Loved this! Just absolutely loved it! A group of people, playing what they think is a reality game with a huge prize sum at the end…but it’s not…it’s far worse…

Creepy, frightening (but not too much), and very exciting! The characters are so well written too. Absolutely perfect!

My thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review

I'm sorry to say this, but I thought this book was awful.
Where do I begin to review this without going into a long rant?
First off going off the blurb this sounded like it was going to be creepy, atmospheric and hopefully scary. It wasn't any of those things.
There is a complete lack of atmosphere and there are far to many characters, which means they all have shallow backstories. I didn't care about any of them or what would happen to them.
The pacing of this book is SO slow. It also felt like for the first half of the books things were happening off the page that we never got to see. For example we were told that someone had gone. I would have preferred if we had seen that characters perspective and what happened to them.
There is no tension to the plot and by halfway through I had lost all interest to read it. If this hadn't have been an ARC I would have DNF'd.

I loved the setting and the main idea. Loved the first chapter. However, I wasn’t keen on the reasons behind what was happening. I would’ve liked this more if it had have just a been a straight up slasher type horror. It also read quite young, maybe YA rather than adult. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

‘The Amazement Park opened in 1953. ‘Get lost in the fun!’ Posters advertised, and it was true…’
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THIS. BOOK. HAD. ME. ENGROSSED. I loved it! I saw it early on in the year in a round up of books to look out for on Jordy’s Book Club and boy oh boy am I happy I requested it the minute I saw it on netgalley!
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The challenge: spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don't get caught.
The prize: enough money to change everything.
Even though everyone is desperate to win - to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts - Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she's an expert at that.
It's the reason she's alive, and her family isn't.
But as the people around her begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes this competition is more sinister than even she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive.
Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run.
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From the get go I was pulled in, the description of the park in the early pages, the introductions to the contestants and the game itself. I was fully in for the ride! I feel like I was slow and steady starting this and then suddenly my kindle went from 10% read to finished in the space of one sitting, I couldn’t put it down! I fully invested into the world created and enjoyed what seems to be a retelling of a classic story/mythology. Fully here for this book and want to encourage all who enjoy a fast paced page turning thriller to pre-order this one and end your month with an absolute treat of a read!!
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Thank you so much to Netgalley & Random House UK for the ARC!

An excellent premise- play "hide and go seek" in abandoned amusement park for a week and the winner gets 50k. And we get a cast of 14 wildly different, interesting characters. But is it as innocent as it seems?

This was an immensely readable, exciting book with a fascinating setting. The story is told in third person perspective where we get to see what everyone is thinking which makes the writing exciting. While the concept and the characters at times seem more YA, it is definitely an entertaining read,

3.5/5

This book started off really well. The pre-story chapter got me hooked and wanting to know more.

However, when it got to the game part of the story, it started going downhill. I would say this is THE HUNGER GAMES style but without all the action and drama. Honestly, this could've been such a good book had there have been more action going on.

What was that ending though? I don't understand, I want to know what happened. Why end it so abruptly? It explains the reasoning behind everything which is fine, but then there's no real resolution. It's left for you to decide what happens next.

It's classed as horror, but it didn't feel like it had the elements of a horror.

It's quite a short book but it didn't deliver for me. I'd read the reviews beforehand but hoped that people were just being picky and that it wasn't as bad as they'd made it out to be.

Unfortunately this isn't a book that i'd be recommending.

Literary but hugely readable, this horror novel from Kiersten White kept me on my toes the whole way through, with twist after twist, and a great cast of conflicted characters.

This book freaked me out for a number of reasons. Not only is it the possibility of signing yourself up or something like this, but when things start to turn wrong, as a player you would have no idea what to do. The thought of being desperate enough to want to hide yourself all day to make some money was a bad place to be indeed. As a thriller this was great, but with the added supernatural elements, it becomes something different.

If you like a modern horror, then you can not steer wrong with this.

This book had a really exciting premise; hide in an abandoned amusement park for a week and win 50k. However the contestants soon realise all is not as it seems. I liked a few of the main characters, Mack, Ava, Brandon and Legrand and there was multiple POVs so you are able to see what everyone is thinking and doing which adds to the thrill of the hide. Although the hunter was a bit of a silly idea the rest of the story works to create a gripping horror story with twists that keep you reading.

This book is full of twists and turns with a cast of intriguing characters, especially Mack who takes the lead. Unravelling the mystery of the game, the park it takes place in and the townspeople who are involved was really enjoyable.

This a very entertaining story about a group of fourteen twenty-somethings who are recruited to take part in a contest with a promised prize of $50k for the last guy or gal standing. The contest is sold as a game of hide-and-seek but no such game has ever been this twisted. The game is set in an old abandoned theme park, a setting that has been done to death (pun intended) in horror stories for a long time. But this book felt quite original and the background as to why the contest takes place every seven years is a deliciously twisted gore fest.. If I had to make one tiny criticism it would be that perhaps the world building could have been a little stronger, but this is perhaps just as much about the horrors in the lives of some of the competitors as much as it is about a horror stalking an old theme park. Highly recommended.

This book had the potential to be amazing but unfortunately it fell flat.
I didn't particularly like any of the characters and the book went into a different direction than I was expecting.
Unfortunately I left it unfurnished.

Hide has such an intriguing premise – a spooky abandoned theme park, fourteen competitors and a seven day dangerous game of hide and seek.

The story follows Mack and her fellow contenders as they compete to win a substantial, life-changing sum of money….although all is not as it seems.

The characters are really well-crafted and you find yourself rooting for some (Ava – the non-Instagram one- and Brandon were my favourites) and hating others.

The author’s conversational tone also pulls you in from the start and keeps you hooked, keen to find out what happens next.

I wasn’t aware initially that it was a reworking of the Labyrinth/Minotaur myth and was definitely getting some Hunger Games vibes at the start (with Linda as Effie) but the mythological element really enhanced the supernatural, unnerving atmosphere as the story progressed.

Gripping right to the end and highly recommended!

Received arc from Random House and Netgalley for honest read and review,this is my review only.
This is a bit like Hunger Games and has a real YA feel about it, the author has written YA novels, and I felt this was too similar in vein.I could not get into it and could not relate to any of the characters.

Hide is Kersten White's adult debut and I was ecstactic to receive this ARC! I loved And I Darken, but ended up not finishing the series because I was in the process of falling out of love with YA at the time, so this horror/thriller was way up in my list of most anticipated reads for 2022. And it didn't disappoint!

This new(ish) wave of social horror works really well for me, and Hide is no exception. It has the very cool setting of an abandoned amusement park, and it's about fourteen people competing for a prize on a potential reality show. I really liked how we got insight into every cahracter and, although with such a huge cast it's impossible to really get into each one very deeply, I never felt like they were treated superficially, not even the first ones to leave the contest. It feels to me that White's writing has matured a lot since the last book I read from her, and not only because she's writing adult fiction.

This made me stay up way too late, not only to finish the book but because it terrified me SO much, which does not happen often with books at all. I had a great time reading this and hope she will continue to write horror and thrillers!

A brilliant blend of horror that kept me hooked until the very last page. Crackles with voice and tension!

I love amusement parks and as a child, I enjoyed playing 'Hide and Seek' so the premise for 'Hide' by Kiersten White immediately caught my attention.
Our protoganist is one Mack (Mackenzie) who mysteriously is invited to participate in a Hide and Seek tournament with 13 other contestants. The prize for successfully hiding (surviving) for 7 days in the amusement park, without being found, is $50,000. Definitely a tempting offer!
Mack is homeless and currently residing at a shelter whenever receives her invite. We quickly learn that Mack has a tragic backstory, involving the death of her family. It is only when the tournament begins that a fellow contestant reveals the truth.
We learn very little about the other contestants at this early stage but that does not matter as they quickly disappear and the author has time to flesh out Mack, Ava, Brandon etc as the storyline progresses. There is a sense of Christie's 'And Then There Were None' as characters quickly die and the remaining group slowly realise that this tournament is far deadlier than they could have imagined.
I loved the supernatural element to the story and there are plenty of amusing moments due to the the snarky comments from the contestants (in particular Ava) and the description of Linda, the erm, host.
A highly enjoyable read and my only disappointment is that there was no epilogue as I wanted to learn what happens next for the winners.

Ok, this book started so well for me and I was instantly engrossed, the setting was super creepy, the characters were well varied (although I did keep picturing them all around the age of 20-24, which they weren’t) and the storyline was building nicely. Then for some reason it just stopped for me. It went in a direction I wasn’t expecting but one that sadly just felt a bit silly and off to me and it lost my attention a bit. It almost started to feel a bit cheesy. The ending was quite action packed and became a bit more exciting again.

I really really wanted to enjoy this, but unfortunately it just didn't live up to my expectations.

The overgrown abandoned amusement park is such a fantastic setting, and I liked the wide range of characters, but unfortunately I just didn't find myself caring about the characters, and found the pacing to be off which meant I could never quite get into it.

I think this book could have benefited from being slightly longer, and more fleshed out in terms of plot.

Content Warnings: violence, death, murder, death of family members, suicide, PTSD, lesbophobia, misogyny

Fourteen competitors. Seven days. A high stakes game of hide and seek in an abandoned theme park with a grand prize of $50,000 on the line. Mack, weighted down by her dark past, is offered the chance to join the competition as a last resort to make some money, but when the competition begins, it becomes clear that there is more than a simple game going on here.

I really liked this! It's a thriller with and supernatural twist and it was a good quick read. I found the story engaging and compelling, although part of me definitely wished the reveals had taken a bit longer to come out. Nonetheless, Kiersten White does a good job of building the tension and making the reader feel unnerved. As the reader, we are privy to the inner monologues of each of the fourteen participants. The way POVs rapidly shift helps maintain the fast-paced nature of the novel and gives it more of a thriller movie kinda feel as we bounce around our setting. This book felt pretty heavily character focused, but many of the characters did feel a little one-note to me. This feels understandable as there were so many characters and the book isn't super long, but I think fewer characters might have helped this. The characters we do get more development of, however, I really liked. Mack's personal journey throughout the book in particular was really great. Also, as a lesbian, the line "He's never been friends with a lesbian before. He doesn't think they have any in Idaho." made me snort.

Overall, definitely a worthwhile read, especially for thriller fans. Really fast paced and engaging story, and the concept is fantastic.

Thank you to NetGalley, Kiersten White, and the publisher for the ARC of Hide.