Thanks to Random House and Del Rey Books for the free early copies in exchange for our honest reviews
HIDE – Kiersten White (Released May 24th, 2022)
Book Description:
The challenge: spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don’t get caught.
The prize: enough money to change everything.
Even though everyone is desperate to win–to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts–Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she’s an expert at that.
It’s the reason she’s alive, and her family isn’t.
But as the people around her begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes this competition is more sinister than even she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive.
Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run.
Come out, come out, wherever you are.
A high-stakes hide-and-seek competition turns deadly in this dark supernatural thriller from New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White.
Chandra’s Thoughts: 3.5/5 stars
Would I spend seven days in an abandoned amusement park for $50,000.00? Your guess is as good as mine. I’d like to think *yes* but my *i.jump.at.everything* anxiety level of *nope* may persuade me differently. Also, I’ve read and watched WAY too much horror to know that this will likely not end well.
I’ve actually never read this author before but with this cover and that premise I couldn’t say no. A little bit of hide and seek gone bananas. Serve me up! From what I understand, this author write mostly YA fantasy (?) and I definitely could feel the YA in this book as it felt more like YA over Adult fiction. 
But it was still a lot of fun.
Despite the NUMEROUS characters (too many for my taste, tbh) and some plot holes, I could absolutely get behind this competition.. and the consequences it provides. 
I am glad that I weirdly read the synopsis right before reading this (something I rarely ever do) because otherwise I may have been disappointed in the supernatural part of it as it comes across less so in the rest of the description and I would’ve expected a more bloody-fight-to-the-death kind of thing. But then again, maybe it it. *wink* Guess you’ll just have to read this and find out.
My Thoughts: 5/5 stars
This ended up being a lot more than I expected it to be and I loved it. HIDE was my introduction to Kiersten White and clearly I need to pick up more from her backlist. Based on the synopsis I was expecting some kind of crazy hide and seek competition, maybe some people don’t make it out, but I got so much more. A lot more horror elements than I anticipated so that’s always a welcome surprise. Fourteen people, seven days, and the last one that isn’t found in an extreme game of hide and seek gets $50,000. That sounds pretty easy, right?
At the start, it feels like there are a lot of characters but as the story progresses that number dwindles as the game picks up in intensity. Mack is one of our more central characters and $50,000 would be life changing for her, so why not play a game that has already saved her life once before? Everyone competing has their reasons and they all seemed to be hand-chosen for this event. When the game starts they learn that two a day will be eliminated and they must return to their base camp after the sun sets. As the players are found and disqualified they do not return to the camp afterwards, which was odd to the rest involved. Well, there’s a much more sinister reason as to why – they’re being hunted but by what?
I had assumptions on what was happening early on, but wow was I wrong. I had the right idea but the execution of it (pun intended?) I was very wrong about. I liked the turn it took and the ending got super intense. The characters we spend a lot of time with towards the end you really get attached to, and in this kind of book that’s usually a bad choice because someone isn’t going to make it. If the synopsis intrigues you like it did for me, then I highly recommend picking it up. Come and see what eerie and dark secrets the abandoned amazement park is hiding from the contestants during a seemingly harmless childhood game. Come out, come out, wherever you are!
Jessicamap Reviews 