THE MARY SHELLEY CLUB By Goldy Moldavsky

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 Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky
Published by Henry Holt and Co. on 4/13/21
Genres: Contemporary, Horror & Ghost Stories, Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 480
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
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When it comes to horror movies, the rules are clear:

x Avoid abandoned buildings, warehouses, and cabins at all times.
x Stay together: don’t split up, not even just to “check something out.”
x If there’s a murderer on the loose, do not make out with anyone.

If only surviving in real life were this easy...

New girl Rachel Chavez turns to horror movies for comfort, preferring stabby serial killers and homicidal dolls to the bored rich kids of Manhattan Prep...and to certain memories she’d preferred to keep buried.

Then Rachel is recruited by the Mary Shelley Club, a mysterious society of students who orchestrate Fear Tests, elaborate pranks inspired by urban legends and movie tropes. At first, Rachel embraces the power that comes with reckless pranking. But as the Fear Tests escalate, the competition turns deadly, and it’s clear Rachel is playing a game she can’t afford to lose.

Short and Sweet Review

After a home break in leaves Rachel a bit traumatized she uses horror movies to cope. Rachel also had to switch schools and as the new girl and she soon learns that there’s a secret club that also likes horror movies and pulling off pranks.

Rachel ends up joining this secret club and they call themselves the Mary Shelley Club, they perform fear tests which take inspiration from movie tropes and urban legends. This club consists of Rachel and four other students. At first these pranks start off harmless enough but they start to escalate eventually becoming deadly.

This book was fast paced and the plot was interesting and held my attention the whole time. The club dynamics were very fascinating, the other members trusted each other and Rachel definitely was treated as the new girl and they made it clear that if she didn’t find out about the club she never would have been included. Rachel has a romance interest named Freddie and he seems like the only one who really stands up for her in the group while the others are still wary of her. The club does these fear test where they pick a target and try to get them to scream, each member has to do their own fear test and have a plan. The fear tests start to get concerning for Rachel when she hears about things happening that weren’t in the plan. My favorite thing was Rachel trying to figure out who was behind the fear tests going wrong and the twist at the end was crazy. I will say I wanted to know what happened to some of the other characters in the end but overall this was a page turner and I loved it.