I didn't like this. Maybe I just wan't in the mood.

Five teenagers discover a mysterious stone box hidden in a forest one hot summer when they’re all thrown together on the small island they live on and decide to all make a sacrifice to it, one which they hope will keep them as friends. But there are rules: never return alone; never return at night; and never take back the offerings. Four years later, they’re returning to school and are more strangers than friends. But weird things are starting to happen. Someone has broken the rules, but who and how can they stop it before it’s too late?
I enjoyed this book – it was a fun ride, but a little bit all over the place. I imagine it more as a B rated film – it had an interesting premise, some good characters and a pretty good storyline, but it dragged in places then jumped in quick motion in others. While it wasn’t outstanding, it was still a pretty good read.

I really enjoyed this book! The 80's references were great and really appealed to me as they brought back some great memories. Definitely on trend at the moment as the 80's seem to be influencing a lot of books and TV series recently. I felt the friendship can conquer all angle worked really well and again was reminiscent of such classics as The Goonies/Stranger Things/Stand by Me.

All the characters were well rounded, September and Hadley were my favourites but as a whole the group worked well together.

A thoroughly enjoyable read that I raced through; featuring a demonic teddy bear, various zombie creatures and killer crabs - what more could you want from a YA horror!? I will definitely be buying a copy for my teenage daughter.

A deliciously dark, creepy and awesomely weird ya horror novel that’s perfect for fans of Dawn Kurtagich, Micheal Grant and Andrew Smith. 

On the blurb The Sacrifice Box was recommended for fans of Stranger Things and Stephen King and I’d wholeheartedly agree with this! 

I was 12 when I started reading Stephen King novels, and this has echoes of my favourites; IT, Salem’s Lot & The Tommy Knockers, in the way a group of friends must do battle against a foe that’s not easily explained. 

4 years after a perfect summer, circumstances draw them back together. it’s not just a bully, it’s a dark force that will require something deeper to defeat it. 
The rules were simple (this reminded me strongly of the rules in Gremlins!) and get they were not followed and now they must pay the price... as the strange things start getting decidedly more creepy, weird and dangerous the tension really heightens and I was definitely freaked out! Argh, the crows! Jeeze, I hate those things. The bloody point beaks those dark eyes. *shudders* and that’s just mentioning one of the many spooktacular things that caused me to stay up until 3am to finish this! 

It’s such a great book!
It’s a wonderful mix of all the things I love; a group of well defined and interesting characters, a crazy brilliant plot full of frights and enough comedic moments to stop me hyperventilating! I loved all the references to key 80s movies, songs, books and all things horror.

I can’t wait to read whatever MS writes next!

Sep, Arkle, Mack, Lamb and Hadley are friends and find a box hidden in a forest.

They decide to each make a sacrifice and put something of importance inside the box, and make a rule never to return to the box and its contents.

What a fabulous creepy tale, I was entertained and this book is perfect for YA and adults who love a good scare.

Set in the 80's this book is not as perfect as it could be, but it was a good choice of read for my insomnia late at night

A weird but engaging book that follows September (genuinely that's his name, it took some getting used to) and his gang of on/off friends whilst they investigate why the Sacrifice Box is sending their sacrifices back to try and kill them.  According to the rules of the box, someone must have taken their sacrifice back in order for it to be carrying out its vengeance, but who?
A freaky book!  I'm 32 and I found it somewhat unsettling.  A very imaginative story, if not somewhat gory, especially for a fair few animals.

It was certainly very different to anything i've read recently !  I enjoyed it .  
A dark, creepy, supernatural horror concerning a group of friends who one day each put something that means something to them regarding their friendship, in a mysterious stone box and then bury it, whilst saying a promise .  However, things begin to go awry when the friends separate in later life, due to one of them possibly breaking the promise .
Very well imagined and written by the author Martin Stewart, the events are genuinely scary and some are quite believable which makes the book a great read .
Fans of zombies will love this !  There are people and animal zombies as well as a killer teddy bear and evil dolls !

Kids on bikes in the 1980s has long been a staple of horror fiction. But in recent times the sub-genre of teens in horror/adventure has really become part of the cultural zeitgeist. The phenomenal successes of the IT reboot and Stranger Things has cemented its legacy. So, it’s hardly a surprise that fiction writers are undertaking the same themes in novels in the second decade of the 21st century.
However, how do you stand out from these huge successes?
Martin Stewart tries and in many ways, achieves to differentiate his story from those with The Sacrifice Box. Though as any reader would expect, there are still huge threads that borrow and are simply shadows cast by these genre staples mentioned earlier.

Rest of review to follow later this week/early next week.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this prior to publication, but it should be noted that it’s hard to read a story when the text runs together as it does throughout this book. Puzzling out what is being said makes me less likely to want to read.
Technical gripe aside, this book had some interesting messages about friendship and coming to terms with change. Unfortunately, the appeal of the book was definitely hampered for me by the way nothing quite fitted together.
This is a story about friendship, but all the characters are quick to point out that they were never friends when the story began and haven’t spoken much in the four years since. We’re given quite vague characters with all but our main narrator, and the reasons for the box existing are not given.
The book taps into the vibe for 80s themed friendship stories. The kids find a mysterious box in the woods, give it a sacrifice each and vow never to break their rules. Sadly, someone has and it sets off a chain of increasingly gruesome events focusing on inanimate objects coming to life.
Supernatural horror and pretty graphic violence may be your cup of tea. In which case, you’ll find much to like. It was not really my thing, and the sense of too many things being lumped together made it hard for me to focus on this.

Running off the back of the Stranger Things hype, The Sacrifice Box is a delightfully creepy tale set against the backdrop of the 80's. If you're after the IT by Stephen King feel then you'll enjoy Sept and his friends as they decipher the mystery of the Sacrifice Box and try to contain the evil within.

In all my years of reading, I can probably count on one hand the number of books I have made a conscious decision not to finish. Sadly, The Sacrifice Box is now one of them.

After reading the synopsis I was so sure that this would be a book that I would love but unfortunately, that was not the case. I found that while reading, my attention would wander and I had to actively force myself to focus.. 

I think that one reason for The Shadow Box to lose my attention was the inconsistent world building. It was mentioned that the characters lived on an Island not far from the mainland, with references to Britain such as currency and Blue Peter Badges yet there was also references to guidance councillors so was it meant to be in the US? 

Another huge reason for my 1-star review is that I just didn't care about the characters. There was nothing to make me root for them, to make me worry about them.

While I didn't enjoy this book I'm very thankful to the author and publisher for providing me with an e-copy via netgalley.co.uk.

Not for me, couldn't get into this at all and gave up after about 20% of the book

The synopsis gave me expectations of a story along the lines of "It" following a group of kids and adults as they face terror. 

The idea of the box seemed novel and interesting but whereas in most group stories you get to learn about the whole group, little was learned about most of the characters, with only Sep, the lead one might say, getting a more in depth back story. It would have been wonderful to flesh out the whole cast of characters, even if that meant dropping one or two for brevity since some became almost irrelevant.I found this to be a huge disappointment.

A number of the scenes had great scope for improvement too since there was quite often a distinct lack of tension.

Finally, the lack of any real indication as to where the box came from, why it was there, and why particular groups were drawn to sacrifice to it left me disappointed that the ending seemed to be almost missing. Yes the story of the characters completes, but the mystery that bound them remains just, that, a mystery.

Maybe the author will revisit the box in a later novel since it has huge potential.

One of the great things I loved about this book was the setting. It’s set in 1986 and the lead characters are just 1 year older than me at the time. It brings about such great memories of bad hair, outlandish dress sense and some fabulous music. I’d give it all the stars just for setting alone. 

Four years previously the gang, after a wonderful summer each made a sacrifice to a stone box they find in the woods (do these things ever end well??). As you can imagine this comes back to haunt them as, now estranged as friends,  one of them opens the box in a fit of loneliness wanting to get the gang back together. It has disastrous consequences. 
Turns out back during WW2 another set of youths did the same thing. Opening up the box in 1986 sets the monstrous sacrifices free to murder. 

As mentioned, I loved the setting of 1986. I also liked it being set on a small island (Arran possibly based on the blurb at the back). So often thrillers are based in big cities but I felt the smaller setting worked to increase the sense of fear and horror and make the book even more tense. 
The bulk of the book is set over just a few days so the pace is fast, it’s a real page turner. 

I loved all the little headings, I loved the characters. The main 5 all reminded me of 80’s films – your Stand By Me’s and your Goonie’s and again it harks back to my own school days. I could probably give each of the characters names from my own childhood. So for me very relatable. 

It’s dark, it’s edgy, there’s horror and humour. Basically it has everything. Did I mention I loved it??

Is it too early to add this as a contender for one of my most disappointing reads of 2018? Because, its barely a month into the year but I don’t think any other book is going to be able to top this. I do not think my expectations have ever been higher for a book - I watched a Youtube video from Heart Full of Books (who I believe got a proof from YALC) and then I read all of the PR that compared it to Stranger Things and Stand By Me, which are two of my favourite television series and movies of all time, and I was like, “OMG I CANT WAIT TO GET MY HANDS ON THIS”.
Unfortunately, the main thing I got out of reading The Sacrifice Box was a renewed appreciation for just how good things like Stranger Things and Stand By Me are, to have achieved that iconic cult status that labels them as genre-staples. These two, alongside others like IT and The Goonies, are certainly not things that come around very often, and The Sacrifice Box felt like a mere shadow in comparison to them. The character nuances, the world-building (I’m becoming more and more certain the only reason it is set in the 1980’s is so that the author could put in an excessive amount of references to September’s walkman), the unadulterated emotion; these are all things in which these excelled and The Sacrifice Box fell painfully short.
Honestly, the only thing I can think of right now is the fact that the media used to refer to actress Jayne Mansfield as the “poor man’s Marilyn Monroe” and I think that a similar sentiment really rings true here. I know, I know, that sounds harsh but let’s face it, September and the gang are never going to reach the iconic status of the Losers’ Club, or Eleven, or Chris Chambers, or Sloth from the Goonies - they’re just not memorable or relatable enough for the audience to feel any degree of empathy towards. 
Speaking of the Losers’ Club, I find it incredibly odd that all of the advertising focussed heavily on the supposed similarities between The Sacrifice Box, and Strangers Things and Stand By Me when clearly, it is tried far more to resemble the kids from IT. Honestly, it brings absolutely nothing new and I supposed it could've been salvaged if it had brought a more terrifying analysis of childhood fears and a better conclusion to the forefront, but it didn’t even manage that. Whereas the things that The Losers’ Club were scared of were actually pretty terrifying (remember Eddie's fear of disease?), in The Sacrifice Box, these sixteen(?)-year-olds are chased down by a murderous teddy bear…. I mean, I know at the age of twenty-two I am a little outside of the YA target age range, but I can’t imagine anyone over the age of nine being scared of a killer toy. 
So, yeah…. Sorry The Sacrifice Box but I do not think I am going to be replacing my love for your predecessors any time soon.

The synopsis for this one sounded so dark and brilliant (even as YA) that I was really looking forward to it - I read it fast, it is an easy read in that sense, but honestly it missed the mark for me on quite a few levels.

That is not to say that it is not entertaining. It is in many ways but for me more as a bang through kind of thing rather than feeling any depth or substance. Having said that descriptively speaking this author has a certain something that has made me want to read his next book - I think the problem here was lack of character levels.

With the exception of Sep I didn't really feel I got to know the gang with enough engagement to make me care what was happening. His need to leave the island and the 80's setting were probably the strongest parts of The Sacrifice Box for me - the wider horror story just feeding into his personality enough to keep me reading.

The premise is sound but the execution is a little wishy washy. While I think the target market will probably love it, this was not one of those young adult novels that spoke to me on a higher level. 

Fast, with a certain fun element but nothing stand out.

A sneaky little horror story of growing up, superstitions and friendship. A slow building story well worth the effort.

Quirky read with tones of Stephen King or Stranger Things.  Very Good.

I was sent a copy of The Sacrifice Box by Martin Stewart to read and review by NetGalley.
Overall I enjoyed this novel, it had some interesting ideas regarding relationships between friends, about loyalty and ambition.  Add to that a little mystery/horror and the supernatural and you have a good recipe for a YA read.  Unfortunately there were a few minus points in my opinion; although the novel is apparently set on an island community somewhere off the coast of Britain it did read in rather more of an American style.  There was the odd anomaly here and there and I felt that some of the relationships between the teenagers and adults didn’t quite ring true.  I did however enjoy the story, it was generally entertaining and at times quite gripping.  It could possibly have benefitted with an extra draft before publication, but I still think that it is worth reading.  I also feel I have to factor in that I am not actually a ‘young’ adult so perhaps that is making me slightly more critical than younger readers would be!