This was a really fun, pacey YA horror with grown-up Point Horror vibes as Kathryn Foxfield pointed out in her quote on the back of the book. What I found particularly interesting about Last One to Die is that it reads as a realistic slasher up right until the last couple of chapters and then – SPOILER ALERT! – it turns a corner into supernatural horror for the big reveal. I say spoiler alert but actually Kat Ellis’ quote on the back, ‘a supernatural horror-fest’, sort of gives away that twist. This is what sets it apart from Point Horror stories, for me, as those are always based in reality.
The story is told primarily through Sara’s ‘witness statement’ which reads as a linear first person, present tense narrative. She relates the events that took place in the woods when she and her friends attempted to find and rescue her sister from local ghost Lucy Gallows, but that narrative is framed by a present-day paranormal investigation trying to piece together what really happened that night. Sara’s statement is interspersed with audio transcripts, text message conversations, news articles and emails that fill the gaps in Sara’s own memory and reveal the truth about Lucy Gallows’ game. Sara is an often unreliable narrator and the reader discovers information she doesn’t have, making them active participants in the story and increasing the dramatic tension as events come to a head.

I know it’s easy for me to sit here shouting ‘Read analytically! Take notes! Annotate!’ but that’s not very helpful without practical, actionable advice to go along with it. How do you annotate? What’s the best way to record what you’re reading? So, friends, I’m going to take you through my Evernote system. Lucky you!…

What if you don’t have the time or inclination to pull apart every book you read in this much detail and just want to enjoy the story? That’s completely fine – it’s important to read for pleasure and sometimes you need to turn off your craft radar and let yourself sink in to the story and experience it as a reader.

I really enjoyed Rules for Vanishing and it reminded me how much I love epistolary novels! Including additional content like newspaper clippings, video footage and police interviews can work really well in books for young readers: it breaks up the main narrative and increases the white space, meaning the story feels a little less dense and intimidating, plus it encourages readers to speed through the pages more quickly because each section is so short and easy to digest.

The story is told primarily through Sara’s ‘witness statement’ which reads as a linear first person, present tense narrative. She relates the events that took place in the woods when she and her friends attempted to find and rescue her sister from local ghost Lucy Gallows, but that narrative is framed by a present-day paranormal investigation trying to piece together what really happened that night. Sara’s statement is interspersed with audio transcripts, text message conversations, news articles and emails that fill the gaps in Sara’s own memory and reveal the truth about Lucy Gallows’ game. Sara is an often unreliable narrator and the reader discovers information she doesn’t have, making them active participants in the story and increasing the dramatic tension as events come to a head.

There are loads of places to find genre-specific middle grade and YA recommendations but if you’re new to the kidlit space or you just want to read a few good books and don’t care about the genre or subject matter, here are a few of my favourite resources to start you off. Remember this post is being published in January 2022 so if you’re reading this far in the future (I bow to our new alien overlords) be sure to check these websites for more up-to-date lists.

How well do you know the current market? I often work with authors who haven’t read a children’s book since their own childhood and can’t name a middle grade or YA novel published in the last twenty years. That’s understandable – most adults don’t read children’s books anymore! But my number one rule around here is…