Review--Hide by Kiersten White

 

The challenge: spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don't get caught.

The prize: enough money to change everything.

Even though everyone is desperate to win--to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts--Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she's an expert at that.

It's the reason she's alive, and her family isn't.

But as the people around her begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes this competition is more sinister than even she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive.

Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run.

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

A high-stakes hide-and-seek competition turns deadly in this dark supernatural thriller from New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White.

 

Kiersten White's adult debut, Hide, is a fast paced thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat with its twisted puzzles and danger! The concept of this book totally snagged me! A group of people think they are participating in a competition, only to find out there's no game at all and they're being hunted! Downright terrifying when you think about it!

Upon starting this book I was excitedly falling Mack's story, when she was a child she was the sole survivor of her family's murder and life has not been easy for her ever since. When we start getting into the other thirteen candidate's stories...things got a little messy. I mean, we didn't get into everyone's perspective, but there was still a good deal of characters' heads we do get into and with the third person point of view, it was sometimes hard to figure out which character we were following.

I also, never really got the sense of how how these characters were. In some ways, it could still read as a young adult novel. There was no overly "adult" situations and everyone is eager to play the game and come out the victor to win the cash prize as many of them see this money as being the key to their happiness, that if they could win that amount of money, they could do "the thing," and then everything would be grand! 

Mack has always kept to herself, life hasn't been easy since she survived the killing of her family members, and we do get that full backstory. She knows how to stay hidden, so playing the game of hide and seek in the abandoned amusement park should be no problem. All she has to do is stay hidden for the whole day and not get "found." At sundown, she and the others are allowed to gather together in the "safe zone" where they can fuel up and sleep.

Partnerships are made throughout the group as some players team up for awhile and despite trying to stay away from everyone, Mack finds herself drawn to Ava. Ava was the one who reached out to Mack with friendliness and casualness as they were bused into the park. It's not long though before the players start to realize something is very, very wrong with this game they are playing. While they have noticed at least two people disappear at the end of each day, they were assuming those players were found, but when Mack finds evidence that suggests otherwise

I will say that this book was a little messy in the beginning. It was a bit jarring to have such erratic shifts in the point of view. It wasn't always a smooth transition I feel like, but it was never enough that I couldn't keep up. I guess it could've been due to the influx of characters we were dealing with as well. Again, we don't get everyone's point of view, but there are quite a few shifts in that area that it made it hard to remember all the necessary who's whos. 

This book was still very well-written! It was definitely a creepy and chilling read! I was dying to find out what was happening in this park and know all its secrets! Thankfully we do get to know what the creepiness is all about and how it came to be and such! Though the ending definitely leaves you questioning a whole lot more!

Hide was a perfect creeptastic read for the post-Halloween season! There's always something especially creepy about abandoned amusement parks! This book definitely had a spooky vibe that went beyond simple hauntings! This was terrifying and I loved it! This book is also apparently being made into a graphic novel in the coming year and I am soooo excited to see this in illustrated form! This would make a terrifying read in that format too. This was definitely a fast paced read that had me eager to see it through to its end! It was left me reeling with its slightly open-ended cliffhanger! This is spooky read is not one you will want to miss!

 

Overall Rating 4/5 stars