ARC, 304 pages
Release Date: September 17, 2024
Published by: Page Street YA
Read from: August 2-16, 2024
Stand-alone
Source: The Publisher (I received a copy of the ARC from the publisher in exchange for a just and honest review. I also interviewed the author for my library system. This did nothing to influence my review.)
Content Warning: Child Death, Suicide (talked about, not shown on page)
For Readers Interested In: Horror, Demons, Thriller, YA, Gaming, Social Media (Twitch Streamer), Racial/Ethnic Diversity (Japanese & White)An evil video game
A lying Twitch streamer
A demon hungry for her secrets
After spending the summer wracked with guilt about causing the accident that killed her little sister, ambitious gamer and chronic liar Viv returns to Twitch streaming. She never told her parents the truth about the accident, but she hopes that maybe making it big in streaming and giving the money to them is penance enough for her mistakes.
The weekend before school starts, Viv finds the perfect horror game to make her Twitch comeback, and during an offline practice run, an NPC asks Viv for a secret. She decides to tell them the truth about her sister’s death since a game could never share her secret―in doing so, she accidentally welcomes a demonic mimic into her life.
No one believes Viv when she tells them about her evil doppelganger. Viv has lied to get her best friend’s sympathy and has spread rumors for attention, so why should anyone trust her now? The only person who believes her is Ash, a cute social outcast whom Viv once bullied. In trying to clear her name and kill the mimic, Viv discovers that her lies have hurt people who never deserved it, herself included.
*MY THOUGHTS*
Yo no pun intended, but this was so much fun to read! As y’all know I love horror and this was the perfect addition to my Summerween reading! There was so much of things I loved in this one. I hope y’all check this one out in September.
Ok so the first thing I liked about this was the mimic or the doppelganger itself. I am literally terrified of those things because they always make me think to myself, what is it about this thing that feels so real. Why can’t these people who claim to know me tell that I wouldn’t do these disgusting things? It would really make me question my own self and my morals. So basically when I tell you, this book already had the scary, weird vibes, so I was excited to see where this was going.
The scary factor is like 4/5. There’s some jump scares, but for the most part the demon is just hella weird and even moves weird. The way Tatiana even describes their jerky weird movements just makes me uneasy. It was just way too easy for that thing to go around and get everyone. I will say that there are some places that are predictable, but it wasn’t until a few paragraphs before, so I didn’t even feel like that really counted. For the most part I was making some of these realizations at the same time as the MC.
The growth in ViVi’s character was astonishing tho. It was very important to see the way she was so into her image and her follower count. I found it interesting that she was still worried about it even after things got started, but I think that made it more organic? Like yeah this is happening, but I still might have a chance to fix everything and my channel will still be there. It was totes something a teen would do and I appreciated that. Her growth continued throughout the book and by the end it seemed like she was an entirely different person.
It was of course very fun to see the social media aspect to this too. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book about a streamer, so that was pretty cool. On the other side of that, I heard that some people don’t like social media in their books because it feels like it dates the book, but as a YA reader, I think its necessary to have something there. I’m less inclined to buy into it if there’s not some type of social media or some kind of weird talking lol
I did think the ending was a little abrupt, but this demon thing had literally done ENOUGH, so it really made sense on how it ended. But I do think it was a bit fast. But like I said, what more could that THING have done during that time. I think it just made sense.
This was so much fun. I truly hope this one will be on y’alls TBR for the fall. It’s definitely one to watch! Read this one and let me know what you think about it!
Overall, I give this
