“This Wretched Valley,” Jenny Kiefer’s debut novel takes readers on a break-neck sprint through an excruciatingly dark survival story. Faced with the gruesome outcome, right in the beginning, is a personal favorite narrative style of mine: I know what happens but now I have to know what happened. The story is claustrophobic and grotesque. It spirals, and spirals, and spirals. Kiefer successfully guides readers through seemingly never-ending dizzying encounters, as the characters themselves stumble into paranoia and despair. A true litmus test for the horror part of a horror novel, for me at least, is how many times I make the “bracing myself for the bad part to happen in the movie because the music got serious and oh no here it is” face, you know the one: eyes squeezed almost shut, lips in a grimace, physically recoiling. I did that a lot with this one. For those who have spent an embarrassing amount of time on the Dyatlov Pass Wikipedia page, like myself, “Valley” will spark eerily similar feelings of wondrous revulsion and that special kind of chaotic mysticism surrounding other unsolved tragedies. What if, what if, what if…

There’s a fair amount of repetition, mostly niche turns of phrases, and it comes off as rushed, though not careless, at times. The characters were a little roughly hewn, but within the context and plot speed, understandable. This was a full length debut folks, Kiefer killed it.

4/5 It really rocked (haha get it) my world.