The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky

Young Adult. Horror. Mystery. Romance. Secret Society. 

Read as escapism from horrible cramps; it worked perfectly. 

Rating: 4/5

Pages: 466

Started: 16 October 2022

Finished: 17 October 2022

Summary:

    Rachel's debut at Manchester Prep, a rich-kid school in the middle of New York City, is not going well. After surviving a traumatic home invasion, she decided she needed a fresh start, but she hasn't exactly made a lot of new friends. Then she finds out about the Mary Shelley club, a secret society centered around watching horror movies (Rachel's favorite pastime and her biggest coping mechanism from the invasion) and planning elaborate horror-inspired pranks in a dark competition. And though she practically has to blackmail her way in, she seems to belong in the club in a way she never has anywhere else. But then things start to go wrong--masks identical to those worn by the home invaders start popping up, and Rachel has to question just how far the Mary Shelley club is willing to go. 

Thoughts: 

    I really enjoyed this book. It was perfect escapism, easy YA without being boring, suspenseful without being uncomfortably frightening. I love a good secret society, and I liked the way the Mary Shelley club was structured, and how Rachel fit into it. All of the horror movie trivia was fun, and the pranks were cool to see from the planner's perspective. SPOILERS: The ending was a little bit of a cop-out, in the sense that everyone was in on it, but I liked that Rachel had been involved in a way she hadn't known about, and that the nice guy was actually the biggest villain. I would have been disappointed that it wasn't actually Rachel in a twisted trauma response, imagining masks and unknowingly (in a trance?) hurting people, turning out to be the villain all along, but the reveal that the Mary Shelley club was bigger than just their group was enough of a final revelation that I was satisfied with the book's ending. I liked the book's genre and twists, so I'll definitely look for more of Modavsky's books in the future.