Content warnings: Addiction, violence, transphobia

In this cabin-in-the-woods thriller, five friends reunite to play one last session of an RPG. Things take a turn for the worst as one of them goes missing and their game's story beats turn deadly and real life.

There are 5 POVs: Finn (trans rep), Ever (nonbinary rep), Maddy (autistic rep), Liva, and Carter. Everyone has their secrets, and Nijkamp does a great job weaving the details of their RPG with letting the reader in, while also ramping up the tension. The problems these teens face feel more realistic than some of the trials I've read about in the back story portion of these thrillers. Two of them have to deal with being queer in high school, one has excessive pressure to succeed, another has to support their family. It's very thoughtfully handled and presented, especially the darker aspects.

One of the delights that made this read almost-cute were two things:

1) The friends-to-lovers romance
2) The RPG itself

Gonfalon works really well as the string keeping the friends together both narratively and metaphorically. I thought it would be just a gimmick to get everyone in the same place, so I was pleasantly surprised that it threaded all the way to the end. There were interludes told from the point of view of a GM as well which worked as a meta-narrative.

Even If We Break reminded me a lot of the game Until Dawn, but with no supernatural elements. If that's your thing, please give it a read when it hits shelves on 9/15/2020.

While I have enjoyed books similar to this in plot, such as "One of us is Lying", this book failed to keep my interest. The characters have somewhat diverse backgrounds but it seems like their inclusion is more pandering to the modern YA reader than actual character study and development.

Five role playing friends are getting together for the last game. They are going to Liva's cabin away from the city. They all have past issues that pushed them in different directions from each other. One of the group has even left the group. When the five get there odd things start to happen. Notes are being left for the group members. Things are moved from where they left them. Then one of the group goes missing and one is found dead. The remaining three are trapped in the house trying to get out and to safety, but is outside even safer than inside? I enjoyed this book and the characters, but not being into role playing games, I feel that keep me from loving the book. So much of the story surrounded the actual game. Additionally, I suspected who the the killer was early on and would have liked to have had a twist throwing me off. Over all it was a good read and I am giving it a 3.5 star rounded to 4.

Even If We Break tells the story of five friends who have been playing a roll playing fantasy game for years as a group. After years apart, all of them come back together for one last game. But this time, the game is real. They are really being hunted and attacked and they must work together or fall apart completely.

I loved the representation in this book. Each of the friends were very different and unique. They all have their own separate struggles and obstacles. You are left to determine if they can figure things out and get out of this last game alive or if they suffer a deadly fate.

What didn’t work for me was something I could not really put my finger on. I liked the characters and the way they interacted. I enjoyed so much that this author included such an array of different characters. We have a couple of differently abled people, one from a physical and one from a mental aspect. And we have a non binary character whole I liked a lot.

I think I just didn’t connect completely with the story and the world that is created in this one. It is definitely worth reading still, but I don’t think I would classify this as a thriller, which is what I went into it thinking it would be. Instead it seems more a psychological mystery.

I had written a longer review, but somehow I lost it and now you’re going to receive the condensed version of what I originally wrote.

Pros: Diverse representation. There is a non-binary character, a trans, someone with autism, and two characters that aren’t fully able-bodied. I liked that there was diversity, but it also felt a little forced. A group of misfits play a compelling live-action RPG game.

Cons: This book was touted as a thriller. There are no thrills. Someone is murdered and yet the murderer is so freaking obvious that you have to be kinda slow to NOT catch it. Also, I hated that it took forever to get to an ending after there was an essential ending four chapters prior. I read a previous book from this same author (This Is Where It Ends) and it was full of obsessive thoughts, exaggerated feels, and just drama for the sake of drama.

Overall, this book would be best suited for actual teens, because the overdramatization and overload of angst can only be tolerated by teen readers since they’re going through similar feelings. An adult reader will just roll their eyes and exclaim, “Get over it!” way too often.

The author is a talented writer, but I don’t think I’ll be picking up her next book.

*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

*ARC provided in exchange for an honest review*

I had no idea what to expect from EVEN IF WE BREAK and went in pretty blind, knowing only that it was a mystery. The book starts by introducing the POVs of each of the five main characters. I originally thought that I would have difficulty differentiating between them, but was kind of surprised by how easy it was to remember who was who. Part of this could be attributed to the fact that each of the characters are WILDLY different, though totally authentic and not stereotypical.

I did briefly wonder why these wildly different people would have such a strong friendship and go out to a cabin in the woods together to play a game, but the more I learned of their story and development as a group, I kind of got it. Teenage friendships are weird and don't always make sense, and are a bit messy. It worked!

I was able to determine who the culprit/murderer was as soon as events turned in the novel, but will admit that I kept second-guessing myself because I couldn't figure out why Liva would do what she did to her friends. Her few POVs at the beginning of the novel didn't seem to mesh with a character who would murder one friend and try to kill the others. Though we are given her reasons at the end - and they do fit for her character's upbringing - I still didn't feel like they meshed with the Liva we met in the beginning and the way the other characters (her supposed long-time friends) viewed her until the reveal.

While I was completely drawn into the book up through the climax, the aftermath felt a bit flat. Though I felt the conversations had between the surviving characters was essential and prompted character growth, I felt they were a bit repetitive. I felt like Finn and Ever went in circles repeating the same conversation from the moment when planned their attack on their attacker until the last page. I was totally rooting for these two the entire time, but the end fell a bit for me.

Despite my reservations about some of the plot elements in EVEN IF WE BREAK, I loved the characters. I could picture them vividly and every interaction felt authentic and realistic. The scene where Finn and Ever are banging on the glass trying to get to each other is heartbreaking, and the moment they finally break the glass is a well-earned moment of relief. Maddy's character arc is mostly shown in her inner dialogue, but equally as authentic. I found her to be a version of a character I don't often read, but wish I could have seen more of.

I requested this one from Sourcebooks Fire because the blurb had me hooked. Who doesn’t want to see how a bunch of teens in the face of their secrets exposed?

I hadn’t read Nijkamp before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The cast of characters is inclusive, and while I think there’s good representation, at times, it felt forced. The first half was tedious for me, and a book I thought I would knock out quickly, turned into days of reading. It was interesting in that the kids were there to roleplay, and while that was present, the dynamics between the friends pushed the roleplay into the background. Exhaustive turmoil, recounting the past and their mistakes, or repeatedly explaining a person’s character is what slowed the book down.

But at the halfway mark, the action started, and that's where I got drawn in. That you’re stuck in a cabin that can literally lock you inside is a great setting for things to go awry, and Nijkamp knocked the atmosphere out of the park in that. Because the storyline and pacing took such a drastic turn into exciting, I’ve pushed the rating to 4-stars. It doesn’t matter if you see who’s at fault well in advance because it’s a fun journey to get there. Overall, a fun read with a bit to like for everyone.

This is the third novel I've had the opportunity to read by Nijkamp. Readers are dropped into the middle of the action as a group of friends struggle to survive the night. Slowly through shifting narrators, we begin to find out how this formerly close group of allies has fragmented into the bitter souls that we find at the opening. Each member of the group gets their time to shine and we understand their purpose. There are moments of suspense that make the story worth picking up, yet that "edge of your seat" feeling doesn't hold throughout. It's a difficult story to review because so much is at risk of being a spoiler. I highly recommend this book for fans of action/adventure and/or LGBT+ stories.

I greatly enjoyed this book it gave me Agatha Christie vibes. It is about a group of teenagers that go to the woods to play a role playing game. One of the group goes missing and another is found dead the rest of them struggles to survive and find answers. I give this four and a half Stars because at times it did get confusing on who was speaking.

Creepy book and creepy games in the woods, a whole lot of secret between friends who are strained, a book that starts out as what we readers call “slow burn” and it stays like that for some time, then it picks up. One of my fave things about This book is the use of special needs in the teens, the LGBTQ community, so amazingly diverse.

Thanks Netgalley and Sourcebooks for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

Even If We Break immediately scores with its heavy atmosphere from page one onwards. Even without the actual horror elements, the book leaves you feeling unsettled, because while the group of five teens who go to the cabin for a last round of the (TT)RPG they play together might be friends on paper, several of the relationships between them are nothing but frayed remnants of what they once were.

The POV switches between the all five characters, and all were compelling to read, despite how profoundly uncomfortable some of the were – some because of the character’s personality, some because of the bad things that happened to the character and how that influenced their view of the world.

The five protagonists are: Finn, a trans man who uses crutches (due to arthritis I believe) and wants to be a game dev; Maddy, who is autistic and still dealing with a bad knee from a car accident; Liva, whose parents own the cabin and who designs and crafts all the others’ costumes; Ever, the nonbinary game master who’d do anything for their sister; and Carter, who is struggling with his own dreams versus his parents’ expectations and who wishes he was as naturally rich as Liva.
Their perspectives and views on life as all very different, though all of them are white.

I loved the TTRPG/LARPing aspect of the book, though it ultimately didn’t play that big of a role. It gave a fresh (at least to me) element to this otherwise pretty basic horror setting of a remote cabin set at a place with countless ghost stories going around. Despite this well-known setting, and knowing what was going to happen, the atmosphere throughout the entire book was so chilling I was unable to read this book at night. I do think part of this was because the friendships were so torn and frayed, the trust so low and previously broken, that when things turned south at first each was on their own.
It was never clear who was lying and who was telling the truth, who was trusting whom and who knew more than they let on. There were plenty of small flashbacks that were integrated into the present flow of consciousness. This was a good choice for the narration and worked well, though I sometimes couldn’t tell where a flashback began and the description of the present ended, and vice versa.

Despite the characters directly telling the reader what they were thinking, why they were so distrustful and angry with each other, and what they were trying to do, I was always scrambling to figure out what was really going on and how it all fit together. But it was never confusing! There were just many things going on, information to slip together, and that information was mostly only given in crumbs, puzzle pieces so tiny it took a while to see the bigger picture. It also skillfully lead you into the wrong direction through the order in which information was given.

While overall it was a great read and super atmospheric, it admittedly lost me a bit towards the end. In short, I didn’t quite understand the motive behind the horrible events.

Related to that, I have mixed feelings about the ending. It is fitting, but while it’s not exactly open, some facts about the motive and overall circumstances just leave me abolutely TERRIFIED for the characters. Their suffering just seems so far from over once I thought one step farther, the evil seemingly defeated, but you just KNOW there’s still (figurative) monsters looming behind the next bend of the road.
Meaning after I finished the book, I stared at the wall for a bit and then gave myself a stern talking to that the characters are fine and will all be super happy and fulfill all their dreams!!!!

Speaking of happy, I loved the representations.
Finn being trans and Ever being nonbinary made me so happy (two trans people in one book?! (Un-?)suprisingly many authors decide that one (1) trans person is enough, which it aBSOLUTELY ISN’T IF YOU ASK ME) And you know what made me EVEN MORE HAPPY?! That the romantic subplot of the book was between these two!!!!
The nonbinary rep was ownvoices, as was the autistic rep, which according to the acknowledgements was very closely based on the author’s personal experiences with autism. Both that and Finn’s using crutches, as well as the chronic pain from Finn and Maddy, felt real to me and was integrated smoothly and naturally into the narrative. Always love to see disabled characters in genre fiction!

Overall a great horror slash thriller that gripped me from the very first to the very last page! One of the very few books that made me flip a couple pages ahead to read a paragraph and acertain myself of what would happen, because I couldn’t bear the tension!

Thank you to Netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for a review!

A group of five friends get together one last time for an rpg game in a cabin in the woods, but soon their shared secrets and dark pasts bubble to the surface as people start turning up dead.

I think this definitely was an interesting concept- a murder mystery with rpg elements with a group of friends. However, introducing that many characters off the bat made it difficult to keep track of everyone and their individual motivations and that made the beginning difficult to get through. Having all the perspectives written in first perspective only added to my confusion.

The murder storyline was interesting enough, and the twists were amazing! The killer (no spoilers) was a really fascinating character to follow and trying to understand their reasoning is half the fun. I do wish we'd gotten more from their perspective tho just to keep things more interesting during the ending.

Overall a fun book, and perfect for the spooky season!

Even if We Break by Marieke Nijkamp is a thriller story about five friends who go to a cabin to do one last round and conclude the game they’ve been playing for years as they all go on their way into the world, their friendships and relationships already fractured and fraying. They go to the cabin in the mountains, where a ghost story of the surrounding area is interwoven into the murder mystery they’re supposed to solve together but things take a turn for the worse when those elements start to surround them and it seems someone has it out for all of them. Five friends, one week in the mountains, two didn’t stand a chance and now it’s a race against the clock to escape.
***
This was a fun enough story, I loved the diversity of the characters and wanted more of a few of them. Each chapter alternates between all the characters in the book and as things happen, and when they do it goes pretty quickly from there, you don’t have much time to focus on the characters so much as what they’re doing and their motivations going forward. It was a bit hard to get a real connection to anyone due to the constantly shifting chapters, but since the story is really taking place in basically a day it makes sense there isn’t much time to focus on that.
Unfortunately, the story for me was a bit predictable, but still fun nonetheless. I found the perpetrators reasoning to be shallow and underwhelming but in real life that is often the case of people who do the things this person did too, so pretty on point there.
I would recommend it for anyone looking for a quick thriller, looking for something easy to breeze through and get a wide diversity of people.
***
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this book in exchange for an honest review. (3.5 stars)

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

When a role-playing game between five former friends turns deadly, who is truly to blame? Is it the haunted cabin where the game is taking place, or has someone set the perfect trap for these explorers? And who(if any) will make it out alive?

I adored this novel. It has something for everyone while not shoving it all into one super messed up character. We are blessed with Trans characters, autistic characters, non-binary characters, and that's just on the surface. These characters under the hood are what really make them and this story great. Their secrets are what they feel define them and thus become characters in their own right. The mystery and suspense have you on a roller coaster of emotion all the while switching perspective in a way that enhances the story rather than taking away from it. The reveal during the final act was very well written. It felt like it belonged and worked really well to bring the story to a wild conclusion. This book was great, and I will be buying a copy for myself and probably some for my friends who love mysteries and RPG's as well.

Overall, this book gets for brilliant stars from me. I recommend it for anyone 12+ as there isn't anything that would be deemed as inappropriate, but it does deal with some adult situations(nothing gross). Pick up a copy of this inclusive novel and buckle in for a great adventure

Unfortunately this story just never quite lived up to my expectations. I never found myself relating to any of the characters, which made it hard to get invested into the story and care about the outcome. The whole plot fell a little flat for me as well. There were parts that were good, but then the final reveal of the truth just didn’t quite make sense.

There were five points of view, which made it hard to get to know any one character well. But it also just seemed like all of the characters were not well fleshed out either. We only got to know them on the surface, nothing deep down that made you want to connect and care about them. Maddy was perhaps the only character that I felt anything for. She was stronger than she knew and I was really rooting her to survive.

I think the real issue I had with this book was the character’s lack of motivation, especially the one that is the killer. I got that these characters had all been close friends at one point but had fallen out with each other, but that was never really fully explained. At this point in their lives it was just the game that was keeping them together, and that just wasn’t enough. When the killer was revealed and why they were doing what they were doing I was just left thinking “what??” It just didn’t make sense or feel like a justification for murder.

The writing itself was well done, especially in the setting. Ms. Nijkamp is really good at setting a story and making you feel the urgency or creepiness of a setting. There was a part in the middle of the story when things really started to take off and I was excited to see where the story was going, but then just feeling nothing by the time I got to the end.

It is always hard to tell when reading an ARC how close to the finish product the book is. This one just felt a little rough and needed a little bit more fleshing out. Maybe the final book is better than what I read, or maybe this just wasn’t the book for me.

"From #1 New York Times bestselling author Marieke Nijkamp comes a shocking new thriller about a group of friends tied together by a game and the deadly weekend that tears them apart.

FIVE friends go to a cabin.
FOUR of them are hiding secrets.
THREE years of history bind them.
TWO are doomed from the start.
ONE person wants to end this.
NO ONE IS SAFE.

Are you ready to play?"

I'm ready to play!

I wanted to love this book. The book had a promising plot. Five friends go to a cabin with secrets and not everyone survives. I did like the diverse set of characters. The representation of transgender and autistic teens was nice to see. I have never played one of those role-playing games as they do in the story but it intrigued me. I have never read a book where that was part of the plot. I did, however, find it very slow in the beginning. it was the characters talking on and on about how they feel and what they are thinking. It was difficult at times to keep track of who was talking. I had to go back to the beginning of the chapter to remind myself. who was talking i would have liked more action and mystery. It started to speed up about 200 pages in and the last 30 or 40 pages were repetitive. I would like to try another book by this author though.

Once again, I'm most captivated by the breakneck plot, purposeful pacing, authentic character voice, and above all else REPRESENTATION!
In this thriller/horror novel, what stands out immediately is not only the diverse representation (non-binary, neuroatypical, and differently-abled), but also in the purposeful exposition. In the first four chapters, each character, while in the present, has intermittent flashbacks to construct this aura of doom, visibly fractured friend group, and palpable tension between the characters AND the setting.
The setting is most certainly a sentient character in EVEN IF WE BREAK, and also is the wealth of each of our characters.
Nijkamp is a classroom favorite for my students. When their books hit the shelves they are immediately checked out. Highly recommend for readers of Karen M. McManus, Maureen Johnson, and Natasha Preston.
SUMMARY:
"Immersive and captivating. Thrilling in every sense of the word." ―KAREN M. MCMANUS, #1 New York Times bestselling author of One of Us is Lying and One of Us is Next

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Marieke Nijkamp comes a shocking new thriller about a group of friends who go to a cabin to play a murder mystery game...only to have the game turned against them.

FIVE friends go to a cabin.
FOUR of them are hiding secrets.
THREE years of history bind them.
TWO are doomed from the start.
ONE person wants to end this.
NO ONE IS SAFE.

For five friends, this was supposed to be one last getaway before going their separate ways―a chance to say goodbye to each other, and to the game they've been playing for the past three years. But they're all dealing with their own demons, and they're all hiding secrets.

Finn doesn't trust anyone since he was attacked a few months ago. Popular girl Liva saw it happen and did nothing to stop it. Maddy was in an accident that destroyed her sports career. Carter is drowning under the weight of his family's expectations. Ever wants to keep the game going for as long as they can, at all costs.

When the lines between game and reality start to blend with deadly consequences, it's a race against time before it's game over―forever.

Are you ready to play?

Perfect for readers who love:

teenage mystery books or YA horror
LGBT stories about intersectional groups of friends
Karen McManus, Gretchen McNeil, or Natasha Preston

Even If We Break is a solid locked-room mystery where five friends reunite at a cabin on a mountain to play the role-playing game that brought them together in the first place. Secrets are revealed and things go incredibly wrong. Readers will be left guessing who the murderer is while being glued to the pages through the twisty ride. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoy locked-room murder mysteries. This is perfect for those who enjoyed Ten, One of Us is Lying, or All Your Twisted Secrets.

Spooky and horrific, Even If We Break uses LARPing and a no-longer-quite-so-close friend group in a fancy cabin in the woods as the basis for a bloody introspection on privilege, jealousy, class, disability, fairness, and terror.

It uses rotating narrators (divided by chapter) and explores friendship, betrayal, and privilege through LARPing and a “cabin in the woods” style spooky mystery. I love this, I’m here for it, but it’s so full of those elements that if you don’t like them you probably won’t have a good time. All the narrators are differently unreliable in a way that comes together to give a picture of what literally happened without invalidating any of their personal experiences.

I like the interstitial narration, it makes it feel like there’s a GM for this weekend. It starts out feeling like the one that was planned by one of the characters and then slowly twists into something much more sinister and truly deadly. The way things get bad is a little predictable in spots, but how the characters react makes the story truly gripping. The ending is fantastic, I love all of it, it’s twisted and creepy and completely fits the rest of the book while also being surprising.

I appreciate the way it handles all the little things around class and casual wealth (or lack of money) which can add up to create small tensions and splinter friendships. Not every character focuses on it, and that’s part of the point; some of then don’t have to (they have cabins which are available anytime for a weekend getaway with friends) while others weigh every decision around whether they’ll be able to afford their next meal. There’s also a lot of focus on disability, both physical disabilities and neurodivergencies, especially when in a terrifying situation where the nearest road is a long walk away. Some of the characters are casually ableist but the book clearly portrays this as a bad thing. I can’t speak to whether the disability rep is good because I don’t have the relevant experiences, but it’s nuanced, complex, and seems to be filled with care on the part of the author.

This was a stressful book to read, and I'm glad I read it in daylight because it created and sustained a creepy mood with a sense of danger and uncertainty. My threshold for spooky books is pretty low, so if you're a horror aficionado I don't know where this would fit. A lot of the horror is more psychological, enhanced by the rotation of narrators which allowed for continuous story without giving things away.

Cw for ableism, transphobia, addiction, murder, gore, major character death.