Wow I need more books like this. I love the gore and the grit of this one so much so that I want more. We follow Temple, whose father just happens to be a convicted serial killer. Que dramatic horror film music. Temple is trying to find the body of her mother, who she is convinced her father did not kill, even though he admitted to it. The search for her mother’s “body” leads her back to what was her families land and home. Also where her father buried his victims. Only issue is the land in part has been sold and is used as a queer camp for girls. Temple now has to disguise herself as a camp counselor in hopes of figuring out where her mother’s”body “ is. Temple and the campers are not prepared for what they find and what finds them, Girls are missing and being killed. Will anyone survive? Temple may be connected more to these than she realizes.

Omg I loved the way this story turn and turn and turned. I was both surprised and in love with it. Though I found at time I did get lost. I made sure to get back in line so I could be ready for who/what is in the forest. Sami I can’t wait to read what else you write.

I was excited by the premise of this book, but I found the reading experience ... confusing? Perhaps that balance of giving and holding back info from the reader wasn't quite struck, or perhaps I just didn't connect with the writing style. There was definitely something not working for me personally with the pacing though.

I'm not sure how to rate this for a teen audience as I sense they might be even more confused by the plot, but I do appreciate what the author is attempting do and the fantastic rep. Some good genre subversion too!

I loved the setting of the horror camp! It's definitely a place I would have loved to have gone, well without all the actual murder and stuff.
Temple is by her own admission unlikeable, and I think that it suits her just fine. She has been through some things that not many people would be able to connect with and it left her with a hard shell to keep others away.
She decides to attend the horror camp when her father admits that her mother's body is on that land. Land that belonged to Temple's family and where she grew up. She figures it's a way to be there and be able to snoop/ dig around without getting arrested or something. And let's just say it doesn't take long for things to start getting spooky, even before they find the body in the woods.
This story is dark and gritty, it took some crazy twists and turns that I didn't see coming and I loved all of it! It gave creepy/ haunted forest vibes as the bodies of her father's victims were found on the property... well most of them. And took me on a wild ride from start to finish. I will definitely be checking out anything else this author writes

Oh my god?! I had absolutely no idea what to expect but this blew me away and I am thoroughly emotionally exhausted because what a wild ride!

I loved the setting of this queer, horror-loving girls camp and this felt like a fun ode to classic horror films! I absolutely ate it up and I think most horror film buffs will too!

This made me want to read SE’s other work, and I can’t wait for more people to read this!

Slasher!
Queer!
Black!
Camp!

So many incredible things to say about Dead Girls Walking, but I think what sticks out most for me is just how much fun I had reading it. It gives so many of the slasher tropes set at a camp, yes, but it explores new areas as well. Sometimes some scenes read a little less straight-forward (kind of like a dream or Evil Dead or something along those lines) but you just have to go with it and trust in the payoff. Because the payoff is definitely there and totally worth it! I can't wait to see more from Sami Ellis in the future!

I found this one quite hard to get into due to there being SO many characters. I couldn’t keep up with who was who & the writing felt quite disjointed.

I enjoyed the old school horror vibes, the atmosphere was great but I had zero clue what was going on half the time.

An intriguing premise that just didn’t deliver.

Our main protagonist Temple Baker has a tragic background. She is the daughter of a murdered woman, and she knows who the killer is, because it happens to be her own father. What she doesn’t know is where he buried her mother’s remains. Other than it’s somewhere at a summer camp for gay young women who suddenly start turning up dead and may be victims of a copy cat killer. Yikes. So dark, so much trauma, it’s like being a camp councilor at Crystal Lake with Jason Vorhees on the loose! A fun, dark, scary read with plenty of action and lots of dramatic build up.

The premise of this is super tantalizing, as someone who loves slasher movies and has a very soft spot for the FRIDAY THE 13TH series. When you name drop that series in a promotional description, I'm going to pay attention. And while I get the comparison due to the camp setting, DEAD GIRLS WALKING reads a bit more like EVIL DEAD in some ways, and in other ways didn't quite live up to what I was hoping it would be. There are plenty of goods to address, however. I liked Temple as a main character, not because she' particularly likable but because I felt like she was very real in how she has put so much armor and vitriol up to protect her. because of her trauma and family history. I also really loved that Ellis has taken a historically very white and straight sub-genre (let's be real, slashers during their heyday were very much straight white kids getting butchered AND saving the day) and has tweaked it to be a story for queer Black girls in a way that works super well. But I did have some issues with all of the elements, as well as how the pacing felt uneven at times. Things would drag, then they would shift into high gear and go REALLY fast to the point that I was almost having a hard time keeping track of everything. I also would have liked a bit more exploration of the lore and the family histories.

I would definitely recommend this book to young adult horror fans who like splatter and slasher tales.

4.5 stars
What a wild ride!

Temple is the daughter of a serial killer, and she goes back to the farm where she grew up which is now a horror camp for queer, Black girls. Temple isn't there for camp; she's trying to find answers about her mom who disappeared 5 years ago.

This is such an intense story! Temple isn't very likable, but she grew up that way. The twist was an interesting take, and there were small bits of humor throughout. My only big complaint is how many characters there were, which made it hard to keep track of who was who for the first half. Horror is by far not my primary genre, but I really enjoyed this.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC! I wanted to like this book, I really did. But the storyline was confusing between all the flashbacks and the current story. The characters weren’t very likable or well-developed.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

This was haunting and really had a way of digging under your skin. I love horror but I'm not really rattled or scared by horror anymore. This however...truly unsettled me in the best way for a horror fan. It was so different and refreshing and a lot of that comes from the atmosphere Ellis weaves throughout the story. I think it takes the theme of generational trauma and flips it on its head in a refreshing way. There were some bits that were a little confusing and moments where I didn't feel some characters were as fleshed out as they could be, but overall, Dead Girls Walking is a riveting horror story unlike anything I've really read before. Will definitely be watching Sami Ellis with a close eye!

I’m the farthest thing from a being an authority on horror. I’ve watched maybe 3 scary movies in my life, but I have a general understanding of horror elements. For me, as a baby horror amateur, this story hit the mark. Dead Girls Walking is filled with murders, bloody scenes, eerie voices, weird sounds, possessed bodies, ghosts, and zombies.

Temple, the mc, is the daughter of an infamous serial killer. It’s said that her mom is one of his victims, and he even confesses to it, but she doesn’t believe him. He tells Temple where to find her mom’s remains, so she’s determined to go digging. Not to confirm his confession, but to prove that he’s lying. Especially since people have continued to die in the woods even though he’s behind bars. She suspects a copycat killer.

In order to return to her father’s hunting grounds to look for her mom’s body, she must pose as a camp counselor because the land she needs to search is now an overnight horror camp for queer girls. Temple’s initial mission turns into chaos as the threads of truth unravel; exposing the deranged and horrific history of Temple’s family. Temple soon realizes she dug up more than she bargained for as the past rears its ugly heads and wreaks havoc on the campers.

I was completely pulled in by the events of this story. There are so many revelations, twists, and turns. As I was reading, I kept being shocked by the author unveiling new information. There’s absolutely a lot going on in this book. For some, maybe too much. Could Sami have dialed some elements back? Yes, but everything together still made for an interesting and exciting story. When all the pieces came together and revealed the full picture, I was truly surprised. The final truth was not something I anticipated, so that’s automatically a win for the author in my eyes. It’s always fun when the author delivers the root of the mystery as something I didn’t guess.

I’m sooo excited to see more horror with Black mc’s. I’ll definitely be awaiting Sami’s next book!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced eARC.

This was an interesting read. The setup was a bit long, mostly because our mc was so antisocial that there wasn’t much room to explore any character other than her. Still, once it got started on the action, I was hooked.

This is a wonderful YA thriller that you will not want to put down. It has everything from suspense to action to mystery and more. I think if you are someone who finds themselves listening to true crime
Podcasts or watching the ID channel, then you’ll need to pick up this story.

I really thought it would like this one but I found it dragged. I was rolling my eyes at Temple’s ‘not like other girls’ nonsense and I found I had no idea what was going on for 80% of this. I’ve settled at 3 stars bc I skimmed a fair amount of it once I lost interest so seems a little unfair to rate any lower.

I am YELLING. I totally misunderstood what this book would be, I thought it was a general thriller with serial killers and was not expecting the supernatural elements (yes I am an idiot) so I got a big surprise part way through 😂

The book was a slower start but once the shit hit the fan it was so fast paced and impossible to put down!!

I'm in love with every character being a sapphic black woman, besides the family members of temple, and that we got to see fleshed out authentic personalities that grew along the way. I can already tell so many people are going to love this book and Temple!! Badass queer women fighting serial killers in the woods, what else could you want!!

Thanks for the opportunity to read and review this book. My review will be live on my blog on March 19, 2024. I'll also post my review to Goodreads and retail sites around the same time.

Review:
I am a huge horror fan - especially anything slasher or paranormal. I don't particularly enjoy body horror or gross-out scenes, so I often find myself drawn to YA horror because it tends to be less graphic. One of my favorite tropes is the tried and true campground slasher - teens cut off from the outside world fighting for their lives. It has been a favorite of mine since I was ten years old and first watched "Friday the 13th". Because of this, I'm always going to read a horror novel set at a camp, so that (and the amazingly creepy cover) is what drew me to this book when I saw it on NetGalley.

The story follows Temple Baker, a 16-year-old young woman whose father is The North Point Killer - a notorious serial killer who murdered and mutilated several people. He's been caught and is now in prison, having been charged with several murders, but the one murder that still haunts Temple is the death of her mother. Her body was never found, and many believe she may just be missing, but Temple's father told her himself that he killed her.

When a horror camp opens up on the outskirts of Temple's family's old farm, she does everything she can to ensure that she is selected as a camp counselor so that she can get to the camp and explore the land. The family farm is where all of the bodies were buried, and she is certain that this is where she will find her mother's body and finally close that chapter in the messed up book that is her life. But when she gets to camp, strange things start to happen. Temple can hear voices and strange knocking - all things her father used to warn her about. When someone winds up brutally murdered in a similar fashion to her father's murders, Temple fears there may be a copycat on the loose, and it's up to her to figure out what is going on before everyone at camp winds up dead.

Ellis does a fantastic job of creating a tense and atmospheric setting, and this is probably one of the strongest aspects of the book. I could easily picture the creepy woods, hear the sounds, and feel the energy. The overnight camp for queer, horror-obsessed girls serves as the perfect backdrop for an unconventional and intriguing mystery.

I liked Temple and understood why she was the way she was, and I really felt for her. Anyssa (the resident mean girl), Cali, a slasher-obsessed trans girl, and Yaya, a God-fearing lesbian, were some of my favorite characters, but I have to admit, the other characters all kind of blended together for me. Honestly, it felt as though many of them were just there to up the body count, which is fine, but I had zero emotional attachment to any of them.

While I thought the overall story was intriguing, and the addition of the paranormal element added a refreshing twist to the slasher trope, I felt that the plot was a bit convoluted. For about 80% of the book, I could not figure out WTF was going on. There's a subplot about a local author who ended up buying the land and wrote a book that many of the girls at camp are obsessed with that, for the longest time, felt unnecessary. It finally comes together at the end, and we figure out why the author and the book were important to the plot, but for the longest time, it seemed totally irrelevant. I feel like this could have either been fleshed out more or edited down. Also, the paranormal element - while fresh - felt like it was a little overdone. While the complex plot adds to the suspense and intrigue, it also detracts from the overall cohesiveness of the story. I also didn't really get why we needed the interview transcripts, forum chats, and other things that were thrown in. They really broke up the momentum, and none of them held anything super relevant to the overall progression of the story.

Overall, this is an intriguing novel with a pretty cool concept; I just wish the execution had been tighter. There are some good scares and some tense scenes, but the fact that I spent most of the novel feeling like I was missing something really ruined the overall enjoyment for me. In the end, I liked the resolution, but the journey to get there was very frustrating.

This very much reads like an ode to classic horror & I think what this book did really well was create a good horror atmosphere. Multiple times I felt anxiety as if I was watching a movie which I don’t experience all that much reading horror typically. It also reminded me of games like The Quarry/Until Dawn which was fun, & I liked the kind of witty ending there.

My gripes are that the writing felt discombobulating at times, I found the character/world-building to be a little confusing and nonsensical at times & it did take me out of the story often.

Overall, however, this was a fun time

This book shook me! It was gory, bloody, and will give you nightmares. I've not read a book in a long that time that kept me up at night. It is so well written you are transported into this horror filled nightmare and I absolutely loved it. Not for the faint of hart.

2.5 stars

I had no idea what was going on for 90% of this book. I don’t mean that in a fun twisty way; I mean I literally had no idea what was happening. The blurb for this promises the story of Temple, a queer, Black teenager, returning to the woods where her serial killer father hunted. The area has been rented by a horror-themed summer camp for queer girls, and Temple is masquerading as a camp counselor in an attempt to find out once and for all if her father murdered her mother years before. Of course, once bodies start piling up again Temple has to uncover if it’s a copycat or if there’s something truly evil about these woods.

I read a lot of horror and thrillers, and can appreciate an unreliable narrator or a book not giving me all of the background up front in order to allow an air of mystery to linger as I read and solve things myself. But this felt so much like it started in the middle that I was just confused for most of the book, and then when things got answered they weren’t always relevant enough to the main plot for me to understand why they were hidden before. And then some of my larger questions went unanswered altogether.

I still think the concept for this is really cool, and am interested in reading from the POV of a serial killer’s child who questions if they’ve inherited that evil, and loved the mixed media inclusions of prison interviews etc. Also a horror-themed queer summer camp sounds awesome and is the perfect setting for a horror book or movie. But I didn’t particularly like Temple, and while there were some bright spots early in the book and side characters I liked, I mostly felt unsatisfied by this book. Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.