Notes from the Shelf

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The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek by Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal is a 336-page horror/mystery novel. Here is the book blurb:

It’s 1992 in Bleak Creek, North Carolina—a sleepy little place with all the trappings of an ordinary Southern town: two Baptist churches, friendly smiles coupled with silent judgments, and an unquenchable appetite for pork products. Beneath the town’s cheerful façade, however, Bleak Creek teens live in constant fear of being sent to the Whitewood School, a local reformatory with a history of putting unruly youths back on the straight and narrow—a record so impeccable that almost everyone is willing to ignore the suspicious deaths that have occurred there over the past decade.

At first, high school freshmen Rex McClendon and Leif Nelson believe what they’ve been told: that the students’ strange demises were all just tragic accidents, the unfortunate consequence of succumbing to vices like Marlboro Lights and Nirvana. But when the shoot for their low-budget horror masterpiece, PolterDog, goes horribly awry—and their best friend, Alicia Boykins, is sent to Whitewood as punishment—Rex and Leif are forced to question everything they know about their unassuming hometown and its cherished school for delinquents.

Eager to rescue their friend, Rex and Leif pair up with recent NYU film school graduate Janine Blitstein to begin piecing together the unsettling truth of the school and its mysterious founder, Wayne Whitewood. What they find will leave them battling an evil beyond their wildest imaginations—one that will shake Bleak Creek to its core.

I was not expecting this book to be as dark as it was, but I loved it. I do watch Good Mythical Morning, which the authors of this book host, so I think I enjoyed it more because I’m familiar with them. If you don’t know them or their style of humor, you might not like it as much.

The atmosphere was perfect, so eerie and creepy with the small-town vibe and the mystery of what’s happening to the students. It was very easy to get sucked into the story and was a fast read. The supernatural element was a surprise, and it reminded me of The Honeys. I’m not sure it was needed for the story, but it was fun that it got a bit weird.

I would say that the writing at times was YA and then at other times seemed to be more adult-oriented, so the writing didn’t feel very cohesive. It is marketed as a YA, but some places seemed to be written more for adults. But then at the same time, I kept forgetting that they were in high school, some of the writing made me think they were in middle school.

Overall, I give The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek 4 stars.

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