Goldy Moldavsky

New York Times-bestselling author Goldy Moldavsky delivers a deliciously twisty YA thriller that's Scream meets Karen McManus about a mysterious club with an obsession for horror. When it comes to horror movies, the rules are clear: x Avoid abandoned buildings, warehouses, and cabins at all times. x Stay together: don’t split up, not even just to “check something out.” x If there’s a murderer on the loose, do not make out with anyone. If only surviving in real life were this easy... New girl Rachel Chavez turns to horror movies for comfort, preferring stabby serial killers and homicidal dolls to the bored rich kids of Manhattan Prep...and to certain memories she’d preferred to keep buried. Then Rachel is recruited by the Mary Shelley Club, a mysterious society of students who orchestrate Fear Tests, elaborate pranks inspired by urban legends and movie tropes. At first, Rachel embraces the power that comes with reckless pranking. But as the Fear Tests escalate, the competition turns deadly, and it’s clear Rachel is playing a game she can’t afford to lose.

The Mary Shelley Club

v cute beginning, played on cliche; kinda dragged; then picked up; then got really good; then wrapped up almost immediately 

Noemi Gonzalez

dmitria guimarães

Lane Hokanson

I really wanted this to be better than it was. It wasn't bad - it just wasn't good either. It had an interesting concept, but it didn't deliver the twist the way I was hoping for. It could have also been due to my narrator - I wasn't loving their delivery either.

Alexa M

this book had absolutely no business being that fucking LONG. like why? this took like 100+ pages to pick up and even get into the plot like all of that could've been chopped. anyways, i was intrigued by the mystery aspect and the writing was so simple that it was easy to fly through. the ending twist i definitely didn't see coming (not that i was thinking too critically anyways). not bad by any means but yeah get this woman an editor my golly!

Ana Paula

I should have done about a hundred assignments instead of reading this in all of my free blocks today, but here we are, meaning i finished this book in under 12 hours and i did not do those hundred academic readings and statistic models; which is fine because it was SO worth it. 

The book is perfect. It´s fast paced, it´s spooky, the plot twist? wonderful, the characters? i loved them all and hated some (just the perfect amount) and, best of all, it achieves perfect spookiness-fall vibes without harming animals 😌

I don´t generally read books based on their genre and the time of year, but this month i´ve been all but driven towards only reading mystery/thriller/spooky things and this was such a good addition to that craving (i also recently researched a lot about Mary Shelley for a term paper and that just made me really happy).

Sven Test

Now THIS is a YA thriller!! Holy sh*t. My mind is fried. RTC

Holly

Holy cow. I have no words. 
If you like thrillers, do yourself a favor and read this.

krisha mathur

Okay, so I stayed up till 3 in the night to finish this, so I have to give it credit for that.🌟
It was absolutely fantastic. There was literally no way you could guess the culprit. I spent my whole night going through mixed emotions for different characters, because I kept changing my suspects, and never getting it right.
The reason for giving it one star less was; I felt that the mystery was more of a secondary thing in the book. I wasn't expecting a Nancy Drew or Agatha Christie, but the best way to describe it is that it was a thriller.
The best thriller I have ever read.

illa

Don't know how to feel about this. I felt invested in the story and bored simultaneously? The horror aspect was great, but all the characters and everything were way too stereotypical and YA that just let the story down.

Brooke Barnett

I really enjoyed the ending and way it all played out. I could not figure out who it was until the end!

Jessica Guht

This book hooked me from the beginning and just dragged me further and further as the story went on. A little bit murder mystery, a little bit romance, and one shocking twist, this book was perfect for this time of year. I do still have a couple questions, like who was the guy Rachel had a crush on at the beginning, was it Matthew? Why did Matthew pick her? Things like that, but otherwise things were wrapped up pretty nicely and I enjoyed the fast-pace of the story.

Paige Green

Disclaimer: I received this book from Once Upon A Book Box Club as a part of their April 2021 box. Thanks! All opinions are my own and support your authors!

Book: The Mary Shelley Club

Author: Goldy Moldavsky

Book Series: Standalone for now

Rating: 4/5

Diversity: Latinx MC and character, pansexual character mentioned, m/m romance and character.

Recommended For...: young adult readers, thriller, murder mystery, horror

Publication Date: April 13, 2021

Genre: YA Thriller Horror

Age Relevance: 16+ (Home Invasion, bullying, fatphobia, gore, violence, murder, stalking, drugs mentioned, language, grief, death, underage alcohol consumption, sexual content, romance, sexual assault, PTSD)

Explanation of Above: The beginning of the book shows a home invasion and the events of the traumatic incident replay in the MCs head throughout the book. There is a lot of bullying in the book and some mentions of fatphobia in the form of a term of endearment (the endearment term from the MCs mother means ham in English). There is gore, violence, and murder in the book, as well as stalking and death and grief. There is some cursing in the book. There is a scene where teenagers drink alcohol and drugs are mentioned a few times in that scene. There is some romance and small sexual content. There is also a very small sexual assault shown in the book where a character is touched without permission on her breasts.

Publisher: Henry Holt & Company

Pages: 466

Synopsis: New girl Rachel Chavez is eager to make a fresh start at Manchester Prep. But as one of the few scholarship kids, Rachel struggles to fit in, and when she gets caught up in a prank gone awry, she ends up with more enemies than friends.

To her surprise, however, the prank attracts the attention of the Mary Shelley Club, a secret club of students with one objective: come up with the scariest prank to orchestrate real fear. But as the pranks escalate, the competition turns cutthroat and takes on a life of its own.

When the tables are turned and someone targets the club itself, Rachel must track down the real-life monster in their midst . . . even if it means finally confronting the dark secrets from her past.

Review: The book was really good! I loved this murder mystery thriller book. The twists were well done, the book had a great storyline that kept me guessing, and that ending was a WTF from me. I feel unnerved by the book but also curious as to what happens next and I hope the author makes a book 2. The characters are well developed and the world building was well done. I also loved the horror movie references and I firmly believe if you’re a horror movie lover than you need to read this book.

There were some issues with the book while I was reading it. There was a moment where I was uncomfortable with a description of a female presenting teenage body as “grown” and that “she was definitely on the menu and he was starving”. The book has a weird POV switching when the fear tests are shown. The ending also doesn’t have a lead-up but I think that makes it even scarier.

Verdict: I love it! Highly recommend.


Delaney LaFalce

This is the second book I’ve read by Moldavsky, and she’s such an amazing author!! Perfect balance of humor and suspense!

Carol

I have two different rating systems. There's the "this is a technically brilliant book" scale, and there's the "I couldn't put it down" scale. This definitely falls into the latter category. 

The book certainly had its drawbacks - some plot points/twists were predictable from early on, protagonist giving off big "I'm not like other girls" vibes and some clunky editing issues throughout. But I cannot deny that I was addicted to this book. I loved the tense character dynamics, the slasher-movie-esque "fear test" scenes - and the pacing! I flew through this one despite it's size (almost 500 pages). The concept and plot was fun and fresh and ultimately well delivered. 

So to return to my two scales, I'd say it's a 3/3.5 star on the "technical" scale. But personally speaking, my enjoyment of a book is more important, so this one get's a 4.5 from me! I definitely recommend to anyone that loves YA Thrillers and has a penchant for watching Horror movies! Lot's of great pop culture nods in this one.

Tiffany Robinson

Once I started this book I could not put it down. It was a fun ride.

Ren Christina

W O W. 

My thoughts on this are complex looking back because while I LOVED the concept and the horror enthusiast aspect, some of the twists just weren't for me and I felt the execution was a bit rushed in the end. Overall, would reread and recommend to anyone looking for some tense fun, but it wasn't my favourite.

Candyce Kirk

3.5 stars

The Mary Shelley Club definitely caught my attention and I have to say the prologue had me on the edge of my seat. I loved the creepy feeling I got while reading that. From the start I was really curious about what had happened to our main character Rachel. The author's way of writing had me flying through this book.

I love the concept of a coming together as a group and sharing the love of something and in this case horror movies. I'm not a fan of horror myself, but I loved reading the discussions about the movies or what they loved about it. Loving something and having people who understand why you feel that way is the best in the world.


The fear tests this group had was interesting, but definitely extreme at times. If you didn't do as were told or participate in one or even wanted to leave the club your worst fear would be shared with everyone. I thought that was rather harsh as well as some of the pranks pulled. That being said I loved the chapters when these pranks were held. I definitely felt the tension and buildup and some were definitely scary. I loved the little details that eventually played a part in being near the end of the book.


That being said, I also had some issues with the story. Let's start with the side characters. I loved this amazing group and it was fun to get to know them. To me it felt like we didn't get to know them enough. They played a pretty big part in most of this story and it felt like they mostly stayed at the surface (with a few scenes being an exception with a couple of the characters). With how everything plays out I would've liked to have been just a bit more connected.


Also, the ending bothered me. I'm not going to spoil anything, but after everything that happens it just felt kind of easy to me. Halfway through the book I already had two suspects, but was hoping to be wrong. I still enjoyed the story, but the way it played out made the story fall a bit flat for me.


All in all, I thought The Mary Shelley Club was a fast read that definitely had some spooky moments. I definitely will have to check out the author's other books!

Hannah

3.25

I listened to this on audio and I didn't love the narrator so that may have played a factor in my enjoyment. Otherwise, this book was engaging enough and I did like some of the horror/thriller aspects, but I never felt super connected to the characters or the plot to make it a new favorite. I would definitely recommend this to new readers of thrillers or horror because I think it does a great job combining classic elements of those genres without going *too* far!

Tiffanie Dang

Thank you to Henry Holt for sending me an e-ARC to review!

I’m still reeling from the end of this book. It was such a trip! The way some of the characters act is so utterly despicable that I wanted to strangle them at times. But then other times, they showed some humanity. That’s the surprising thing with books sometimes, I guess. The author did a great job with all the twists and turns in this book, especially near the end where the mystery and scare factor kept amping up. I think I got goosebumps a few times while reading, since the writing and certain settings were quite atmospheric. Each character really surprised me though! I thought I’d figured out who the killer was and was confident about who it wasn’t, only to have the author turn the tables on me! This is my first book by Goldy Moldavsky and I really enjoyed it, despite a few tiny things bugging me. But overall, I would definitely recommend this for those who love YA horror mysteries, especially if you’re new to the genre.

I have a spoiler-free review video for this on my BookTube channel: https://youtu.be/pWXtYTstJtg

Julia

Was the ending predictable? Yes.
But was it fun though? YES!

Danica Holdaway

Super interesting premise! Started to fall flat halfway through ☹️ I’m disappointed bc I LOVED kill the boy band. This would make a good movie or series, though

i just want to say OH MY GOD. this took a turn i did Not expect it to and i enjoyed every second of it. at first, i started the story wishing for a club like the mary shelley club because i,too, want friends who are horror freaks just like me and their activities seemed so fun (other than fear tests, of course). but now, i don’t even think i can trust anybody. what. 

Heather Harrington

After surviving a home invasion, Rachel Chavez is hoping to start fresh at Manhattan Prep. When she's dragged to a party, she witnesses a prank and discovers a secret society of students that pull off elaborate hoaxes inspired by horror movie tropes. Desperate to be included, Rachel is overjoyed when she's recruited into the elusive Mary Shelley Club, and relishes in the power of pranking her unsuspecting classmates. By playing into the fears of her classmates, Rachel finds she's finally able to bury some of the memories that haunt her every day since her attack. But when these jokes turn deadly, Rachel must confront her past and uncover who the true murderer is before she becomes their next target.

This is said to be a mix of Gossip Girl and Scream and I'd say that's a decent comparison. It did have me going into this thinking it was going to have more of a slasher vibe when it was more of a psychological thriller. That's not to say it was bad, it just wasn't necessarily what I was hoping for. The premise was still cool and had a lot going for it, but just felt watered down in some places. There wasn't anything about the pranks that was scary, but they did all bring about a sense of unease that grew throughout the whole thing, which I appreciated. I also liked how you got to see the pranks through the eyes of the victim rather than the club members. The characters were entertaining enough, and you could tell that Moldavsky was gunning to have Rachel come across as the stereotypical Final Girl. If you're familiar with Scream then you'll also probably be able to guess the big reveal, but despite figuring out what was coming, I did still like how it ended, even though I thought some things were left ambiguous. While it wasn't the best thriller I've ever read, I'd still recommend it just for the horror movie references alone.

Lindsay Danforth

I would give this a 3.5 out of 5. The beginning was really slow and I contemplated DNFing it a few times. It picked up as the book went on and I really enjoyed the last quarter of it. I don’t know if it was because it’s a YA thriller or because I read so many thrillers in general, but I was able to figure out one of the major plot twists pretty early on. Overall, this was a pretty enjoyable book and I loved the concept of it. If you’re a fan of horror movies, I think you will enjoy all of the references sprinkled throughout.

The Mary Shelley Club

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