A new series from YA author Lisa McMann, Cryer's Cross looked to be a promising horror/ghost story. And based on the popularity of her Wake trilogy, we had high hopes. We love a good scary novel and this one... well, there are some problems.
Cryer's Cross Montana is a small farming community where everyone knows each other. In fact, all of the teens attend a one-room high school. So when students go missing, it's very noticeable. Kendall, a senior who struggles daily to calm her OCD, begins to track small similarities between each disappearance. But when her boyfriend, Nico, becomes the next victim, Kendall looses focus and is soon questioning her own sanity. Messages mysteriously appear carved into her school desk, pleading whispers beg for help, and beckoning phantoms surround Kendall as she is drawn deeper into the secretive past of the town's history. Sounds great so far, doesn't it?
Kendall is a well developed character, the setting is appropriately creepy and mysterious, and the plot is engaging...and then the author dumped an illogical, sloppy explanation upon us. It actually felt like she had gotten tired of writing and decide to wrap it up and not well- at least this part of the story. Now perhaps our expectations were too high, but there are some really good horror stories out there with the same number of pages and great characters. Even more troubling, we can't decide if we want to read the next one or not. We like Kendall, but we don't want to get slapped with such a lazy ending. We're kinda frustrated with this one. You'll have to let us know how you feel about it.
Since this one was such a shorty, we had time to read a couple of others which we highly recommend: Graveminder- Melissa Marr and Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children- Ransom Riggs.
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