Review: The Devils You Know

Title: The Devils You Know
Author: M.C. Atwood
Publication Date: October 3, 2017
Genre: Horror/Supernatural/Young Adult
Recommended If You Like: creepy houses, resilient teens, supernatural horror

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book or my review itself.

The Book:

Boulder House is a house of legends and secrets, beginning with its original owner, who may have spread a curse, and continuing with the whispers that surround it to this day. When a local high school organizes a field trip to the site, five very different teens find themselves pitted against evils far deeper and darker than they could have imagined.

What I Liked:

I loved the premise--I love creepy reads, haunted houses, and mysterious legends. This book had pretty constant suspense and horror, which is what kept me turning pages.

Anything I Didn't Like?

Unfortunately, I didn't like essentially everything else. I understand that one of the points of the book is the seemingly-cliched characters' secrets being spilled and their true selves being revealed, but the cliches are just so cliched, and the secrets and"true selves" also just so cliched, as to provoke eye rolls. As these characters are so completely the center of the story, it was something I couldn't get past.

So...?

This book has been described as "equal parts Cabin in the Woods and The Breakfast Club", but to me at least, it is missing both the meta cleverness of the first and the smashing of stereotypes of the latter. The only thing that kept me turning pages (besides that I was reading it for a few challenges) was that it is truly scary. This book had such a clever premise, but sadly the execution fell far short.