they were involved in the circumstances that led to his sister killing herself. Some people were directly involved by bullying her but Meg and a few others were just grouped in with them even though they didn’t do anything to her directly. For example, TJ didn’t like the girl back and asked Meg to go with him to a dance which is how they were both involved.
The friendship between the two main characters Meg and Minnie was extremely rocky and needs to be discussed in more detail. Minnie is bipolar and has a few other mental illnesses and she treats Meg really badly. It’s clear that they have an unbalanced relationship where Meg does a lot of things for Minnie but she isn’t appreciative and instead constantly wants more. This is the source of the main conflict between them where Minnie won’t let Meg get close to TJ or leave for university, Minnie is trying to control her and that’s what leads to their eventual decline into chaos.
I admire Meg for being able to put up with Minnie constantly being really mean to her and seeing past her outward actions, even in the end when Minnie was flat out thinking Meg could be the killer Meg was committed to saving Minnie and getting her home safe. At some point in the story Minnie loses her meds which impacts her behaviour and actions, but doesn’t excuse how poorly she acted towards the person that’s supposed to be her best friend.
The final reveal of who the killer is done well but I honestly would’ve liked a darker ending because it kind of feels like the cliche of the main character and her love interest being the only survivors. I think this had a good amount of violence and also had some creepy scenes and imagery, but I definitely think it would’ve stood out a lot more if it was taken a step further.