Review: Solitary - Travis Thrasher

Review: Solitary - Book #1 Solitary Tales - Travis Thrasher - August 2010

I picked this one up expecting a cozy, creepy little YA read to curl up with, and what I got instead was... something else entirely. Something I'm still turning over in my head, if I'm being honest.

Chris Buckley moves to the small town of Solitary, North Carolina, right in the messy aftermath of his parents' divorce to a new school, new house, that particular kind of loneliness that comes from starting over somewhere nobody knows your name. It's a setup that feels instantly familiar and warm, like settling into a worn armchair. You root for Chris immediately. He's just a kid trying to find his footing.

Then Jocelyn Evans walks in, and the book shifts into something stranger. She's beautiful, guarded, impossible to read ,  the kind of girl who pulls you in precisely because she keeps pushing you away. And Chris, sweet and a little lost, falls for her anyway. Underneath the small-town charm, though, something darker is stirring. His mother's nightmares. The bullies at school. A town that feels like it's hiding something in its bones.

Here's where I have to be honest with you: I finished this book and I genuinely could not tell you what happened. Not in a "it was so subtle and layered" way  more in a "wait, what did I just read?" way. It's a Christian YA horror, which is its own unusual blend, and somewhere between the divorce drama and the supernatural dread, I lost the thread completely. I kept turning pages, though. That's the strange magic of it , it was addictive even while it confused me. I wanted to know what was going on, even as I had no idea what was going on.

So I'm landing on a solid, borderline 3 out of 5. Not because it wasn't compelling ,it clearly was, since I devoured it but because I closed the back cover feeling more disoriented than satisfied. If you love a read that's moody, a little eerie, and willing to leave you scratching your head, curl up with this one. Just don't expect me to explain the ending to you, because I'm still trying to explain it to myself.

Amazon - https://amzn.to/4yuDALQ