Back in September, the town of Bakersville, Ohio, made national news when a video went viral featuring 13 of the high school’s elite in compromising positions. Now it’s May, and every month since the “Bakersville Dozen” made their infamous appearance on the national stage, one girl has gone missing. Officials are no closer to identifying the criminal.
Bailey “Like a Virgin” Holzman is getting really fed up with the scrutiny. She just wants to enjoy the rest of her senior year and have an epic summer before heading off to college. So when she discovers a note in her locker on the last day of school inviting her on a scavenger hunt, she thinks it’s just a sweet surprise from her boyfriend trying to cheer her up.
But following the clue leads her, instead, to the first official casualty. And another sinister envelope. The killer is close, and it could be anyone. Even the people Bailey’s always trusted most—her best friend, her perfect boyfriend, or the boy-next door she’s always pined for.
With the clock ticking, she faces a terrifying choice: play the game by the killer’s rules—follow the clues, tell no one, and no cops—for a chance to save the rest of the missing girls, or risk becoming the next grisly victim.
Big thanks to Sky Pony Press for sending me a copy of this book to review! Of course, this has no effect on my rating.
The GoodI’m always eager to read a young adult thriller, because anything that takes place in a high school gives me Scream and other classic slasher vibes. Between the viral video, settings like the local pizza shop, and every male character calling each other “bro,” The Bakersville Dozen definitely tried to go for the modern-yet-classic thriller feel.
The BadThat being said, this was no Scream—not even the latest TV show version. The dialogue felt very contrived; it was like I could see people saying the things the characters were saying, but not feel them or really believe that the characters weren’t cardboard cutouts pretending to be people.
Maybe the writing in general wasn’t for me, but I also couldn’t get behind the way the story unfolded. We were dropped into it several months after the video was released, so instead of feeling any anger, embarrassment or other emotion from Bailey, we were in her “I don’t give a f*ck, I just wanna be a real teenager” mindset. Like, ok, I get it—I’d be tired of being part of that spotlight, too. But girls from the video are going missing, and all she can think about is how annoying her parents are for wanting to protect her?
I wanted to believe it was because Bailey was going to be a strong, independent woman determined to kick ass and take names, but unfortunately she couldn’t exactly do that while turning into jelly over both her boyfriend and crush every other page. If I have to read another line about the main character needing to step away from a boy because the heat or scent of his body brought back too many memories from the past, I will throw up. ON THE SPOT. The love triangle was definitely too much when dead bodies were cropping up everywhere.
I was also disappointed that, because the video was slut shaming at its finest, more aspects about that and misogyny weren’t discussed. Bailey and her best friend watched the video tons of times to try to gather more clues about who created it, yet neither of them even seemed remotely disgusted by the nicknames or anything. Bailey even kept calling the girls by their names and nicknames, which I guess was supposed to help us remember who was who, but it was super off-putting to have a female character keep reiterating them.
The VerdictThe synopsis online mentions that if you are a fan of Gone Girl, Pretty Little Liars, or Stephen King, you’ll like this book. As a fan of two of those things, I actually laughed out loud at the comparison. (Which is why I didn’t include it above in italics.) The Bakersville Dozen was a quick, fast-paced read, and I’m glad I read it with fall approaching, because I’m a firm believer that fall is serial killer weather. But I’d really only recommend this book to readers who aren’t huge thriller fans, or want to casually test the waters before reading something that will actually freak them out.
Rating: ★★
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