Holly Jackson
Five Survive

For spring break, six friends from Philadelphia, all in their late high school and early college years, set off on an RV vacation bound for Alabama.

Red Kenny, the protagonist, is a good girl traumatized by the murder of her police officer mother five years ago. Maddy Lavoy is her best friend. Oliver, Maddy’s brother, is the classic overachiever with bossy manners, constantly bragging about how their mother, a district attorney, is about to bust a major mafia figure. Reyna, Oliver’s girlfriend, is at the wheel of the RV. Simon, the group’s clown and an aspiring actor, borrowed (without asking) the RV from his uncle, a small-time conman. Finally, there’s Arthur, the newest addition to the group; he doesn’t attend their school but plays basketball with Simon and seems to have a crush on Red.

As they’re driving through a wooded area at night, a sniper shoots out their tires and communicates with them via walkie-talkie. He says that one of them is hiding a secret: if it’s revealed before dawn, the other five will survive.

After the dazzling debut with the Come Uccidono Le Brave Ragazze trilogy, Holly Jackson moves from her native England to the more popular USA. The characterization of the characters may remind you of the ‘90s-2000s thrillers in the vein of Scream (So Cosa Hai Fatto, Urban Legends, Cherry Falls…), but the climax isn’t quite so clever and surprising, settling instead for the standards of an average TV episode of Law & Order, Criminal Minds, and so on. The ending isn’t unsatisfying, but to get there, you have to sit through a drawn-out middle section.
Enjoyable, but not memorable.