Since the underground caverns are the only place in her town of East Independence, Ohio, where she doesn’t experience hallucinations, 16-year-old Neely takes a job there as a tour guide. There, she meets Mila, a leggy, confident college kid who leads the cavern tour groups. As Neely seeks peace away from her hereditary mental illness and her brother’s haunting suicide, she is drawn to Mila’s kindness, and the two grow closer, eventually buddying up at the staff party—which, between the weed and the alcohol, Neely doesn’t reliably remember anything about. When she and the other tour guides find Mila murdered in the caverns, Neely’s mind breaks. If Neely can figure out who killed Mila, maybe she can get her hallucinations back under control. Assuming, of course, that Neely isn’t the killer.
Award-winning author Mindy McGinnis’ Under This Red Rock is a gritty, brutal young adult novel that blurs the line between broken imagination and reality.
Readers should be prepared for serious themes, including blunt descriptions of suicide, physical and sexual assault, and animal abuse. Those who prefer their psychological thrillers with a raw edge will find McGinnis’s slow-burn plot and fast-paced writing more than satisfactory. Explorations of drug use, the darker side of Internet culture, and how society abandons poorer folks to struggle alone ground a story that could otherwise feel fantastical firmly in reality. Neely’s position as an unreliable narrator will keep readers guessing, leading to several stomach-dropping twists and an ultimately satisfying conclusion.
Disturbing yet compelling, Under This Red Rock is a must-read for readers of unflinching teen thrillers. Fans of Courtney Summers and Tiffany D. Jackson should pick this one up.
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