#NOESCAPE

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

#NOESCAPE#NoEscape by Gretchen McNeil
Series: #MurderTrending #3
Published by Freeform on 9/15/20
Genres: Horror & Ghost Stories, Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 352
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

Seventeen-year-old Persey feels worthless much of the time. Her parents prefer her smarter, more enigmatic big brother to her, and she can't quite seem to succeed-let alone fit in-at school. But there is one thing she's good at: escape rooms. So when she's invited to compete in an escape room competition that carries a prize worth millions, Persey is all over it.

Persey enters the competition along with seven other young contestants, but while most escape rooms are about teamwork and collaboration, this one is all about being cut-throat-literally. When contestants start getting killed off, Persey must solve a series of bizarre and gruesome puzzles, riddles, and games to make it out alive. Along the way she learns the contestants are mysteriously related-and someone is out for vengeance.

Twenty years before Dee Guerra and the Death Row Breakfast Club took down The Postman and Alcatraz 2.0 in #MurderTrending, long before Becca survived The Juggernaut and Who Wants to Be a Painiac? In #MurderFunding, the murder games first began with one awful day at Escape-Capades, Ltd.? And there's no telling who might have made it out alive, or what they may have later become.

Short and Sweet Review

20 years before there was an Alcatraz 2.0 there was Escape-Capades. After beating an escape room Persey is invited to Las Vegas to compete in a new escape room with a grand prize. Persey along with 5 other teens enter the escape room where there’s individual puzzles and some that require teamwork. This isn’t a normal escape room, contestants begin to get killed off, and while solving puzzles we also learn that the contestants have secrets and they’re all connected in some way.

This book is only from Persey’s POV, we get to see what the escape room is like from her eyes we also get flashbacks of what her life was like before. I liked seeing all of the different rooms and how the puzzles were solved. Things do start to get gruesome when contestants start meeting their ends in different rooms. Our contestants think its a joke at first until it becomes obvious that it’s not. Persey feels the need to save everyone and look out for them even though most of them don’t deserve it. I did like Persey as a character she had a bad upbringing, but through it all she actually was smart in her own way. Some of the characters were annoying so I wasn’t too sad when they ended up being killed off.

Overall this was a pretty good book! It does give us some insight on the first book #murdertrending. I think that reading this book first instead of last and then moving on to the other two books would be a good way to read this series!

#MURDERFUNDING By Gretchen McNeil

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

#MURDERFUNDING By Gretchen McNeil#MurderFunding by Gretchen McNeil
Series: #MurderTrending #2
Published by Freeform on 8/6/19
Genres: Horror & Ghost Stories, Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 336
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

WELCOME TO WHO WANTS TO BE A PAINIAC?, the latest reality TV show on the hunt for the next big-hit serial killer. But don't worry-no one is actually going to murder anyone, as real as the fake gore and pretend murder may appear . . . uh, right?

Seventeen-year-old Becca Martinello is about to find out. When her perfectly normal soccer mom dies in a car crash, a strange girl named Stef appears and lets Becca know that her deceased mom was none other than one of Alcatraz 2.0's most popular serial killers-Molly Mauler. Soon, Becca ends up on Who Wants to Be a Painiac? to learn the truth about her mom's connection to Molly, but things turn sinister when people are murdered IRL. Will Becca uncover dark secrets and make it out of the deadly reality show alive? Or will she get cut?

Short and Sweet Review

Becca’s mom just died in a car crash, but when a stranger comes up to Becca and tells her that her mom was actually Molly Mauler and died on Alcatraz 2.0 and not in a car crash Becca can’t believe it. When Who Wants to Be A Paniac? a new reality show looking for the next serial killer holds auditions Becca realizes that this is her chance to learn if her mother really was Molly Mauler. Becca and Stef head to LA and audition while also looking for anything that will prove or disprove Stef’s theory about Becca’s mom. I thought this sequel was great we get new characters and we also get to see the characters from the last book. Everything comes around full circle the new characters end up trying to escape psycho killers and the old characters are trying to find out who was behind Alcatraz 2.0 and Who Wants to be A Paniac?. Becca and Stef had a lot of tension but the more trials they face and the more time they spend together the more their feelings for each other come out. I was on edge while reading this I felt bad for the characters Who Wants to be a Paniac? was supposed to be a nonviolent show but what they got was the complete opposite. I’m glad that Becca found out what she needed to and that the other characters from the past book fought for justice. I love this series and I’m excited to see what the next one brings!

#MURDERTRENDING By Gretchen McNeil

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

#MURDERTRENDING By Gretchen McNeil#MurderTrending by Gretchen McNeil
Series: MurderTrending #1
Published by Freeform on 8/7/18
Genres: Horror & Ghost Stories, Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 352
Format: Paperback
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

ReviewedbyDani

@doctorfusionbebop: Some 17 y. o. chick named Dee Guerrera was just sent to Alcatraz 2.0 for killing her stepsister. So, how long do you think she'll last?

@morrisdavis72195: I hope she meets justice! She'll get what's coming to her! BWAHAHA!

@EltonJohnForevzz: Me? I think Dee's innocent. And I hope she can survive.

WELCOME TO THE NEAR FUTURE, where good and honest citizens can enjoy watching the executions of society's most infamous convicted felons, streaming live on The Postman app from the suburbanized prison island Alcatraz 2.0.

When seventeen-year-old Dee Guerrera wakes up in a haze, lying on the ground of a dimly lit warehouse, she realizes she's about to be the next victim of the app. Knowing hardened criminals are getting a taste of their own medicine in this place is one thing, but Dee refuses to roll over and die for a heinous crime she didn't commit. Can Dee and her newly formed posse, the Death Row Breakfast Club, prove she's innocent before she ends up wrongfully murdered for the world to see? Or will The Postman's cast of executioners kill them off one by one?


Short and Sweet Review

After being convicted of a crime she didn’t do Dee Guerrera wakes up on Alcatraz 2.0. In the future convicted criminals are sent to Alcatraz where a group of executioners kill the criminals for everyone to see  through live streaming on the postman app. Now Dee has to figure out how to prove she’s innocent and get off the island without being taken out by the postman’s killers. When Dee arrives on the island she ends up killing one of the postman’s killers right off the bat which ends up making her pretty popular and she’s given the name Cinderella Survivor. Dee is determined to stay alive and find a way to prove her innocence, and she ends up getting some help from Nyles, Griselda, Ethan, and Blair. The only problem is the postman starts to target those four because of how close they’ve become to Dee. Each character is different Nyles has actually been left alone on Alcatraz because he has diplomatic immunity, Ethan is a film buff, Griselda is snarky and doesn’t trust easily, and Blair is the kind of person to take you under her wing. I thought the book was interesting I liked how Alcatraz isn’t the normal prison we all know but a suburban island with stores and barracks for the criminals. The only thing that isn’t so great is that the postman has executioners that come and kill the criminals in different creative ways, there’s Gucci who uses fashion items, Robin who acts like Robin Hood and so on. Dee also has an interesting past because she was kidnapped when she was younger which also plays out in the story. Dee and her friends become known as the Death Row Breakfast Club on the live feed chats. I thought the addition of the chats was great because we got to see what people actually thought about what was going on to people on Alcatraz. There’s also a romance between Dee and Nyles which I didn’t mind. They’re were around each other a lot but there wasn’t too many scenes with them having PDA mainly because they were trying to stay alive. This book is a good thriller and I did like how it ended there were twists that I wasn’t expecting and I’m excited to see what will happen in the sequel!

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HOCUS POCUS AND THE ALL-NEW SEQUEL By A.W. Jantha

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

HOCUS POCUS AND THE ALL-NEW SEQUEL By A.W. JanthaHocus Pocus and the All-New Sequel by A.W. Jantha
Published by Freeform on 7/10/18
Genres: Fantasy & Magic, Paranormal, Young Adult
Pages: 528
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

ReviewedbyDani

Shortly after moving from California to Salem, Massachusetts, Max Dennison finds himself in hot water when he accidentally releases a coven of witches, the Sanderson sisters, from the afterlife. Max, his sister, and his new friends (human and otherwise) must find a way to stop the witches from carrying out their evil plan and remaining on earth to torment Salem for all eternity.

Twenty-five years later, Max and Allison's seventeen-year-old daughter, Poppy, finds herself face-to-face with the Sanderson sisters in all their sinister glory. When Halloween celebrations don't quite go as planned, it's a race against time as Poppy and her friends fight to save her family and all of Salem from the witches' latest vile scheme.


Short and Sweet Review

Well Hocus Pocus and the All-New Sequel we get two books in one. The first book is just like the movie and if you haven’t seen the movie I’ll give you a quick background. Max and his younger sister Dani have moved from California to their new home in Salem. And on Halloween Max try to impress his crush Allison by taking her to the Sanderson sisters house, only to end up bringing them back from the dead. Now Max, Allison and Dani have to figure out how to get rid of the sisters with the help of a cat named Binx who was actually a human that was cursed by the sisters in the 1600s. I enjoyed reading this but I honestly think that if you’ve seen the movie the first half of the book can just be skipped because it follows the movie so closely.

25 years later Max and Allison have a daughter named Poppy, which the second book focuses on. Poppy doesn’t believe her family when they tell her about their run in with the Sanderson witches 25 years ago and she likes to keep the story about them on the down low to avoid embarrassment. But this year on Halloween her parents decide to throw a party and they invited most of their coworkers and Poppy’s classmates. In this book Poppy has a best friend Travis and a crush on a another friend Isabella. At the party Poppy, Travis, and Isabella decide to leave and go visit the Sanderson house. After playing with a spirit board and saying a spell much to Poppy’s disbelief she ends up bringing back the Sanderson sisters but at a cost, the spell she cast brought the sisters back but took her family in exchange. Now Poppy, Isabella, and Travis have to find the moonstone to reverse the curse, and they get the help of Binx and his sister Emily, and Elizabeth Sanderson. I liked the elements of this book especially learning about Elizabeth Sanderson who is very different from her sisters. Isabella is also a descendent of the Sanderson sisters and is a key player in finding the moonstone. Isabella and Poppy’s friendship and developing feelings for each other also played out very nicely. The Sanderson sisters are still very wicked and are trying to take over which is why they need the moonstone. Overall this was a good book and I think its better to read around Halloween and maybe watch the movie around the same time to get in the Halloween spirit.

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