So what if Sadie hears talking dead animals and a strange, comforting male voice in her head? The therapist insists these are just symptoms of PTSD. It makes sense considering that she hid under the bed and watched as her best friends were slaughtered.
But the murders were seventeen years ago, back when her name was Sabrina. Now, she’s Sadie: a perfectly normal 29-year-old. She works as a physical therapist assistant and lifts weights with her boyfriend, Lucas, who’s the sweetest, most considerate man—as long as he’s not angry. But when Lucas spontaneously agrees to join a couples trip to a cabin in the woods, the visions get worse, a strange figure stalks her during the night, and that male voice in Sadie’s head keeps calling, asking her to do things she’s never fathomed.
Sadie’s not sure if it’s her paranoia or something else entirely . . . But she is sure of one thing—this time, she’s not going to sit idly by as everything starts to unravel.
I mentioned in earlier books that I love a good cult thriller or slasher, which is why I picked this up. For about 80 percent of the book, I was entertained and trying to guess what was going on. Sadie is well written and interesting, and her hallucinations are truly creepy and detailed. You also get flashbacks to camp, building to the killing, as Sadie struggles to fit in at summer camp while dealing with her two “friends,” who are more like bullies she tags along after (and omg I had that friend in middle school, I felt her pain). I was on edge trying to figure out if things were supernatural, the work of a cult, a bit of both….
And then came the ending. SPOILERS BELOW.
It was a cult and supernatural. Sadie, who has never had friends or felt like she belonged, is the seer of this cult, who loooove her and that she can talk to their demonic lord, who is the voice in her head. She kills her asshole boyfriend and the demon takes over his body and she and the demon date and hang with the cult. Her gross visions continue, but they’re actually images of the hellscape the demon lives in, and she now finds them comfy. The cult finds campers to feed to the demon, but on her orders, only look for mean people.
Seriously. She falls in love with the voice in her head (that she named Damon btw), sticks it in the meat suit of her boyfriend, and decides the blind adoration of a cult counts as friendship. After an ENTIRE BOOK of ALL OF THIS TERRORIZING HER. I can only assume Sadie is a sociopath.
