Midnight on Beacon Street
By: Emily Ruth Verona

I was able to receive an arc through NetGalley to read this new YA horror. I actually really liked it, I gave it a 4 stars rating.

This is set in 1993 and it goes back and forth, before and after midnight, which is when a murder takes place.

This follows 17 year old Amy who is babysitting her 2 siblings while their mom is out on a date. A murder happens and some weird and sinister things start taking place.

If you like retro vibes and YA horror I would recommend this book. I felt like I was watching a movie and not reading one.

I thought this was really well written and I look forward to reading more from this author in the future. I think it will find readers at our library, so we will definitely be purchasing for the collection.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.
So the summary of this book and the cover were a bit misleading. I expected to be reading a thriller or horror novel and this really was not. It was ok but not at all what I was hoping for.

Love a good 90's horror throwback. Perfect for getting ready for spooky season and autumn. Millennials will recognize the settings and themes. Meh storyline though.

This was an unfortunate DNF, so I won’t be rating elsewhere. It didn’t live up to what I expected, and unfortunately it felt fruitless to finish it.

The gorgeous horror movie inspired cover of Midnight on Beacon Street might be part of its issue - while references to classic horror movies abound throughout the book, this hardly fits into the genre of thriller or horror.

This is a short, slow book where not much happens besides deep character development. There is a major lack of suspense - I’m not sure there is any at all, to be honest, despite having the perfect setup for some serious creepiness.

The book also has a nonlinear timeline, which is a trope I usually enjoy in thrillers because it helps add nuance to aspects of the story and typically builds suspense. These time jumps, though, more so fractured any possible tension in the story and instead felt really random. You could probably take out all of the flashbacks to the main character’s childhood & not miss anything. More than anything, this style made the story feel disjointed and kept me from experiencing any sort of suspense.

Lastly, the big reveal at the end just did not work for me. It made such little sense, and there was no real effort to flesh out the motives. It felt way too random for me (WHY would this character do this?), while at the same time being extremely predictable.

Those are my gripes, but there are certainly positives as well. I enjoyed Amy as a main character; she fit the bill for an 80s horror movie protagonist. I liked the attempt at bringing mental illness and trauma into the storyline; I think it was a bit underdeveloped, but this is also a debut so I can allow some grace. And the author is legitimately good at the craft of writing! It’s hard to avoid cheesiness when doing an homage to classic horror, but she had all the right elements…they just didn’t mix together quote right.

Overall, I didn’t love this one but I am intrigued by the author and will likely read whatever she writes next.

2.5 stars rounded up. Unfortunately, I wanted to like this one more than I did. The concept is rock solid -- a babysitter watches two kids and things go horribly wrong. It's the plot of many horror films, and while I like what Verona attempted to do with the story, it felt tedious instead of suspenseful. Verona did put a lot of time and effort into the characters but it wasn't enough to make the short novel sing to me. I would consider picking up her next work depending on the concept. Thanks to NetGalley and Harper for the arc.

Thank you to @Netgalley and @Harperperennial for the opportunity to read this ARC and leave my honest review!

3.5 stars

What immediately drew me to read this book was the setting: that 80s/90s nostalgia feel, the young high school babysitter watching the surly preteen sister and her innocent younger brother, and of course, the unsettling crimes happening throughout the area. While I am not an avid horror movie buff, I was still able to appreciate a lot of the old horror movie references throughout the book and it definitely helped give you that nostalgic feeling.

The only thing that threw off the pacing a bit was the constant jumping back and forth in time and also between POVs - keeping to one POV or keeping to one timeline would probably make for a smoother read. All in all, I was on the edge of my seat with the tension and found it hard to put this book down once I started! Was the plot a little predictable? Maybe. Was it an enjoyable read? Definitely!

Midnight on Beacon Street is the debut thriller from Emily Ruth Verona. Set in New Jersey in October 1993, this is an homage to the slasher and horror films of the 70s and 80s.

Being a child of the 80s and 90s, I was really looking forward to getting into this one. Amy is babysitting 6 year old Ben and 12 year old Mira, having a normal night when she starts getting crank calls, her boyfriend shows up, and things spiral out of control. You wouldn't think that Halloween would be her favorite movie, since it's the quintessential babysitter slasher movie, but that's what she watches once the kids go to bed. Now, she's just waiting for Eleanor to come home, then she hears the back door open...

This was a short novel, just over 200 pages, so there was a lot to pack in. For being a thriller, I didn't find it very thrilling or suspenseful. Yes, there were some creepy and scary things happening, but there just wasn't a feeling of suspense around it. The pacing was pretty slow, and I didn't understand what the flashback chapters were there for. Those could have easily been a small memory of Amy's in the regular chapters. The switching of viewpoints from Amy to Ben didn't really add anything to the story, either; we could have just stayed with Amy the entire time. Maybe had Ben's view for the preface, then the rest Amy's. I was just disappointed in this one.

All in all, it's an okay horror homage if you're looking for something short with no gore.

Thank you to @NetGalley and @HarperPerennial for a digital copy for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.

I was really hopeful about this book. It seemed like a throwback to 90s slashed movies/books, kind of campy and even the cover evoked a kind of nostalgia. Unfortunately, not much happened at all and then there was a very abrupt ending that came out of nowhere. It was supposed to be a big twist, but there wasn't enough buildup for it. It was a short book, and it was a quick read, but I got a "meh" feeling about it.

Billed as reminiscent of an 80s slasher film, it delivered on that in some aspects. Set in 1993, I really enjoyed the nostalgic mentions of all the horror films. Some parts were a little predictable and not as edge of your seat as I expected. However, I really liked Amy and the relationship she has with the kids. There were surprises in the the latter part of the book that made it definitely worth reading.

As a 90’s kid who loves slashers and horror movies, I wanted to love this book. And I did really enjoy the plot but I found the time hopping and multiple perspectives to be hard to keep up with and that knocked a star off for me. If we had one or the other it would’ve easily been a 5 star read for me. The plot is great, classic creepy horror with many a nod to horror movie icons. The kids are unsettling, the babysitter is meek, we’ve got unexpected troublemakers, and potential outside people with intent to harm. So many great things I wish the format hadn’t taken me out of the story so much.

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for allowing me an ARC of Midnight on Beacon Street. Overall, it wasn't my favorite book. I like a good thriller, but for only being 250 pages (roughly), it was a real slow start. Once it got started, I felt like the plot picked up more. There was also a lot of additional details that I felt were not important to the overall story. I did like the underlying theme of babysitter with kids while something spooky is going on. Overall I gave it two stars!

This is a decent debut. I am proud of the author and I loved the feeling of being back in the 80s and 90s.
I am not sure I loved the entire story. I got a little bored but I don't enjoy horror movies now that I am grown.

I found this book to be interesting, but I felt like it took too long to get to the action so I was slightly put off by that.

This book has a nostalgic feel for being placed in the 90s. But for a short thriller novel I could barely get through it and did not finish it.

"Midnight on Beacon Street" has a good premise. However, for me, it didn't work. I wanted more and think that if it was a little longer and possibly expanded the character development, I might have liked it more.

A huge thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to review an ARC of this book!

3 stars

I feel like if the book was a bit longer some things could have been done differently which would have made this a 4-5 star read, but it was still good and worth the read as is!

This felt like I was in a 90's horror movie the whole time, I had to remind myself this was in fact not real life.

This had a lot of great representation of Horror, but the overall plot fell flat. Amy is babysitting for two kids who's mom likes to go on dates. The kids usually behave, but deal with a lot of anxiety. Amy also deals with many panic attacks, which is why she doesn't often drive her own car. Babysitting is going well, though they are on edge due to recent break ins around the neighborhood. It seems like it's going to be an east night until Amy's boyfriend shows up, and brings along his older brother and two other girls, one who happened to be Amy's old babysitter. These characters have nothing to them except blatant stereotypes, the older brother is a sexist jerk who thinks all girls want him, the old babysitter plays the nice girl but is really a bitch, Amy's boyfriend is slightly nerdy trying to shine outside his brother's shadow, and I could not tell you about the other girl other than she is also a bitch. Throughout the whole story we get flash backs to Amy's childhood and dealing with the babysitters and diving into her own passion for horror. Nothing happens for most of the book beside constant talk of horror movies and anxiety, and you seem to get more ideas of who could possibly be the person breaking in. The real "horror" elements don't come in until the last 5% of the book, and by then I didn't really care. This could definitely be a tribute to the love of horror, but doesn't fit that category or even the thriller category, because the anticipation build up to release is so little of this book. Most of it was characters whining. I think Readers will enjoy the nods to horror, but overall don't think it'll hit the themes it is going for.

I am truly grateful for the opportunity to read this book. I’m always searching for something that, as an adult, gives me the same tense, stay-up-all-night reading experience that Fear Street or Goosebumps did. It had all the fixings, with a strong first chapter. But then it just…fell apart. I unfortunately could not finish it.
Again, thank you for the opportunity. I hope this finds its readers!