Overall rating–5⭐
Plot–5⭐
Pacing–5⭐
Worldbuilding–4.5⭐
Ending–5⭐
Others
Diverse cast–0.5⭐
Character description–0.5⭐
All in all this middle grade horror was a fast read that I truly loved it. The pacing was phenomenal, it never lagged for me and the beats were all hit really well.
Every character had a distinct voice as well which I appreciated.
Rae, her sister Ava and their mother have moved to Whispering Pines after the disappearance of her father.
Caden is a boy from a family of occultists whose brother vanished and the rumor is he killed him.
Whispering Pines is a strange place and the strange place and the strangeness is just accepted by the inhabitants.
I will be recommending this to my younger sister who loves horror and this is right up her alley.
The worldbuilding only gets four and a half stars because too many things were going on. Too many things were true.
My disappointments with this book comes in the form of the cast itself. There are two characters with an East Asian name, a mother and daughter. That’s it.
Character description is sparse when it happens and it doesn’t happen often. It’s been proven that when a reader isn’t given descriptions about a character that they’ll assume they’re white. There are also authors who think they don’t have to describe their character because the reader will just make up how they look which ties into my previous point.
In a town as strange as Whispering Pines, the strangest thing is that there aren’t any characters that young Black and Brown readers can see themselves in. Yes, this happens often, and kids are used to it, but at this point, readers deserve better.
theworldsbetweenpages 