Content warnings: Murder, hazing, corpses, rape (mentioned, not depicted), child abuse, vomiting

Arlee goes away from her overbearing mother to a summer camp for the first time in her life. New friends, new environment, there's a lot to freak her out. But she's slowly absorbed into a secret society whose moto of "protect the girls" might be more proactive than reactive.

The anxiety rep in this book is fantastic. The voice might be a bit much for some readers, but Arlee's frenetic descriptions and attention-to-detail feel very authentic to that experience. This is what bumps this book up from a 2-star to a 3-star for me. That, and the queer rep was delightful.

That being said, that anxiety is incredibly difficult to balance with a book that's supposed to be a horror. The sense of scare is hard to catch when everything in the vicinity of the character makes her anxious and jumpy. Especially when everything that's being described about the summer camp sounds like a standard summer camp fare, from the nerves to the bugs to the hazing. There are allusions to a cult, but it's a suborganization clandestine to the functioning of the camp itself.

The development of that subplot also starts way too late into the book. And when it starts to unfold, it doesn't work for me, and I imagine that's largely influenced by having done too much of my own research . As Arlee's incredibly anxious, socially and generally, there's none of the nurturing that would make the cult enticing to her. There's no reason for her to pursue the group, but there are also things that just keep happening in her vicinity. The plot seems to happen to her while she only really plays a role in the last few chapters. Her having such strong convictions in the end contradicted the character we're following throughout the book, so the ending fell super flat to me.

There were interesting ideas here and really good queer and anxiety rep, but unfortunately, it just didn't work for me.

A modern YA camp horror story.

A recipe for this book: phobias, generations of secrets, and a cult - all at one summer camp.

This book is for the teen reader who enjoys horror and and doesn't mind a little bit of the grotesque.

I thought this was decently executed, but the ending was a little too abrupt. There was lots of fantastic anticipation throughout and then it just sort of wrapped up. Not enough payoff for the anticipation and suspense.

Rep: Sapphic mc with anxiety and entomophobia (fear of insects/bugs), Sapphic li, gay scs, poc scs, trans sc

This is a queer horror book set in a summer camp for teens. Arlee has a fear of insects, so going to this camp in the middle of the woods for the whole summer is already terrifying for her. It slowly becomes more and more clear that this isn’t a regular summer camp, as Arlee gets sucked into a secret cult. Things start to get weird and creepy.

I liked the casual diversity. Most of the diversity for the secondary characters was just in passing with one or two mentions of it then never again. Sometimes it’s nice for it to just be more casual and not a big focus. The main couple is Sapphic though, but it doesn’t focus much on romance.

This book doesn’t focus much on character development or relationships, it focuses more on atmosphere, creepiness, mystery and the story. There are a lot of characters, so sometimes it was hard to keep track of them and their relevance to the story. We don’t really learn much about them either; they’re kind of all one dimensional. The romance was pretty insta love and we didn’t get much development there. Also the parents all suck in this book. Don’t think there was any good ones lol

Arlee isn’t always very likable, but I think that’s what the author was going for. She had her good and relatable moments but she also had some bad moments where she went off the rails. Rubin did a good job of mixing the two.

The horror elements did take a while to show up, but I get they need to set the story first. It was mostly creepy things and a few gory scenes. There were a few scenes where Arlee struggles with her entomophobia, but honestly I’m surprised the author didn’t have more horror scenes with it. Mostly she would just freak out if she saw bugs around. There could have been so much more potential, especially in a horror book, to make the main character suffer with her phobia. It was definitely a nice touch, and added to the character, but I just think the author could have done more with it.

The ending doesn’t answer all of your questions, its more open ending. I normally want to know every single detail by the end, but it didn’t bother me too much this time. It probably would have just dragged the book on if they did wrap everything up at the end.
There’s just one thing at the end that made me confused. I even went back and listened to the last 45 mins again to see if I missed something. Nope, didn’t miss anything, but something happened to someone?? Don’t really understand. I won’t say spoilers, but you’ll probably know what I mean once you finish it.

Overall it was a decent book. I did read it in two sittings within 24h. I feel like I mentioned a lot of not so great things about it, but I did still enjoy it.

The narrator did a good job.

<i> Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an audio ARC of this book. </i>

Sooooo weird! But in a good way! If you like teenage summer camps (oh god that sounds weird) and bizarre cults, this is the book for you.
There is a major trigger warning for anxiety disorders in this book. Arlee suffers from GAD, social anxiety, and phobias, and there are very vivid and accurate descriptions of what those are like in here. Proceed with caution if that disturbs you.

Primal Animals is a queer horror book with a very interesting premise. A girl - Arlee Gold - is forced to go to the camp her very successful mother went to when she was her age in order to help her get into a good college. She's ostracized once other campers learn her last name, though her bunk mates stand beside her. The summary also promises "glitches" in Arlee's mind, and the fact that she's scared of bugs - a great thing to fear while stuck in the great outdoors.

However, I didn't find the book to live up to the interest I had going in. It was promising, though slow going, at the start. I enjoyed the characters and the setup, but the horror aspects were... disappointing - and I'm not much of a horror reader in the first place. I found that they could have done more with Arlee's "glitching" and her phobia, rather than just use it to add a creep factor to otherwise more tame scenes. They didn't seem to play into the overall story, unless I missed something.

Without spoiling, I also wasn't personally the biggest fan of the ending. It ends abruptly and with more questions than answers. The epilogue, instead of giving my answers, only gave more questions, which may be how some readers enjoy their mysteries, but personally I'd like to know how everything ends when I get to an ending.

Overall, I'd say I really enjoyed the characters and the setup, and found the writing to be great! It just wasn't my cup of tea story wise. I feel like some things could have been better tied together, and the book left me with an overall feeling of it being "okay".

After seeing Wilder Girls as a comp title for this book I was super excited, and requested immediately. I loved so much of Wilder Girls, up until the ending, and was looking for a book to fill the sapphic-horror-boarding schoolish hole in my heart; unfortunately, this book just didn't do the trick. My main issues were with the character writing: character is definitely the first thing I look for in a book quality-wise, and I found this book lacking. Too many side characters are given too much space, and I would've liked for the story to hone in on maybe just two, instead of giving so much airtime to multiple of the girls. I also would've liked for the main character to have more personality, especially in the first half, beyond simply having imposter syndrome. I also would've liked for the horror aspect to be scarier, and with a more intricate plot, as I felt the horror in this book was basically smashing together a few popular horror movie tropes and images and calling it good.

Still, I enjoyed this story enough to keep reading, and enjoyed the narration! The narrator did a really good job of bringing the character to life as well as keeping somewhat of a difference between each of the side characters, which I'm sure was difficult given how many there were. Thank you for the ALC!

Arlee is spending her first summer away from home at Camp Rockaway, a college prep camp that her mother went to. As soon as she arrives, she feels like something is off. People are whispering about her mother but won’t tell her why. She feels like an outsider and begins to see some odd things occurring throughout the camp. When she receives an invitation to join a secret society, she eagerly accepts, thinking this is her way to make more friends. Little does she know she’s stepping into much more than she bargained for.

The plot of this work was interesting, but I felt that the horror aspect was lacking. There were definitely some odd and unsettling buildups to the “final horror,” but there was a lack of any real emotion conveyed, making the tension completely lacking. It’s difficult to get sucked into horror when the story was written in a way that felt flat. There were also some particularly gross plot points included that didn’t add to the plot, so it just felt like gross moments for the sake of “horror.”

On a related note, the timeline of the story was really rushed. There was no real time for character development or for the friendships/relationships to occur at what felt like a realistic pace. In fact, I think the first half of the book largely occurs over two or three days and the characters are just thrown at you one after the other. I would have liked for there to be more of a focus on the characters and their interactions – that could have been a great place for the author to build more suspense.

Arlee was not a relatable protagonist for me. She was difficult to like or relate to. She also had a secret that I think was supposed to build suspense/tension, but for about 80% of the book it constantly gets mentioned and alluded to, which gets frustrating and repetitive. And the other characters were essentially just names on a page – no real personalities, character development, or anything along those lines.

I can see why some folks enjoy this read, but unfortunately it just wasn’t for me.

I received a complimentary copy of this work through NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This book was amazing. I don't know how else to describe it.
The Plot was engaging, and well written. I read this book over the span of 24 hours because it was that good. The atmosphere was dark and ominous. The characters were well developed and multi dimensional. And the ending had shivers running down my spine.

8/10 very much recommend 'Primal Animals'

"Even if they kill me, I will fight for them."

This was one of the most wild reads of the past few years for me, but in a very good way. So many twists and turns throughout, I never knew which way was the right way.

The ending was fairly satisfying...up until the very last sentence that had me gasping in shock and wonder. 👀

I very much look forward to devouring more of this author's stories in the near future.

Primal Animals does not live up to its peers like House of Hollow when it comes to YA horror. Primal Animals is about a young girl who goes to an elite summer camp with a bunch of other rich kids that eat breakfast I didn't even know existed and have various Mean Girl-like cliques. The 'horror' of this book takes a long time to even begin showing its head within the story, choosing instead to focus on vague warnings of something sinister happening and weird sideway glances from other characters. I'm fine with a slower paced novel when you can feel that the build up is happening, that layers are being put down to capitalize on later, but Primal Animals felt mostly like fluff and not enough actual spookiness happening. I don't think its the authors fault, but YA horror tends to be very light on the 'horror' elements, making it feel more like a bad fright movie than anything actually skin crawling.

3 stars

Primal Animals contains several elements that tend to make a good horror novel - disturbing imagery, an isolated setting, secret societies, and feminine rage. However, for me, Rubin's pacing and scope ultimately leave this book feeling incomplete and the promise of an amazing concept unfulfilled.

Rubin is taking on a lot with this story, which ends up being a double-edged sword. On one hand, she touches on important topics for young girls like homophobia, sexual harassment, emotional abuse, and the danger of groupthink. On the other hand, she oversaturates the story with so many characters that it was often difficult to remember who everyone was and how they were related. That, then, precipitated another issue in that Rubin spent the majority of the book trying to develop all of these relationships at the expense of the pacing. We got to the last chapter in the book, which felt like it was going to lead to a big climax, and then got a coda that wrapped things up via a newspaper article without actually showing us how our protagonist defeated her demons. While the relationships between the girls was well written and the idea of a female secret society getting slowly corrupted over time was exciting, I felt like the book ultimately didn't succeed in connecting all of its disparate pieces.

Thank you to NetGalley and Recorded Books for an ARC of this audiobook in exchange for a fair and honest review!

This could have been 5 ... if not for what I said earlier:

Look it took a long time to get here. But I'm all about HERE.

I'm very sad that we didn't get through the first 35% in 10% and fear regretting more at the end. But holy hell did this book go catapulting through my nightmares just now.


And the ending could have gone much darker. I thought the ending was going to be completely different to the point that I was waiting for it, nearly shaking. If you are going to go with one trope after going completely psychochotic in the depth of darkness in the rest of the book, then go full throttle in the end. In fact, I would bet the house I will never own that the author had a darker end to this book and either chose or was told to whack it.

Now if anyone pays the least bit attention, they know I'm a dark damn heart reader. Dark Rise, as I've been saying over and over is the first YA book and one of few any books where the author not only did what my darkness thought up but then, went above and beyond my shit.

This book? I was piddling around after thr 10% mark waiting for something to happen and then all of a sudden it was like the author wanted to reach into my soul and have a throw down between which of us could come up with more disturbing imagery, situations etc.. (in the context of this category/genre/character age group).

Also, I'd like to point out that as far as the mystery of who did what where and when? Once I knew the victim? The why was pretty obvious but I had the who all wrong until about a chapter before it was revealed and im usually pretty good at this. Maybe I was just distracted by everything else going on but there is that.

Lastly, hallelujah to the despicable parents that were written to be absolutely hateful, rotten people. The yelling match at the end of the book was hysterical in its hypocrisy and absurdity... but that is exactly what it is supposed to be... because of course. Lol

I really enjoyed this book. It was creepy in the best way, and it kept me glued to my seat the entire time.