Where is Drea?

PLOT SUMMARY:

Something bad happened here.

When Case arrives at a run-down, ivy-covered house tucked deep in the West Texas woods, an ashy haze lingers in the air and the sky is tissue-paper pink. Her best friend Drea has been living here with a few classmates Case has never met, and Drea asked her to visit in a letter dated two weeks ago.

But now Drea is nowhere to be found.

Drea’s roommates can’t—or won’t—answer questions, leaving Case to search alone. She finds bits of Drea’s journal hidden in the tiles of the bathroom wall, in a beat-up cooler by the muddy river, wedged into the frame of her closet door. As Case pieces together Drea’s life in this strange house, the roommates’ behavior puts her increasingly on edge—and she’s not the only one. The animals nearby are lashing out, attacking each other, threatening the humans.

Something bad happened in this house. Something that must be connected to Drea’s disappearance. And if she gets too close to the truth, Case just might be next.

GRADE: C

REVIEW:

I was truly anticipating reading this book because I absolutely adored Tigers, Not Daughters so much. Unfortunately, my reading experience with Clever Creatures of the Night wasn’t that good. It did start off promising – Case goes to visit her friend Drea only to find out that she’s not there. Did she go missing? Are her roommates responsible for her absence? The issue is that the book takes place during the course of one day. There’s only so much Case can do to find her friend in a place where they’re located in the middle of nowhere and there’s no cell signal. Initially, the mystery of what happened to her friend had me really invested. The problem is that this book has so much promise and truly could’ve been something amazing, instead we get a really underwhelming reason as to why Drea’s not around. The writing is beautiful, but for a book that was very short (around two hundred pages) it felt impossibly long.

The supporting characters needed to be more interesting to keep this book going for how long it did. Instead, they were rather dull and one-dimensional. This was such a letdown after reading Tigers, Not Daughters.

This book is good for readers who like slow-burn mysteries and literary thrillers. I wouldn’t even call this horror.

*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Algonquin Young Readers for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

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