4.5/5 stars. To be released June 2022.

I love books like this. Never Going Home is an edge of your seat, murder mystery whodunit that also explores the downfall of the obsession with social media, likes, followers, and the power of the internet. 10 famous social media influencers are all brought together to a a tropical island known as Unknown Island under the guise of a free trip at the luxury resort. But when the ten individuals get there, they realize they weren't exactly told the truth. On top of that, once they get there, they find out someone knows a dark secret about each of them. Unknown Island's social media page begins to post cryptic posts as they "count down from ten to one".

The whole time you are reading you are trying to decipher who the killer is and what their motive is. I had my suspicions (which ended up being correct!) but now I want to go back and dissect all the scenes again to see how things were pulled off. Am I still perplexed about how some murder scenes went down? 100%. It's definitely a book to read twice!

OK, not exactly an original idea to re-imagine "And Then There Were None". Don't care, doesn't matter, this is still a fun, modern-day take on the everyone-is-getting-murdered-on-an-isolated-island concept. It was a little confusing to keep the characters straight but I enjoyed finding out the secrets, trying to guess who would be bumped off next and who the villain was.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, Random House Children’s and by #NetGalley. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Teen influencers on a secret, exclusive island? What could possibly go wrong.
Read and enjoy this entertaining little tale.

*Full review to be added closer to publication in June!*

I sped through this book so much faster than I expected to–what a thriller! This is the perfect summer thriller to take with you on any vacation and allow you to fully escape into the drama of Never Coming Home. This was a very smart and complex story and I appreciate how much effort Williams put into creating this story and all of the characters that are a part of it. The many POVs took a little time to get used to at first, but I soon found myself immersed in the story and had no issues moving forward. Can't wait to see what's next from Kate M. Williams! Perfect for any thriller fans out there.

Y'all, what a ride. The best way to explain this one is And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, but about influencers. With that, this closed circle mystery also holds its own. This story focuses on ten teenage influencers who are invited to Unknown Island. Always looking for a way to grow their reach, they all accept even though few details are provided about the experience that awaits them. Very quickly, they find that this island is not paradise at all. That is abundantly clear when a secret they each have is also revealed, and these are some heavy secrets! And then, the murders start. This one moves quick, and the way it ends was so good as the thrills and questions keep coming until the very last sentence. I needed a really good pageturning thriller in my life, and this so hit that spot! Thanks to NetGalley for the early look at this summer must read!

This book was a mind twist but in the best way. You never know what is going to happen or when it will. It was a rollercoaster from beginning to end.

Holy crap! Like this was good! I was all over the place—just when I thought I knew or suspected , literally, my mind was changed again just as quickly as the first guess. This is a definite must read and literally keeps you on alert until the very last sentence of the very last page. What a rush!

Wow! 4.5 stars rounding up to 5 smartly retold; GenZ version of “And then there were none”!

I have to admit I had second thoughts before jumping into this idea about bunch of young influencers also the killers found themselves in a deserted island, dying one by one just like the original manuscript, at first! It could be lame, superficial, unrealistic and boring ! But thankfully this book is none of those! The characters’ dilemmas were told perfectly! I thought I would hate those kids! But I didn’t! Because the author honestly approached true nature of those characters: they are flawed, broken, lonely, suffering, in denial, lying to themselves and to the entire world!
Only one of them is extremely psychopath enough to plan this detailed scheme by providing enough financial source and brain storming to play this cat-mouse game!

I loved the smart and honest criticism of social media, the harsh realistic approach of influencers’ bubbly worlds. The way of revealing the culprit’s identity at the end was genius move!

Let’s give a quick summary of plot:

A place called Unknown Island launched a marketing campaign went viral to attract everyone’s attention. This is private island in an undisclosed location in the South Pacific entered the social media with its slick YouTube video featuring biggest models and influencers cavorting on beaches, laughing in pools, snorkeling, splashing, being sun drenched, aspirational! To be a part of this place you have to under 21 and inspirational social media phenomenon so you get your all expenses paid vacation ticket!

Ten young influencers were chosen for this trip and their names were declared the day before they took the trip!

Here are the list of candidates:
Emma Jane Ohana from LA-18, billionaire financier’s spoiled rich girl, a true crime addict
Justice Wilson from Mission Hills, Kansas :17 years old environmental activist, the child overachiever and competitive family
Robby Wade from Atlanta, 17 years old restaurateur, chef, YouTuber, carrying his knife collection everywhere
Xander Lee from Carrollton, Texas, 19, old collage football star, new social media influencer, becoming famous with his shirtless dancing videos
Chelsea Quinn from LA, transgender, 18, old beauty YouTuber, reckless driver, obsessed with her selfies
Margot Bryant, 20, NY based CEO of the non-defunct SHEmail, business oriented, ambitious
Graham Hoffman, 19, from Minneapolis, old political organizer, nerdy, confused
Manny de La Cruz, 19, producer, DJ from Miami with dreams of being a powerful musician, carrying guilt like an armoire
Frankie Rushh, 18, social mega star from New York, most popular It-girl of the group with millions of followers
And Celia Young who is mousy, smartest, youngest video gamer of the group ( only 16) from Alameda/ California

Those ten did something very bad in the past. Even they deny, they might be killers and one of them is so adamant to get the rest of them!
But who and why?

Overall: absolutely riveting, exciting, heart throbbing, smart retelling of the Agatha Christie
classic! Looking forward to read more works of the author!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s / Delacorte Press for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

OMG ! This book kept me guessing till the very last page! I loved the twist and turns, and just the entire idea of going on a vacation just for it to turn to hell! Amazing I hope this continues because I would love to see what happens next !

I love a good beach read and murder mysteries so when I saw that this was the two combined, I added it to my tbr so fast! I was lucky enough to receive an arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. While the concept of this book is amazing, it didn’t completely deliver for me. I definitely enjoyed it and it was a fun, fast read but there were just certain aspects I didn’t love. The beginning, especially, was a little confusing with so many characters being introduced and having to keep up with so much different information. I think it could’ve been better if it didn’t switch povs so much 🤷🏻‍♀️ Also with how much happened, it was fascinating how quickly everything was wrapped up.
*
I did like that all of the characters were flawed and all came from different backgrounds! It was interesting finding out all of their secrets and how they dealt with them. Also, I liked that the characters were still typical teenagers/young adults that make really dumb decisions in high stress situations. It made it feel so much more grounded! Overall, I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars ⭐️ it wasn’t phenomenal but I had a fun time reading it! Release date is June 21, 2022
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There is a lot of contact warnings and I know I won’t even be able to list them all but here are a few off the top of my head: death, murder, blood, gore, poisoning, suicide, snakes (I still don’t see the point of this one tbh and I wish they weren’t ever mentioned 😰), drug use, etc.

First of all, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy of Never Coming Home. There is a reason that the formula from Christie's And Then There Were None abides, and that's because it is an incredibly engaging premise. In fact, I don't think I've ever read a retelling of And Then There Were None that I didn't enjoy, though some are better than others. This is one of the ones that is better than others. The pacing was quick, which is necessary for my students, whose attention is spread very thin. The added social media twist was fresh, and the end was unexpected. While mystery and suspense is very hot right now in my library, I think Never Coming Home will stay in circulation even when the trend shifts to another genre.

For me, this book just didn’t do much. I liked the premise of it, especially with them being secluded on an island. Nothing wrong with the setting! It’s just that everything else felt underdeveloped and I just couldn’t get into like I had wanted to.

The book is told from multiple point-of-views and even though I am usually a fan of this, it didn’t work in this book for a couple of reasons. The first reason being that some of the point-of-views are short lived, no pun intended but it is a mystery/ thriller lol. I get that it is bound to happen but it doesn’t give enough time to fully connect to the character. The second reason is I guess part of the first. There is not a lot of time for development and even the suspect is kind of meh on the reasoning for everything that happens.

Like I said previously, I liked the setting. I haven’t read a mystery/thriller set on an island before and it takes away outside presence. It definitely gives off the vibe that it is one of them but its up for the reader to decide.

The mystery, which is obviously the biggest part of the book, was fine. I don’t think it was thrilling in any way and that is due to just not connecting. I thought that some of the things were over the top dramatic and felt silly because it was just blown up way too much. The intended culprit of it all still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. I think that there is some interesting information given at the end but it also doesn’t come right out and say who did it. Not my kind of ending but others may enjoy it.

Overall, this was okay but really not what I expected. I’m kind of disappointed by it but I can see others enjoying it especially because it is a shorter read.

I think this would probably make a fun teen slasher movie, but as a book it didn't work for me. I wasn't rooting for any of the characters, which made their deaths fall flatter than they should have. I also felt like the formatting of the ending was out of keeping with the rest of the book, and it took me out of the story? (There were also a number of typos in the ARC, hopefully the book will receive a thorough edit before publication to catch those.)

This was an interesting story that kept me on my toes even though I had an inkling of who the murderer was after the first murder.

I did like the premise of the story. A bunch of social media influencers get invited to an exclusive, mysterious island – they assume it will boost their following but when they arrive there, they figure out real fast that something is off. Did it make me think of the Fyre Festival debacle? For sure. One by one the influencers start dying. It seems like someone wants revenge because each of these influencers have a past. Each one of them is tied to a death and now they are being killed off one by one on this island.

The murders happen fairly quick and this is the type of story that takes place in 24 hours, except in this case it is 48 hours I believe – though it felt like a week at least. How can all that killing happen in one day? A mastermind must be behind it all. I had my suspicions who it was which turned out right but didn’t know exactly how the person was pulling it off. We get an explanation in the end though.

As for the characters, I think the only one who I thought was interesting was Manny, but maybe because we had more time in his head than the other characters. And Emma Jane was interesting also. I did like learning about each character’s back story especially with how they were tied to a death.

The ending was interesting, we get an explanation of how things happened by way of social media commenters – it reminded me of how people on TikTok like to try and figure it out murder cases as a community. But I don’t think that it totally worked for me, I was left a little unsatisfied with it.


Why you should read it:
*take the Fyre Festival incident and add murder to it and you have a story that could be a reality show type slasher movie
*to see who the murderer is and why
*you like thrillers and mysteries

Why you might not want to read it:
*not into gruesome murder

My Thoughts:

This was a quick read and it kept me on my toes even though my suspicions about who the killer was correct. It was interesting to see how the person pulled it off. I think the story did a good job of exploring the issue of who gets to decide who deserves death. Each person on this island has a story to tell, but were they deserving death because of the mistakes they made in their life? Though it was a quick read I did feel somewhat unsatisfied at the end of it. But this one could definitely be made into a slasher movie, and I’d definitely watch it, but close my eyes during a few parts.

"The future of humanity meets the future of travel."

I was not expecting to get so swept up in this one! As a huge fan of Agatha Christie, this is a worthy modern reimagining of And Then There Were None and Selected Plays with a modern, Gen Z twist to it. It's rare that a mystery can keep me changing my guess on who the murderer is for such an extended period, but that is precisely what this book did for me. I'm not young or hip, and likely never was, but it didn't diminish my enjoyment for this story. Please note, you'll have to wholly suspend your need for a plausible plot, but if you are looking for full on entertainment in the form of YA slasher tales, this is it.

I don't want to give anything away, but I feel it's necessary to include some thoughts on things that caused me to bump my review down from a 5 star. I'll include them in a spoiler tag as to give the reader of this review the choice on whether or not they'd like to view them. [ I'm never a fan of the POC or queer characters getting killed off first, so when I found out that the first character killed was the trans female, I almost stopped reading at that point. I am glad that I pushed on to the following chapter, though, as once the explanation for the order in which the characters are getting murdered is revealed, it made a little more sense. I'm still not fond of it, but I was glad it was done in a way to avoid villainizing the one openly non-cis character. (hide spoiler)]

There's quite a diverse cast in this one, and I was relieved that we didn't have the cliche "kill the POC characters first" trauma that is typically seen in the genre. [ Four of the ten influencers invited to the island are white, and three of those are the first to die. (hide spoiler)] A few portions are rather gory, so if that sort of disturbing content isn't your thing, I'd give this one a wide berth. Some triggers include but are not limited to: [ poisoning, death by bees, bullying, stabbing, blunt force trauma, strangulation, overdose, suicide, suffocation, gun violence, etc. (hide spoiler)] If you're looking for a campy, influencer filled slasher tale, this one might be worth checking out!

This book is very clearly written for the gen z teenagers of today. The feeling of it and the writing of it will definitely be a hit with younger readers. I reviewed it from that standpoint.

First, this book is trash. But, it's trash you can't look away from. It's reality show trash.

This book is like taking fyre festival, And Then There Were None and the first season of Lost and shoving that together into a ridiculous, can't look away from book.

The plot of this is so unrealistic. It's about taking 10 tik tok or other influencer young adults from 16 to 20 yr old and dropping them on an island that is supposed to house a luxury vacation spot but clearly never got the memo.
I say unrealistic because it's definitely hinging on these kids accepting the invite and showing up day of but we all know things happen and it worked out perfectly but that probably wouldn't happen in real life.

The characters were definitely the weakest part. There are 10 of these kids and I felt myself getting confused as to who was who and what they looked like time to time but obviously over the course of the book and thinning of the cast it got a bit easier.


The killer was easy to guess within a few chapters but still done good. Some of the murders were too easy and very circumstantial. There were a few other small things that barely made sense or could be problematic that I'm sure will be fixed by publication.

Overall, this was fun and kept me entertained for a few hours.

A fast read and well written. Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None is one of my favorite and this was and excellent modern take on that book.

Wow! Ten influencers under the age of 21 invited to Unknown Island for an all expense paid trip. What they have in common is that they all have secrets to hide. Upon arriving on the island nothing is like they expected. Alone on an island that isn't a resort at all is just the beginning. Soon whoever is controlling their fate starts killing off the influencers one by one. Each teen has to take a good look at their life and what they have done with it while trying to survive. The storyline was interesting although I did find it a bit slow at times. A good book for those who like solving riddles and murder mysteries. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I love a good Agatha Christie-style locked room mystery, and this one was especially fun. Ten influencers are invited to a new resort on “Unknown Island” to launch the resort’s format of free networking/brainstorming luxury vacations for people aged 21 and under. Except this is all a farce, as the 10 quickly realize as they arrive on the beautiful, remote island and find a dilapidated “resort” with no staff and no way to leave or contact anyone for help. And then the deaths begin.

I was pretty sure I’d figured out the culprit about halfway through, then was proven wrong…or so I thought. This was an absolute thrill ride from start to finish, and I am so glad I was given an advance copy from NetGalley- pick this one up when it’s available!

This was a tough one to get into. The first character and main character started off way too immature for my liking. But once things got going it was fast-paced and suspenseful. A great thriller with all the twists. The ending, however, was lackluster at best.