Thank you to Netgalley and Delacorte Press for providing me with a digital ARC of this book!

Once the action finally kicks in after a lengthy stint of character expositions and building the backdrop to this young adult thriller, Five Survive manages to create a compellingly tense story rife with mystery, murder, and aching wound of grief.

I think thrillers live or die by two things: character and setting. Five Survive generally succeeds on both fronts.

The first comes down to how Red Kenny grew on me over the course of the book. She’s a character whose internal monologue was, at times, mildly annoying. (Take a shot every time she says something along the lines, “It can’t be my secret. No one knows about the plan. That’s the whole point.” You’ll be drunker than Simon by the halfway point.) However, there’s something genuine about her…. not in terms of candor, but rather Red’s heart. There's the searing guilt at her core from years of her blaming herself for her mother's death, but the walls she tries and fails to put up to block those thoughts and emotions don't stop her from caring and loving in a deep way. Also, the more she started to buck up against Oliver’s domineering plans for the group, the more I liked her.

The second is how the setting of the RV elevates the thriller from an otherwise 'we're trapped in the middle of nowhere with a killer' story to one where the setting is almost a character in itself. The way they have to utilize items in the RV to protect themselves and attempt to escape--the flimsy mattress and ripped up suitcase for covering the windows--to the way it slowly builds a sense of claustrophobia in the narrative, the characters becoming more and more on top of each other as the night goes on. It forces the author and the characters to be smarter with their limited choices.

Final mildly-spoiler notes: I felt like there where a number of plot twists that were relatively easy to predict, I will give Miss Holly Jackson credit where it's due... THE DOORBELL REVEAL???!?? Even though I already had the inkling about who killed Red’s mother, I literally pushed back my chair and stood up to shout. 

As someone who doesn’t typically reach for thrillers when choosing their next read, I definitely enjoyed this book! (minus one star for some mild romanticizing of cops)