Five Survive

Book: Five Survive by Holly Jackson

Synopsis:

Red Kenny is on a road trip for spring break with five friends: Her best friend — the older brother — his perfect girlfriend — a secret crush — a classmate — and a killer.

When their RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, they soon realize this is no accident. They have been trapped by someone out there in the dark, someone who clearly wants one of them dead.

With eight hours until dawn, the six friends must escape, or figure out which of them is the target. But is there a liar among them? Buried secrets will be forced to light and tensions inside the RV will reach deadly levels. Not all of them will survive the night. . . .

(source)

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5/5

My Thoughts: This book is 100% pure thriller. It’s purpose is not to make you care deeply about anyone involved through character development or reassure you that anyone involved is truly good and kind. It simply exists to terrify you in whatever free moments you devote to reading it. And that’s ok. Sometimes thrillers need to exist simply for the scare. This one took about sixty or so pages to really get going but once it did, it didn’t slow down until the very end.

My advice for anybody reading this book would be to know what you’re getting into. Readers fell in love with Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series and this is simply not that. It’s a standalone, terrifying bullet of a novel that was never meant to leave you with a long-term attachment to characters in the same way.

My other piece of advice for readers of Five Survive is to have a cute book or movie or TV show lined up to consume directly after finishing. Once you get about 2/3 of the way through you’re going to want to push through to the end even if it’s 1AM and you’re alone and then once you do finish you’re going to need a way to ward off nightmares.

You can get your own copy of Five Survive here or borrow it from your local library.

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