Cover image from Goodreads.com
Mack is one of fourteen people chosen to participate in a game of hide and seek where the winner gets $50,000. Homeless and with nothing to lose, Mack agrees. What she doesn’t know is that to be found is to die.
The novel was engaging and kept my attention throughout. While the cast of characters is long, it was fairly easy to tell them apart and keep track of them all. The reason why these fourteen people were selected is revealed at a pace that was satisfactory. Overall, the book was okay. It was easy enough to follow and the story kept me entertained.
I did have two problems with the novel (and here we have some spoilers).
The amusement park has a monster inside and that monster is eating two people a day. Okay, I can get behind that. But the monster has to eat people who share a bloodline with the original fourteen people sacrificed. No problem, I can get behind that too. But the reward for sacrifice is prosperity. So the fourteen that sacrificed themselves ensured prosperity for their families for seven years. But Mack didn’t have prosperity, neither did any of the other participants in the hide and seek game. So, I guess I could assume that the more watered down the bloodline the less prosperity will be given, but then, after something like a hundred years, the bloodline would be pretty watered down naturally. Yeah, this is a nitpicky point, but it pulled me out of the story.
The second problem was the monster itself. It’s said late in the book that the monster isn’t something you can kill, it’s a covenant or an agreement made for prosperity. But, a bit earlier, one character said she and others sneaked into the monster’s lair while it was sleeping and cut out its eyes. But if it’s just a covenant, arguably one that kills people, the eyes shouldn’t be able to be removed.
Anyway, the novel was good, better than the first book I read by the same author.
Should Be Writing 