Kill River by Cameron Roubique

 

Greetings Stack Worms! 

I'm super tired, but I finished Kill River by Cameron Roubique and now it's time to get the review up. This book genre is YA/Horror. 

TRIGGER WARNINGS!

- Major Character Death

- Gore

- Dead bodies

- Swearing 

- Bugs

SPOILERS! Duh! 

Cyndi is a 13 year old, in the 80's who is obsessed with music and of course, her parents don't understand her. They think she's being antisocial and needs to get out more. Make friends. When she doesn't comply with their demands they send her to the dreaded SUMMER CAMP!!! This upsets Cyndi (rightfully so). She gets on the bus to Camp thinking she's going to have a boring summer. After what happens, I'm sure she would have preferred this. However, she quickly makes friends with three other teenagers, Brad, Zack, and Stacy. 

Stacy and Cyndi promise to stick together seeing as they are the only two teenage girls at the camp. But after a week Brad and Zack end up getting into trouble, dragging Stacy with them. The Head Counselor comes up with a sentence that the three of them just cannot take. They plan to escape that night; Brad being the big mastermind of the plan, stole the keys so that they could steal a raft. Cyndi catches Stacy leaving and decides to go with them. 

The gang plans on following the river to the road that would lead them into a town, where they could call their parents and get back to civilization. How soon do they get lost? Pretty quickly. They stop for the night so that they can try and navigate during the daylight. And they wind up coming across an empty water park...OR IS IT? dun Dun DUUN! 

Brad being the genius he is, talks them into going on a few of the rides before finding a way out of the park. On one of these rides, Brad goes missing. Zack, Stacy, and Cyndi try their best to find Brad. They come to the conclusion that Brad is just pulling one of his pranks. A few hours after waiting, they are sure that something horrible has happened and decide to get the FUCK out of the creepy ass water park. 

So, they continue to try and find the exit. Not long after the trio are on the move again, when they find the bathrooms, lockers, and control room (which is locked). But no exit. Which kind of takes me out of the immersion of the story, any water park I have ever been to the exit is right by these places. Usually, one has to go through the bathrooms/showers to even get to the park. Also, did this place not make a parking lot first? How did the construction workers get there? Or their vehicles? 

Anyway, while they were trying to get out, Zack gets himself electrocuted on the fence surrounding the entire water park. He's alive but seriously injured. It's around this point that Stacy says deuces and bounced. Leaving Cyndi alone with Zack, she decides she needs to get him some water. While away Zack gets ganked...well his face gets smashed in and then drownes. This leaves just Cyndi and Stacy...and they will not see each other (alive) again. 

Stacy is the last to go, after finding Brad's and Zack's bodies. She gets a good look at the slasher that was stalking them. He's all in black with a white grinning mask. He stabs her abdomen, doing some horrible damage to her organs, and then drops her off a cliff into the Lazy River. 

Then there was only one. Cyndi fights for her life, tooth and nail, literally. She bites, claws, kicks, and eventually strangles the slasher. This doesn't mean the dudes dead. They always come back. Which is why there is a sequel! Two actually. \/\/00+! 

Cyndi is the only one to make it out of the water park and back to camp. Where her parents pick her up, scold her, and then ground her?! Like what the fuck parents!? She just went through a traumatic experience and you basically give it a shrug? HER FRIENDS ARE DEAD!! SHE WAS ALMOST KILLED!! DO YOU JUST NOT CARE?! FUCK YOU!! And then her mother just straight up treats Cyndi like she's a troublemaker without even caring about the nightmares and the PTSD she suffers from. I hate this woman. Yep, I really do. 

LIKES: 

- Cyndi and Stacy's friendship. It's really cute. 

- The gore was awesome

- I liked (most) of our characters

DISLIKES: 

- Brad (happy he was the first one to go)

- Cyndi's fucking parents

- Pace felt...off? It's not that slow. Maybe a little faster would have been nice, but this is nitpicking. 

- The Go-Gos was used way too much. I don't feel like the music fit. I guess that's just personal taste. Meh. 

Star wise I give it a 3. This means I'll continue the series, which I already have. But that'll be later on. The next book for this month is Hunter Shea's Fury of the Orcas. 

TOODLES!

- Bug