Title: Find Him Where You Left Him Dead
Series: Death Games #1
Author: Kristen Simmons
Genre: YA, horror, Japanese mythology
Publication date: September 2023
Published by: Tor Teen
Source: Borrowed from library
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Synopsis: Four years ago, five kids started a game. Only four survived.
Now, at the end of their senior year of high school, the survivors—Dax, Maddy, Emerson, and Owen—have reunited for one strange and terrible reason: they’ve been summoned by the ghost of Ian, the friend they left for dead.
Together they return to the tunnel where their friendship ended with one goal: find Ian and bring him home. So they restart the deadly game they never finished—an innocent card-matching challenge called Meido. A game without instructions.
As soon as they begin, they're dragged out of their reality and into an eerie hellscape of Japanese underworlds, more horrifying than even the darkest folktales that Owen's grandmother told him. There, they meet Shinigami, an old wise woman who explains the rules:
They have one night to complete seven challenges or all of them, Ian included, will be stuck in this world forever.
Once inseparable, the survivors now can’t stand each other, but the challenges demand they work together, think quickly, and make sacrifices—blood, clothes, secrets, memories, and worse.
And once again, not everyone will make it out of Meido alive.
I enjoyed this book more than I was anticipating! Listen, horror books can be hit or miss, but this one was definitely a hit!
I LOVED the horror aspect of this book! It dealt with a lot of ghosts (yokai) and a setting that was very underworld-like, so it was incredibly creepy and sometimes gross, but I enjoyed every second of it! 😆
Aside from this book being horror, the other thing that caught my attention about this book was the fact that it was Japanese-inspired, I just did not realize how MUCH Japanese mythology there would be in this. And as a lover of any type of mythology, this made me incredibly happy! I really liked the interpretation of the yokai as well as the gods Izanagi and Izanami. It was all so interesting and the mythos of the book incorporated these myths very well.
The book also incorporated a game aspect to the story that gave me some Creepypasta vibes, and listen, I love a Creepypasta 😆 But basically, years ago, a group of friends played this game out in the wood that resulted in the death of one of these friends. The remaining friends drifted apart and years later, Ian, the dead friend comes back to haunt them, telling them that they have to finish the game. So that is what they attempt to do. And it was crazy! I really enjoyed getting to know these characters and following them as they tried to figure out each puzzle in the game. And let me say, the plot twists in this book? WILD. I enjoyed them... even if that ending was... what it was 😭
I was sort of expecting this book to be a standalone for some reason, but with that ending, I was so happy when I learned that this book was, in fact, going to have a sequel! This was just a really good spooky and action-filled book with likable characters and complex but intriguing relationships. I cannot wait to find out what happens next!
Aside from this book being horror, the other thing that caught my attention about this book was the fact that it was Japanese-inspired, I just did not realize how MUCH Japanese mythology there would be in this. And as a lover of any type of mythology, this made me incredibly happy! I really liked the interpretation of the yokai as well as the gods Izanagi and Izanami. It was all so interesting and the mythos of the book incorporated these myths very well.
The book also incorporated a game aspect to the story that gave me some Creepypasta vibes, and listen, I love a Creepypasta 😆 But basically, years ago, a group of friends played this game out in the wood that resulted in the death of one of these friends. The remaining friends drifted apart and years later, Ian, the dead friend comes back to haunt them, telling them that they have to finish the game. So that is what they attempt to do. And it was crazy! I really enjoyed getting to know these characters and following them as they tried to figure out each puzzle in the game. And let me say, the plot twists in this book? WILD. I enjoyed them... even if that ending was... what it was 😭
I was sort of expecting this book to be a standalone for some reason, but with that ending, I was so happy when I learned that this book was, in fact, going to have a sequel! This was just a really good spooky and action-filled book with likable characters and complex but intriguing relationships. I cannot wait to find out what happens next!
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