waugh this was good actually?? i haven't read kiersten white since seventh grade and wasn't a fan of her then but i was very stupid in seventh grade so i wouldn't take anything i thought at that point very seriously. mack got on my nerves a little bit at first because Brooding Hero Who Hates Everything is a trope i have very very little patience for but it's a little better if they're a wlw. and i warmed up to her. a lot of people said they didn't like the pov switching to different characters but honestly i liked it. makes you remember that these people aren't cardboard cutout tropey npcs. they have their own reasons for doing things. i kind of wish we got to learn more about some of them post-mortem or something. jaden can fuck himself though.

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also i don't think the characters were THAT exaggerated as representations of modern millennials?? if anyone came off as a caricature it was linda because holy shit in the final 10 percent did she go full racist old lady with zero hesitation. jarring to say the least.

i don't think they ever stated her ethnicity but i hope ava wasn't supposed to be the only black character in the book because even though she's one of the good guys it would be weird considering she's the tough ex-military buzzcut butch. i love her lots but propping her up as the only main character of color is treading on thin ice.

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honestly the monster reveal was kind of underwhelming for me but i think i'm just desensitized to literally any Beast Reveal after spending too much time on r/nosleep and seeing every possible way you could describe a scary thing. being stalked by the unknown is honestly a hundred times scarier for me. kind of one of the only things that still gives me chills when reading horror? aw look at me all grown up. i used to not be able to read goosebumps. anyway with the buildup we were getting and the Feeding it was supposed to be doing i was expecting something fully eldritch but after we saw what it looked like i started seeing it as a zombie piglin from minecraft and couldn't stop. i like the minotaur/maze thing that was going on though that was a neat idea.

the Themes sort of battered you over the head in the last portion of the book which was kind of a reason i took a star off i think. not that i disagree with what they were saying but it was delivered so clunkily.

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also i don't like the implications that mack ava and legrand are just going to let the monster eat innocent townspeople now?? at least i like. assume they're innocent. i guess it only eats descendants of the original families who summoned it but not all those guys are bad! the majority of them literally didn't know this was going on! mack and legrand included! ending felt rushed and a little weird for me idk.

okay now i need to talk about good stuff. i'm always only talking about the bad stuff even if i liked the book. characters were sweet. i felt sad when some of them died even when i hadn't known them for very long which is uhhhh. rare at this point.

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(ian and rosiee. and brandon. sweet brandon. gone too soon. and beautiful ava i guess i'm wary of influencers but i have a soft spot for popular girls having a downward spiral.)

it has an original plot, not something i've seen 1000 times before which i drop to my knees and praise. when your favorite genres are sci-fi fantasy and horror original plots become kind of a guiding light. if i have to see one more dark fae romance, i swear. good book. might go back and read some of kiersten white's other stuff. see if seventh grade me's takes hold up or not.