Kill Your Darlings by Yuvashri Harish

The quick cut: A girl who agrees to babysit her cousin for the night finds herself overwhelmed when monsters are summoned out of a book.  

A real review: 

Thank you to Penguin Young Readers Group for providing the arc for an honest review. 

 Responsibility can be a heavy burden, especially when it happens at such a young age. For teenage Thulasi, that level of responsibility suddenly feels overwhelming when a book causes monsters to be summoned out of it and old secrets come to light. 

 Applesweet is a small town with only one claim to fame: a long-gone author named Addison Greer. She's Thulasi's literary hero and she's consistently diving into the horror books she left behind. Thulasi planned to spend Halloween night at a party, but when she's asked to babysit her young cousin - she feels like she can't say no. It should be an easy night for her, right? Wrong. A book leads to monsters appearing out of it... along with an unexpected person. Can she save the town and everyone she cares about at the same time? 

  I can see why so many people have compared the feeling of this book to Goosebumps, but it's not the same. Goosebumps let the mystery create that chill that kept you up at night. With this book, it's the body count that they depend on to create the chill. My personal preference is the unknown because it's a lot scarier than a whole slew of gore and death. 

 Thulasi is expected to say yes for her family and they depend on that in many situations. Rather than being a teenager and doing what she wants, she instead does that they need from her. It is from this conflict that she chooses to avoid the chaos that the core plot occurs. I understand where she's coming from since I also put my needs last for my family at that age. At the same time, that wasn't enough to really keep me as engaged as I hoped I would be reader wise. 

 It's a good idea story wise, but it didn't entirely satisfy me. Again, I prefer my horror and scares to lean on the anticipatory side rather than the high body count side. When you can't anticipate what's coming, the darkness feels like it looms over you and this story didn't give me that experience.  

 A horror book with a lot of death and destruction.  

My rating: 3.75 out of 5