Those names were some of the most unoriginal names that I have ever heard. I really liked Réiltín, Suze, and Tadhg...but what were the rest of those names? LB's real name sounded like the name of the protagonist of a bad Wattpad fanfic. The whole story felt like a badly written gacha story, if I must be honest. It was so anticlimactic and the names made the whole ordeal even worse. They were either so incredibly basic or so funny that it was bad. The plot moves swiftly and neatly, as one would expect from this author (Mason is another pen name for crime writer Alex Barclay). But the characterisation feels thin, and this significantly lessens the impact of the dramatic events on the reader. There was a vague attempt at foreshadowing but it was so brief and so subtle you'd blink and miss it. It was not nearly enough - where were our breadcrumbs to follow?

By the closing stages we had moved into a setting that made it clear we were going to see the death. However, by this stage I could have quite happily seen any of the characters in this position and not been concerned, and the actual description of the death was so choppily done that it felt like a ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ moment. These reluctant travel companions are drawn into a political struggle that has turned violent; the tension stems from which side either will ultimately choose. There are occasional clunky moments in the text, particularly related to exposition, but the characters’ nuanced emotional journeys in the face of inequality and violence ring true. This lushly described world is well worth vanishing into. You know when the teacher is like "Let's all say something good about our classmates!" But you highkey hate everyone and can't think of anything to say? That's how I feel about this book. It was shit. I'm not going to sugar-coat it. I mean you may as well give it a go, to the nobody that’s reading this that hasn’t already read it (Olivia has) soooo…. I guess that’s me. I liked the Irish setting and as a British reader that was very interesting. I thought that the way the characters are bought together by staying at a summer camp to learn Irish was very skillful and again, as a British reader, that is something I haven't had the experience of.

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which brings me on to this genre. this book is YA but reads like a children’s book. the voices were very young and not like any teenager I have experienced. I’m only twenty three so this isn’t a huge jump for me to say. I’ve been calling this book a murder mystery when it’s really a thriller (oops!) but there is absolutely nothing thrilling about this book.

This book sounded right up my street from the description. I also thought the title was killer. Unfortunately, it was incredibly boring and I really struggled to finish it.

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The characters’ appearances weren’t even described at the beginning so I had no clue what they looked like, throughout the whole book I was just making stuff up in my head Actually. Not just me. Because the author - I forget their name, sorry! - kept writing random things leaving me incredibly confused as to what was going on. If that makes sense, which it probably doesn’t tbh (TBH OLIVIA!!) but like… yeah. And speaking of the characters, they were little more than vague outlines; each one's voice sounding exactly like any of the others. Since we didn't have a main character to bond with it was vital we had a diverse bunch of interesting characters in the ensemble, but this couldn't have been further from the truth. Overall, this was a fantastic read. I love the fact that I had no idea who would die, no idea when they would die and no idea how until the end. It was only at 85% (I was reading on kindle!) through that I started piecing together what could happen. I got parts right but the rest I was well off!

The action - and I use this term loosely - centres on a group of teens who are sent to a summer school in an old asylum to cram for their upcoming Irish exam. For the majority of the book they go to lessons and wander round this building, hinting at tension between characters but giving us little. I gotta say, I LOVED Rupert - he’s the only thing that brought this book up to 3 stars. Not that Rupe is a “thing”, but you know what I mean. Why do the whole thing that it was an asylum and "haunted" when it wasn't relevant to the plot at all. I love that this book made me question each of the characters and that it didn't give you all the answers, which just added to how chilling it was. I still don't know exactly what happened and who to blame. Or if there should be someone to blame!I really don't have a character I'm rooting for and everyone is annoying. The story is so slow and nothing really happened, I'm extremely glad that I have this book done and over with. I liked the fact that Suze was in the "laundry room" this whole time. I liked Suze as a character, but I wish she was explored more; I found her very interesting. Another twist that I liked is in the epilogue. Can't believe I liked something from the epilogue! I enjoyed the use of the repetition to explain how everyone was involved in Kelly's murder. It worked okay. I really liked the fact that they were all guilty, in some way. Other than those two twists, I didn't quite enjoy the rest. Especially the asylum thing, since it wasn't a huge deal in the end.

No one was interesting. I'm more interested in what my neighbour's cat is doing than the characters themselves. The characters weren’t bland, so to speak, (what the hell does so to speak mean - yk when you just know when to put a phrase into your sentence but the actual phrase just doesn’t make sense? No just me?)

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This was the same with the freaking setting, they’re supposed to be in a old Irish building that was meant to be an asylum, yet the author described it in such little detail that I was doing most of the imagining that it got tiring thinking what everything and everyone looked like For me it wasn't always clear when you changed povs or it was sudden. It also didn't help that the writing style for every character was the exact same.