Find Him Where You Left Him Dead

Kristen Simmons — 2023

AT DAWN HE’LL BE GONE AND YOU’LL BE HERE FOREVER. Kristen Simmons's masterful breakout horror novel that's "Jumanji but Japanese-inspired" (Kendare Blake) about estranged friends playing a deadly game in a nightmarish folkloric underworld. “Intense.” —Kendare Blake • “Unforgettable.” —Margaret Rogerson • “Bone-chilling.” —Lauren Shippen • “Twisted.” —Lish McBride • “Won't let me sleep!” —Chelsea Mueller Four years ago, five kids started a game. Not all of them survived. Now, at the end of their senior year of high school, the survivors—Owen, Madeline, Emerson, and Dax—have reunited for one strange and terrible reason: they’ve been summoned by the ghost of Ian, the friend they left for dead. Together they return to the place where their friendship ended with one goal: find Ian and bring him home. So they restart the deadly game they never finished—an innocent card-matching challenge called Meido. A game without instructions. As soon as they begin, they're dragged out of their reality and into an eerie hellscape of Japanese underworlds, more horrifying than even the darkest folktales that Owen's grandmother told him. There, they meet Shinigami, an old wise woman who explains the rules: They have one night to complete seven challenges or they'll all be stuck in this world forever. Once inseparable, the survivors now can’t stand each other, but the challenges demand they work together, think quickly, and make sacrifices—blood, clothes, secrets, memories, and worse. And once again, not everyone will make it out alive.

Reviews

Holly@hollyck

Sep 24, 2023

3.5 rounded down

Find Him Where You Left Him Dead follows the reluctant reunion of four childhood best friends, who drifted apart after their friend group lost Ian to a game four years prior. On the fourth anniversary of his death, Ian's ghost(?) summons the four back to finish the game, where they have until dawn to complete the rest of the game before they're trapped in the Japanese underworld permanently.

This book should have been right up my alley. Japanese folklore, horror, following a path, etc. etc. But it felt very detached. There were also wordy descriptions and confusing dialogue that made me have to reread certain parts. The chapters were also suuuuuuuuuper long, which isn't a problem per se, but they were tiring to get through. Things aren't fully explained to the reader, so I was very confused at some points. I thought the underworld itself was cool, and I liked the twist on Izanagi and Izanami's story. I liked the reveal regarding Dax, but I also didn't feel as connected to this reveal because we don't have many flashbacks and didn't "grow up" with these characters, so to speak, so the emotions regarding that reveal fell flat.

One potential issue is the discussion of privilege and performative allyship. Mainly the fact that the character calling out Emerson for being performative (which she doesn't seem to be?) is Black. The author is not Black. The author is POC, but not Black. And so while I see where the author was trying to go with it, I did not like that the author was, in a sense, speaking for Black people. It could have been a way to show how Asian American history is also whitewashed by having the mixed Asian character point it out. I would call out a white author doing the same, and while there are valid points to be made, the Black community has made it clear that they can and would like to speak for themselves. I'm also confused because Emerson just goes back to marches at the end of the book. So what was the problem? This was a very surface level discussion of a very nuanced topic.

This book is definitely spooky, but suffers from incredibly slow pacing and confusing writing.

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review!:)

Kaylee Ray@epeolatris

Jun 6, 2024