This book is packed with adventure.
Teen drama.
Lots of scary dolls!

There is some language.
A coming out moment.
Declaration of love.

This is a fast paced book and very character driven.
The band of survivors must work together, each with their own personalities.
the book goes thru each of their perspectives to bring the story along. ( )

Interesting story that is well told. The repetitive use of foul language got annoying but as it is told from teen's point of view, it is understandable. ( )

The book started off to be really interesting and that was before they ever went on the field trip. These are kids that diffidently needed some discipline. Their language was atrocious. They each had secrets that they didn't want reveled. Boulder House, being a lot more than mere bricks and stone...senses this and the trouble begins. The things that happened on the trip through the house didn't make much sense nor did I ever really learn what made the house evil to begin with. It doesn't offer much to adults but I suppose if I was 15 years old...I might be scared. ( )

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book or my review itself.

Boulder House is a house of legends and secrets, beginning with its original owner, who may have spread a curse, and continuing with the whispers that surround it to this day. When a local high school organizes a field trip to the site, five very different teens find themselves pitted against evils far deeper and darker than they could have imagined.

I loved the premise--I love creepy reads, haunted houses, and mysterious legends. This book had pretty constant suspense and horror, which is what kept me turning pages.

Unfortunately, I didn't like essentially everything else. I understand that one of the points of the book is the seemingly-cliched characters' secrets being spilled and their true selves being revealed, but the cliches are just so cliched, and the secrets and"true selves" also just so cliched, as to provoke eye rolls. As these characters are so completely the center of the story, it was something I couldn't get past.

This book has been described as "equal parts Cabin in the Woods and The Breakfast Club", but to me at least, it is missing both the meta cleverness of the first and the smashing of stereotypes of the latter. The only thing that kept me turning pages (besides that I was reading it for a few challenges) was that it is truly scary. This book had such a clever premise, but sadly the execution fell far short. ( )

Plenty of legends surround the infamous Boulder House in Whispering Bluffs, Wisconsin, but nobody takes them seriously. Certainly nobody believes that the original owner, Maxwell Cartwright Jr., cursed its construction, or that a murder of crows died upon its completion, turning the land black with their carcasses. If there were truth to any of the local folklore, River Red High wouldn't offer a field trip there for the graduating class. Five very different seniors- Violet, Paul, Ashley, Dylan, and Gretchen volunteer, each for private reasons, none of which have to do with trip itself. When they're separated from the group, they discover that what lies within Boulder House is far more horrifying than any rumor they've heard. To survive, they'll have to band together and ultimately confront the truths of their darkest selves. ( )