Little Monsters by Kara Thomas (Out Today)

Posted July 25, 2017 by shooting in Book Review / 18 Comments

Health update: Thanks for all the well wishes. I do appreciate it! I’m definitely on the road to recovery. One of my incisions is a bit bigger than originally planned; I guess I had way more gall stones than they even realized. At any rate, I’m resting a lot – but I’m also trying to move around as much as I can too of course!

Little Monsters by Kara Thomas

Review by Lauren

source: copy from ALA 17; all opinions are my own

Official Summary (add on Goodreads): Kacey is the new girl in Broken Falls. When she moved in with her father, she stepped into a brand-new life. A life with a stepbrother, a stepmother, and strangest of all, an adoring younger half sister.

Kacey’s new life is eerily charming compared with the wild highs and lows of the old one she lived with her volatile mother. And everyone is so nice in Broken Falls—she’s even been welcomed into a tight new circle of friends. Bailey and Jade invite her to do everything with them.

Which is why it’s so odd when they start acting distant. And when they don’t invite her to the biggest party of the year, it doesn’t exactly feel like an accident.

But Kacey will never be able to ask, because Bailey never makes it home from that party. Suddenly, Broken Falls doesn’t seem so welcoming after all—especially once everyone starts looking to the new girl for answers.

Kacey is about to learn some very important lessons: Sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Sometimes when you’re the new girl, you shouldn’t trust anyone.

Review: There is something about teen girls that can easily terrify an audience, whether in a movie theater or through a book. That is certainly the case in Little Monsters. I loved Kara Thomas’ debut, The Darkest Corners, so I was very excited to get the chance to read and review her second novel. It’s difficult to say which book I liked better, not that it matters, but it does show that Thomas is extremely talented at writing suspenseful novels with great mysteries.

In Little Monsters, Kacey befriends two girls named Bailey and Jade when she moves to a new town to stay with her dad, stepmother, and two step siblings. The three seem fairly inseparable, until Bailey starts to act weird around Kacey and leaves her out of a party. Normally the two would eventually patch thing up, except Bailey leaves the party that night and never makes it home. Jade is consumed with guilt having let Bailey leave on her own, and Kacey is desperate to figure out what happened to Bailey and if her recent strange behavior has anything to do with her disappearance.

Kara Thomas is now on my must-read list; her latest, Little Monsters, is out now. #bookreview #ontheblog Share on X

The book is told in Kacey’s point of view, but eventually there are journal entries from Bailey which definitely add to the story. It lets you into the head of the missing girl, before she disappeared, making readers wonder even more what happened to her that night. There is a local legend about the Leeds family and how the mother still roams around in a bloody nightgown. This story seems wrapped up in Bailey’s disappearance somehow, even though Kacey rationally knows that the Leeds ghost can’t really be true or at least not involved in this possible crime.

Little Monsters is a book that kept me on my toes. I was always desperate to get back to the book when I had to put it down, because I needed to know what was going on. Bailey had always been a bit of an odd friend, so I wasn’t sure how much of her disappearance was real or an act to get back at someone. It seemed possible that Bailey would do something like that, but neither Kacey or Jade (her two best friends) have any idea of what’s going on. I loved the addition of Kacey’s family and how she fits into their house, being the new girl there as well. She’s not sure if she belongs, or if she can even trust everyone. It just adds another layer to the mystery of Little Monsters.

Read Kara Thomas now!! Little Monsters is out today.

18 responses to “Little Monsters by Kara Thomas (Out Today)

  1. I am even more excited for this book. Great review! I also loved The Darkest Corners, and knew I wanted to read this as soon as I heard about it. I don’t read a ton of thrillers, but I have been reading some really good ones lately, and this sounds great. I am glad to hear you are on the mend. Happy Healing!

  2. Mia

    So glad that you are recuperating well. 🙂 This book sounds like a must-read! I love stories like these because I like to be kept on my toes. 🙂

  3. I’m so glad to hear you’re on the mend. I hope you’ll be as good as new soon.

    I’m thrilled to hear how much you enjoyed Little Monsters. I read an excerpt of it a few months ago and immediately wanted to read the rest of it. I need to pick up a copy soon. Great review!

  4. I love YA books. Is this one a clean read? Little to no swearing, no sexually explicit scenes, etc. I’d love to know. Thanks!

    • shooting

      I’d say there is more thrills than anything like cussing/sex. So it might be more scary than anything else!

  5. I love a good book that you just can’t put down! I’m a sucker for books about teens too. Glad to hear you’re on the road to recovery too 🙂

  6. This sounds awesome, so glad you loved it! For some reason your feeds haven’t been showing up in my Bloglovin stuff. I checked and I’m still following you so I wonder what is up? So sorry! I will try to unfollow and then follow again, maybe that will trigger them back in there again.

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