Book Review
Title: Mary, Will I Die? By Shawn Sarles
Genre: Young Adult, Horror
Rating: 3 Stars
Before I start this review I want to clarify that I have a love, hate relationship with young adult horror at the best of times because horror to me is gory, gritty and dark and young adult books like Mary, Will I Die are sadly lacking in all of those elements. However, there was some great character work and a really creepy atmosphere that kept me feeling on edge all the way through the book. We are introduced to our main characters, Elena, Steph, Grace and Calvin. One day as a tornado arrives they decide to play Bloody Mary as it is rumoured that if you say her name 13 times she will show you your true love or that you will die in the next five years. When they play all three girls see someone else that is supposedly their true love but only Calvin sees that he is going to die but almost all of them lie about this.
Five years later the group are no longer friends and the game of Bloody Mary has receded into their memory. They have all changed in the last five years as Elena is now the most popular girl in school and Steph is a star on the volleyball team while Calvin in a loner and Grace is horror movie obsessed outcast and I actually quite liked this divide in their characters. However, the four are forced to reunited when an evil entity emerges that only they can deal with. I have to say honest the female characters were horrible in this book Grace and Steph were really unlikeable and Elena I flat out hated even at the end when they were supposed to have improved. That being said I did read the entirety of Mary, Will I Die? In less than a day despite not really loved it. It is a fast read and the Bloody Mary urban legend is always something I enjoy reading about especially the different interpretations of the legend.
Despite the things I enjoyed about this book I did have a few issues, the main one being it is labelled as a horror but it isn’t scary at all. It is mildly creepy during the first third of the book but other than that it really lacked on the horror elements that drew me to this book in the first place. In addition to this the characters apart from Calvin aren’t very likely and seem very one dimensional but even I will admit Calvin’s relationship with Grace made very little sense. In terms of writing for a younger audience it is completely fine but for an older audience it can come across as quite stilted and the dialogue seems a little forced as well. While these issues due improve towards the end of the book it wasn’t enough for me to really enjoy the book so it only earns 3 stars for me as it was decent but there wasn’t anything special about it.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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