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.
The Fear by Natasha Preston Published by Delacorte Press on 3/1/22
Genres: Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 346
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
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It’s just a stupid meme that’s going around their small fishing town in the dead of winter—people reposting and sharing their biggest fear. But when her classmates start turning up dead—dying in the way that they said scared them the most—Izzy knows it’s no joke.
With each death hitting closer to home, Izzy sets out to try to stop the killer. Could her older sister’s friend Tristan have something to do with the deaths? He’s given her some strange vibes. Or what about his brooding cousin, Axel? But he’s in her classes at school. He’s not a murderer . . . is he? Izzie’s soon on a path that will lead her right to the killer . . . and her own worst nightmare.
Short and Sweet Review
There’s a meme going around asking about peoples biggest fears and the teens in Izzy’s town are reposting it thinking it’s a harmless thing. When Izzy finds one of her classmates dead she realizes that its more than just a game and there’s a killer out there.
This book has a pretty cool plot but the execution is bad. We have our main character Izzy who didn’t share the meme and she’s the one who finds the first victim, and because of this she thinks she’s qualified to investigate. I found Izzy to be the most insufferable character, she was just annoying and she wouldn’t listen to people to leave things alone and stay in her lane. Izzy would go around thinking she knew who it was and just going around pining murders on everyone is not a strategy. Even though Izzy didn’t share the meme and reveal her fear she ends up becoming someone the culprit wants, because she doesn’t know how to leave things alone and she kept interfering with things she shouldn’t have been. She kept messing with one of her classmates, Axel, accusing him of the murders and then she would get upset because he wanted to keep his distance from her. Izzy was just a hot mess, I get why she would want to figure things out but honestly she was better off keeping her distance. I figured out who the culprit was and it was intersting because we got to see their POV for a few chapters. I will say I didn’t like the ending it felt abrupt and I think that happens with a lot of Prestons books.
Overall, this book was not for me. There’s just something about Natasha Preston books that I don’t jive with, I keep reading them because the synopsis sounds great but them when I start reading the execution is just off and the book falls flat and unfortunately that’s what happened here.
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