BAD CREEK by Peyton June
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I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from the publisher in order to write this review.
The publisher’s summary
Three lifelong friends confront restless ghosts and malevolent family secrets in this fierce, propulsive debut young adult horror novel.
Iris, Gum, and Aidan are vacationing in Bad Creek, just like every summer. Except Iris’s older sister, Glory, drowned in the lake last year, and Iris can’t seem to move on; Gum is hiding his sexuality from his family while being viciously haunted by Glory’s rotting ghost; and Aidan is distraught over a drunken argument with Glory that he fears may have led to her death. When Iris sleepwalks to the dilapidated house that Glory obsessively sketched in her final days, she and the boys begin to uncover a sinister history in the very bones of the town. The trio must reckon with the events of last summer and uncover what lurks within Bad Creek before it takes Iris’s life next.
Gripping and vengeful, Bad Creek confronts the intersection of religion, sexuality, and feminism, and forces listeners to reckon with monsters in all their forms—human included.
My recommendation
This is the book to pick up this summer if you want to be viscerally creeped out. Through June’s unsettlingly distant third person prose and unsettlingly intimate sensory detail, a vivid setting emerges that puts run-of-the-mill haunted summer camps to shame. These ghosts will stick with you, as will the timely commentary on Christian Nationalism and the kids who suffer its collateral damage.
Susan the Librarian 