Hide by Kiersten White
I would like to thank Del Rey for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher - Del Rey
Published - Out Now
Price - £14.99 hardback £7.99 Kindle eBook
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 togethermight be the only way to survive.
Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run.
Come out, come out, wherever you are.
In horror the chase is key. From fast paced chases around your camp site to the slow tread of dread as you hear the monster creep up the stairs its all about he feeling that we humans can always become prey too, The adrenaline rush of flight of fight makes an intoxicating read. Unfortunately when I read Hide by Kiersten White I found a tale where the interesting concept that very much became a surprising disappointment.
Mack has been running through foster families and care homes for most of her teenage years. Not averse to hiding in cupboards to stay out of sight and hide from her demons. But adulthood is nearing and soon Mack faces being alone and unprotected in a world she fears. Salvation may be at hand in the form of a company’s interesting competition. Hide for six days in an abandoned amusement park without being found and she wins fifty thousand dollars. An attractive prize for a fellow thirteen competitors. But the more the team stay they find they’re not entirely alone and a wider game is being played.
Hide sounded a really interesting concept hence I picked it up but it for me is a series of disappointing decisions. For a 250 odd page book having 14 characters is pardon the pun overkill and gives us very room to make anyone stand out. Making the choice to have two with the same name even stranger. they are all basic stereotypes. The promise raises hardly any suspicion and while that is a hallmark of slasher films you would think giving some characters some sense would be a bonus. But most of all its not particularly scary. The concept of hiding and knowing something is coming for you should be scary. This novel often glosses over the hiding part. Ultimately I did not care about anyone or anything in it
Overall I cannot recommend this as a horror story. At one point early on someone notes this could be a netflix or straight to dvd tale and unfortunately this is exactly that type of tale. Devoid of character, fear or suspense. Very boring and should not be sought.
