All the Lovely Bad Ones by Mary Downing Hahn

I’ve had this book for a while and I’ve heard good things about the author, so I decided to finally read it. It’s about two kids, Travis and Corey, who are spending the summer at their grandmother’s inn in Vermont. When she tells them that the inn doesn’t get much business and that it’s also featured in a book about haunted hotels they decide to play pranks around the hotel to get guests talking about the “ghosts” and accidentally awaken the real ghosts on the property.
The characters are written well and the ghost activity is well written, but the story wrapped up a little too neatly for me. This is a kids book though. Some parts are repetitive and certain words (like “twittering”) are really overused.

Dead Lucky by Andreina Cordani

I really enjoyed this! It was a random Book outlet purchase, but it worked out. It’s about four influencers on an app called Playmii in the UK: Ed, Maxine, Leni and Xav. When Xav is murdered live on camera, Maxine is given the task of finding a file of secrets he was keeping about his fellow creators, or else.

I enjoyed the author’s writing style, the pace of the story and the commentary on what life is like for influencers. Each character is given a distinct voice and the book has mental health and LGBTQ representation. I didn’t figure out who did it, so that was fun. I would recommend this to people who like murder mysteries and books about influencers and/or online culture.

4 stars.

Don’t Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews

This book is about two boys who are best friends and attend a boarding school together. Shy, anxious Andrew writes dark fairy tales to cope with the world and artsy, brash Thomas illustrates them. One night Andrew follows Thomas into the woods behind the school, which are off limits, because he thinks he’s been secretly meeting up with Andrew’s twin sister, Dove, there. What he sees is even more shocking, Thomas’ drawings have come to life! They vow to fight them each night to protect the school, but how can they stop them?
The descriptions and writing in this are amazing and beautiful. I could picture the monsters so vividly that they could’ve walked off the page (Kindle), but I’m happy they didn’t! I figured out the twists before the end, but this was still a good read. A bunch of topics are covered in this book such as: mental health, sexual orientation, bullying, child abuse, homophobia. and obsession. If any of those bother you, this may not be the book for you. Otherwise, I recommend it to fans of spooky horror.
I received a copy of this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.