Review: Hide by Kiersten White

Title: Hide

Author: Kiersten White

Genre: Adult, horror

Publication date: May 24th 2022

Published by: Del Rey

Source: eARC from publishers via Netgalley

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Synopsis: The challenge: spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don’t get caught.

The prize: enough money to change everything.

Even though everyone is desperate to win—to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts—Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she’s an expert at that.

It’s the reason she’s alive, and her family isn’t.

But as the people around her begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes this competition is more sinister than even she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive.

Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run.

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

My rating: ★★★★☆

When I first heard that Kiersten White was not only writing a horror novel but an ADULT horror novel, I was like, “YES! I’m all in!”

And you know what, I really enjoyed Hide! Right from the start, I was really into it. The book was just really well written, which should come as no surprise as Kiersten White is a great writer 😆 I was really loving the ambiance of the book. One of my favorite things about it was definitely the setting. I mean, you have a bunch of characters playing hide and seek in an abandoned amusement park where the winner gets $50k? Um, yes, please! I mean, it’s super weird, but I’m into it 😆

You know who else is into it? 14 competitors. Lol. So they have 7 days of hide and seek, and every day, competitors will be disqualified until the last remaining gets the money. Maybe. The competitors start disappearing, and not in the “disqualified” sort of way...

And it might have to do with the history of the park. Not long after the park first opened, a little girl went missing, and the park was soon shut down. And let me tell you, the history of the park? INSANE! The way everything unraveled and things came together was SO GOOD! Kiersten added this element to the story that I don’t want to give away, but it’s one of my favorite things to read about!

Greek mythology, guys. It had Greek mythology!! The freaking park is a maze and the reason behind why people are disappearing is the freaking minotaur!!! 😱 I was SO pleasantly surprised when I put the pieces together! First of all, 14 competitors, 7 men and 7 women, just like in the myth. AND I believe the name of the town is Asterion, which is the minotaur's name! Basically, there are a bunch of rich families that made a deal with a minotaur years ago, and in exchange for sacrifices, they get prosperity and protection for all the future generations. It was so fucked up... and I enjoyed every minute of it! 😆

The setting was great, and the story was compelling, but let me tell you, keeping all the characters straight was ROUGH 😅 To be fair, it didn’t matter too much because like I said, they started disappearing. But it was a large cast of characters. I liked quite a few of them though! And a lot of them had some pretty sad pasts.

But overall, I really enjoyed this book! It was a great adult debut from Kiersten White. I loved the concept and the setting in an abandoned amusement park—it was nice and spooky. It wasn’t very gory, in my opinion, or that scary, for that matter. But take this with a grain of salt because horror novels hardly ever scare me 😅 I liked the vibe though. GO KIERSTEN! We definitely need more adult stuff from her, of the horror variety preferably 😉

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a link to your review or comment below! 😊