Ten (review)

Meg doesn't really understand why Jessica, the most popular girl in school, has included her in the invitations to spend a weekend at Jessica's Washington island home, but since Minnie, Meg's best friend wants her to go, she agrees, just as she always does. In fact, keeping Minnie happy has been Meg's project ever since Minnie was diagnosed as bipolar. As a result, Meg can't let her heart go where it wants to, since Minnie likes the same guy as Meg. Now they have even bigger problems, though, as the ten partiers are completely cut off from the mainland by a fierce storm and begin dying one by one. Is the first death really a suicide? Is the second an accident? Who will be the next to die, and what gruesome form will the death take? When Meg finds the journal of Claire, a girl who was bullied into suicide a year earlier, she begins to piece together what's happening; each person at the party had committed some wrong against the dead girl, at least from Claire's perspective. If Hannah from Thirteen Reasons Why (BCCB 11/07) had had a more murderous streak and a willing accomplice, then this would be that book, clear and simple, as each bully cleverly gets his or her just deserts. Instead, it's clear that Claire and her accomplice were at least part-time residents of crazytown, since some of the bullying she experienced was a result of her own overwrought imagination. This leaves a few characters, including Meg and thoroughly worthy heartthrob T. J., off the hook as guilty bullies and turns them into sympathetic victims, which is what teen horror stories of this type need to wring the maximum amount of gasps and nail-chewing out of readers. Don't expect any life lessons here, but don't expect to put it down once you've picked it up, either.