Little Monsters

by Kara Thomas

When Kacey moves in with her estranged father and his new family, her new friend goes missing and Kacey finds herself at the center of the investigation.

• ISBN10: 1524764744
• ISBN13: 9781524764746
• Publish Date: 16 October 2017 (first published 25 July 2017)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Random House Books for Young Readers
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

Rating: 4.5 Stars

After a seance gone wrong, Kacey found herself excluded from the Kacey-Bailey-Jade trio. All the mind games were forgotten, when Kacey awakened to discover that Bailey was missing. As the search for Bailey picked up steam, Kacey emerged as a suspect, which had her closely examining what she thought were "friendships".

Thomas wowed me with The Darkest Corners, and I was totally sold on her brand of YA mystery thriller after reading The Cheerleaders. Once again, she presented me with a mystery, which was compelling and well layered. The tension grew and grew as more pieces of the puzzle came to light. I loved the way Thomas fit excerpts from Bailey's diary into the narrative. They offered a tremendous amount of insight into Bailey's inner workings, and supported the build until my suspicions were confirmed.

The mystery of what happened to Bailey was a huge part of this story, but there was an examination of Kacey's many relationships, and the one between Kacey, Bailey, and Jade was rather toxic. You could see how Bailey manipulated Kacey, and took advantage of her vulnerability. Kacey was a new student, at a new school, in a new town, with her new family. Bailey and Jade taking her in seemed like a gift, when it first happened, but as Kacey searched for her missing friend, she came to some realizations about their relationship.

Thomas took me on a rather dark journey searching for this missing girl, but also brought me into those dark recesses of the human psyche. The mystery unraveled in a way, that kept me hooked, guessing, and in suspense. Another great addition to her catalog!

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[Bianca]

She pulled up to the curb where I was waiting for him after school and said, “We’re going to my house.” I knew that it was an invitation to something much bigger. Two becoming three. But three is an uneven number. When there are three, someone always winds up out in the cold.

— AHHH I LOVED THIS. A chilling story of three girls’ toxic and complicated friendship shrouded with a murder mystery. Definitely one of my favorite reads this year!

[Joséphine]

Actual rating: 3.5 stars

Initial thoughts: The audiobook was engaging, and probably kept me a little bit more interested than the book itself would've. The plot was twisted, though the outcome didn't surprise me as much as I had expected. Then again, the friendships were extremely toxic, so I did feel rather unfazed about the individual characters as well. Still, Little Monsters was a murder mystery worth reading as I tried to figure out what was going on.

[Leah]

Little Monsters is one of those compelling young adult novels that have you questioning everything you ever knew about friendship. It’s intoxicating, addictive, and it made me glad that, in this age of social media, I was a teenager in the early 00s when iPhone’s were just a speck in Steve Jobs’ eye. I’ve been on the receiving end of bullying, from supposed friends, and girls can be horrible to each other. I genuinely believe, also, that girls can be way, way worse than boys when it comes to bitchiness, to being two-faced, to all of that. Lasses turn on each other at the blink of an eye, and it’s an awful thing to have to face.

I started Little Monsters with no idea what to expect really – there aren’t many young adult thrillers on the market, but this was incredible. It was fast-paced, almost frantic at times, with the speed it moved and I actually really liked Kacey. Moving away from your home, to a new family you barely know is so hard. Then to have to start a new school and make new friends, it’s all so much pressure and stress but not only that, it seemed like Kacey went through some things in New York, with her mom. She seems like this lovely girl, but then you see glimpses that maybe all isn’t as it seemed (and I actually was a bit disappointed the book didn’t go into that more – it seemed like Kacey’s rage was a real issue, but it kinda just got swept under the rug. FWIW, I get rage like that for no reason – say the Internet is playing up and a page won’t load, I get angry enough to want to throw my phone (but common sense prevails)).

I also love toxic friendships. I shouldn’t, but I always find them super compelling and the trio of Kacey, Bailey and Jade was toxic to the extreme, the way that Bailey played them like fiddles, and manipulated things, like ignoring Kasey the night of the party where Bailey goes missing, was insane. There’s a part that bugs me girls let this kind of behaviour go, in the name of friendship, but then there’s the other part who loved these types of novels so lets it go. But even before Bailey goes missing, there was something wrong with those three – the whole vibe you get is intense and unreal and you just know there are things going to come out that will be shocking, but not surprising.

It’s been a while since I’ve felt so caught up in a novel. The breakneck pace certainly helped, because it felt like your foot was on the gas the whole time, and I had no idea what had happened to Bailey. I assumed she was dead, but I had no idea who the culprit was (actually, I did, but I got the wrong person – I was way off base). This is the type of novel that truly doesn’t let up – the kind of novel you don’t want to stop reading, either, because you’re so desperate to know if Kacey DOES know more about Bailey’s disappearance, if she was involved at all? And just generally what on Earth happened to Bailey. Not because I liked Bailey (I didn’t), but because you just have to know.

Kara Thomas can write a cracking thriller, let me tell you. Little Monsters was an incredible read, from beginning to end. It ended had a decent ending so bravo, Kara – perhaps you can teach other thriller writers that it’s OK to actually write a good ending in a thriller, it doesn’t all have to be open ended or left hanging. Probably my only issue, is that during the novel there’s mention of something between Kacey and her step-brother Andrew. They are not blood related AT ALL, FYI, her dad is married to his mom, but that isn’t the point. My point is that I kinda felt there was something there?! Maybe it was just platonic, like family, like Kacey finally felt she had a family member she could trust but, I don’t know, my romance detectors were tingling… Apart from that, this was a top notch book.