The Bad Ones by. Melissa Albert | ARC Review – Past Midnight Book Reviews & More

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Title: The Bad Ones

Author: Melissa Albert

Format: eBook (NetGalley)

Pages: 400

Publication Date: 2/20/24

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Categories: Young Adult, Horror, Suspense, Contemporary, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Mystery

Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

Thank you to Flatiron Books for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Goddess, goddess, count to five
In the morning, who’s alive?

In the course of a single winter’s night, four people vanish without a trace across a small town.

Nora’s estranged best friend, Becca, is one of the lost. As Nora tries to untangle the truth of Becca’s disappearance, she discovers a darkness in her town’s past, as well as a string of coded messages Becca left for her to unravel. These clues lead Nora to a piece of local folklore: a legendary goddess of forgotten origins who played a role in Nora and Becca’s own childhood games…

An arresting, crossover horror fantasy threaded with dark magic, THE BAD ONES is a poison-pen love letter to semi-toxic best friendship, the occult power of childhood play and artistic creation, and the razor-thin line between make-believe and belief.

Content Warning: semi-toxic friendship, missing people, grooming, death of a parent, death

+ What interested me in reading this book was this line “the occult power of childhood play and artistic creation, and the razor-thin line between make-believe and belief” because as a kid in the 80’s, all we did was make-believe play but I remember also when we played with Ouija boards and wanted to find ghosts or spirits or was fascinated with ghost stories. So in many instances does this book speak to my childhood and young adult self. It reminded me of kids yelling “bloody mary”, or singing that rhyme from Freddy Kruger movies “one two, Freddy’s coming for you…” that stuff freaked me out as a kid so I wanted to see if this book would give me that same creepy feeling.

+ Four people go missing, one of them is Nora’s best friend, Becca. Becca has had a hard life with her parents dying and her being all alone except for Nora. But their friendship changes along the way and becomes a bit toxic when they start playing the goddess game. The Goddess Game is something born of an urban legend at their high school, there is a story, but people have different versions of it. I loved how Becca and Nora was so creative and created their kingdom and made more goddesses!

+ The writing really is immersive and made me want to keep reading to find out what happened to these missing people and what happened to Nora and Becca. Also something was happening to Nora and I just needed answers. I felt like the author really captures their semi-toxic friendship though, and their emotional journeys with one another.

~ I kept reading because the writing is wonderful but it started to drag. I didn’t feel like we were getting much details about the disappearances. I also felt like the big reveal was a disappointment which is a bummer. The story kind of glosses over why three of the people disappeared and I guess I wanted more details. Then ending feels rushed.

My Thoughts:

The book started off strong but the ending to me was rushed which is a bit disappointing. I did like all the themes in the story about grief, toxic friendship, childhood stories turning into maybe something real, and urban legends that start from a story that takes on a life of its own. I just wish it ended as strong as the beginning but I was left wanting more.