Book Review: The Creeping

The Creeping

By: Alexandra Sirowy

Published by: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers

Release date: August 18, 2015

Genre: YA thriller

400 pages

Buy it at Amazon, IndieBound, Book Depository, or Barnes & Noble

Source: ARC kindly provided by publisher

Go ahead- take a moment to admire that cover. That crawly feeling that it evokes will follow you into the pages inside.

The only reason this book didn't get a full 5 rating from me is that Zoe, Stella's oldest and dearest friend, is the kind of girl who I find hard to like. She's bossy, she over-values popularity, and she has a habit of using words to shock and hurt people. If she had been the main character, I probably wouldn't have finished the book. Stella's love for her, born mostly out of appreciation for her loyalty, makes her easier to bear.


If you can handle Zoe, you will love this love this aptly-named creepy novel. It's a great one to read late into the night, when most of the world is sleeping and you can hear the little noises that usually get filtered in the bustle of daylight hours. It has monsters and legends. It has a sweet, cute love interest. It has friendships that endure more than they should be able to. It has a main character who faces the beast, and lives.

The setting is a star feature for this book. The woods that run throughout town are practically a character, they play such a big part in the story's development. They were once the favorite place to play for this group of friends. They now harbor something dark and dangerous.

Stella is a great main character, in that she is empathetic with an interestingly diverse group of friends. She understands all of their quirks, connecting them with quirks of her own. Her relationships feel familiar. Even the take-your-breath-away moments of a growing romance will take you back to your own first *real* kiss.

Sirowy does a great job of making the reader question who Stella can trust, and what exactly is the source of all the evil in town. The chase to the conclusion is a fun one, and the story's lines are all tied up neatly. This mystery is satisfying, and the creeptastic mood lingers for days.

Summary:

Twelve years ago Stella and Jeanie vanished while picking strawberries. Stella returned minutes later, with no memory of what happened. Jeanie was never seen or heard from again.

Now Stella is seventeen, and she's over it. She's the lucky one who survived, and sure, the case is still cloaked in mystery—and it's her small town's ugly legacy—but Stella is focused on the coming summer. She's got a great best friend, a hookup with an irresistibly crooked smile, and two months of beach days stretching out before her.

Then along comes a corpse, a little girl who washes up in an ancient cemetery after a mudslide, and who has red hair just like Jeanie did. Suddenly memories of that haunting day begin to return, and when Stella discovers that other red-headed girls have gone missing as well, she begins to suspect that something sinister is at work.

And before the summer ends, Stella will learn the hard way that if you hunt for monsters, you will find them.