Review: Bad Creek

Bad Creek by Peyton June
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Narrated by Michael Crouch, Suzy Jackson, Nick Mills
Presented by RB Media

I didn't mind this, though the narrator for Gum was not my fave.

Three inseparable teens return to their regular summer haunt, but things aren't the same since last summer, when their fourth member drowned. There are secrets and mixed feelings and super weird things happening.

This jumps straight into eerie supernatural happenings, and it doesn't shy from that which I quite enjoyed. It commits to the horror and it gives the story a nice solid feel.

I don't know that I ever really liked any of the characters - they all have stubborn and/or naive ways of looking at everything and it does get a little tiresome after a while.

I did also tune out a few times, especially during Gum's chapters because the narration bothered me.

I enjoyed the narration from the other two, but Gum just delivered everything in the same stressed tone. Like everything was concerning, but then when action was happening it was the same rather than more exciting. I don't know if that makes sense but my point is that it all sounded the same, making it hard to appreciate the more exciting events his chapters told.

The other two narrators gave enough inflection to give the story character, so I found those much easier to listen to and follow.

I enjoyed the mystery, but probably tuned out a few too many things to properly put the puzzles together myself. I liked the way things came together, and I'm glad that it stuck with its supernatural themes because they were interesting and creepy.

All in all, this was a fun YA horror story. I think I'd have got more out of it with a physical read, but listening was good fun and still sufficiently disturbing.

With thanks to NetGalley for an audio ARC

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