The Violent Season by Sara Walters

I'm honestly shocked that this has such low ratings because I fucking loved 90% of it. THE VIOLENT SEASON kind of reminded me of a YA version of Amy Engel's THE FAMILIAR DARK: it's set in a small dead-end town in rural Vermont that has an inordinate amount of deaths given the small population size. The heroine, Wyatt, has noticed-- like a lot of people-- that the death count rises every November. Some people think that the town of Wolf Ridge is cursed with a sickness that drives people to commit murder seasonally. After her own mother joins the death count, Wyatt becomes haunted by and obsessed with finding out her town's dark secret.

This story went in a lot of different directions and I was never really fully sure until the end whether this was going to be a slasher horror or a paranormal/occult horror. The lyrical writing and heavy angst were what sucked me into the story. You can really feel Wyatt's claustrophobia and desolation at being trapped in this potentially murderous town, and her volatile and combustive relationship with her bad boy not-quite-boyfriend would have had a teen me obsessed.

That's actually one thing I really enjoyed about this book: even though there's a love triangle, I could see the appeal of both leads (and usually I only like one). Wyatt's relationship to the other people in this book were also really well done: I liked her relationship with her dad, with her friend Quinn, and with the mean girls in her classroom (whose ringleader also mysteriously died). Did I end the book with some unanswered questions and a twist in mind that I would have liked slightly more? Yeah. But I think it was a really good horror/thriller done in an angsty and poignant tone that is hard to get right without sounding too melodramatic or whiny (this was neither), so I think that people should give this book a chance despite the shockingly low average rating, especially if they like Amy Engel's work and Scream.

4 to 4.5 out of 5 stars