The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky REVIEW

 Summary:

New girl Rachel Chavez is eager to make a fresh start at Manchester Prep. But as a scholarship student, she struggles to fit in among the rich kids and finds herself turning to horror movies for comfort. Somehow, the stabby serial killers and homicidal dolls seem less scary than bored trust-fund babies.

Then Rachel gets caught up in a prank gone awry, going from "weird loner girl" to Public Enemy #1 overnight. To Rachel's surprise, however, the incident attracts the attention of the Mary Shelley Club, a mysterious society of students who orchestrate elaborate pranks known as Fear Tests, which are inspired by urban legends and movie tropes.

At first, Rachel embraces the power that comes with behaving recklessly, but as the Fear Tests escalate, the competition turns deadly and takes on a life of its own. When someone begins targeting the club itself, Rachel has to trach down the killer - even if it means finally confronting the dark secrets from her past.

My Thoughts:

I love the idea of meeting a final girl after she survives, and how she deals with her trauma. Rachel had a break-in happen before switching schools. The intruder wore a mask, and she killed him in self-defense. She turns to horror movies as a way of dealing with her trauma, and becomes an outsider at her new school. But when she gets on the popular girl's bad side, she finds out about the Mary Shelley Club, a group of students who play pranks and watch horror movies. Rachel joins the club, and starts to feel like she is finally fitting in and having friends - and maybe even something more  than friends with one of the members. But when students are reporting seeing a masked man and her clubmates start acting odd around her, she starts to feel uneasy and flashbacks to the break-in that she survived. 

Like I previously stated, I really enjoyed the premise and setup of this book. The main character and a few side characters are really fleshed out and seem like real people. It's a fun and easy read as well. I feel like exploring a final girl after survival isn't really explored much at all, and I absolutely love the way it was done here. The characters all seem like people you would know, and the story is really well done. The only complaint I have is that the notion of the Mary Shelley Club having different chapters at different school felt like it was thrown in as part of the twist ending. It wasn't hinted at in throughout the book, and was only briefly mentioned at the end. If the author was going to add this, it could have been handled better.

My Rating: 4 stars