Stephanie Kuehn, We Weren’t Looking to Be Found Each of the characters is complex, beginning as someone you love to hate and slowly morphing into the kind of characters you can root for (or at least, hope for a quick death). In order to escape for good, Benji must embrace his terrible new powers in a perfect metaphor for coming-of-age that is also a disgusting pile of blood and viscera (and I mean that in the best possible way).Īnd Then There Were None meets Fire Fest as 10 social media influencers find themselves trapped in a deadly vacation nightmare in which someone is determined to expose their misdeeds-and make each of them pay. He’d love to just be happy with his new friends, but his old community is in hot pursuit-they’ve injected him with a transformative virus that gives him control over the many monsters created by a deadly plague, and they’re not about to let him go. In White’s debut, trans boy Benji is on the run from his fundamentalist mother and her apocalyptic cult when he finds shelter with the kind denizens of a LGBTQ Center, and budding romance with the mysterious and deadly Nick. The weather is hot, the campers are scared, the townspeople are resentful, and the lake is as creepy as… all other lakes.īody horror meets apocalypse noir meets queer love story in Andrew Joseph White’s viscera-filled YA novel, Hell Followed With Us, perfect for those who appreciated Manhunt earlier this year but wished it came with more intestines. Goldie, Ava, and Imogen are psyched they’re finally going to be counselors, but when one of their cohort turns up dead, it’s the signal to start digging into everyone’s secrets. Now, I am way more a fan of a good summer camp slasher than I ever was of actual summer camp, and Jessica Goodman’s The Counselors delivers on all its promises of summer thrills. Check out part one of this list, which ran back in January.

The counselor jessica goodman