Book Review: Hide by Kiersten White

Hide
by Kiersten White (White)

Hide is a thriller/horror novel about a young woman in her late teens or early 20s who agrees to participate in a weeklong hide-or-seek game for a prize of $50,000. All fourteen contestants are put on a bus and their phones are confiscated while they’re sleeping. Sounds sketchy; is sketchy. When they arrive at the play area, it turns out to be an abandoned amusement park with a fence and watch towers around it.

 

If you’re getting Battle Royale or Squid Game vibes here, you aren’t far off. An extra twist is that the protagonist, Mack, survived her father killing the rest of her family by hiding in the house when she was a young girl. She has survivor’s guilt and doesn’t want to connect with anyone. Several of the other contestants, however, have great personalities that draw Mack out of her protective shell and give the reader more people to cheer for. This is a highly engaging read, first as the true nature of the contest is revealed and then as the dwindling number of contestants try to change up the game.

 

Kiersten White is a well-established young adult writer. Hide is her adult debut, or at least that’s how it’s being sold. This is one of those books that could easily pass as upper young adult or lower adult. Either way, it has a wonderful map of the amusement park in the end papers and it’s the same map in front and back so readers borrowing library copies can flip back and forth to see the whole map. Such thoughtful design!

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Battle Royale by Koushun Takami or The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.)

 

( publisher’s official page for Hide ) | ( official Kiersten White web site )

 

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!