I really loved this camp horror novella. I usually don't love YA books but the cover drew me in. I went in with expectations of a YA book, but I actually thought it was well written. It was fun, campy, and had just the right amount of creepy elements. I would recommend this even if you're not a big YA fan.

Camp Lanier by Sylvester Barney is a chilling and gripping tale that deftly weaves together mystery, horror, and social commentary. Taylor Johnson's journey from privileged teen to reluctant community service worker at Camp Lanier is fraught with tension and intrigue. Set against the backdrop of unsettling urban legends and the haunting history of an all Black town displaced for a lake, the novel explores themes of race, justice, and the supernatural. As Taylor grapples with eerie occurrences and the unsettling disappearances of campers, including whispers of a notorious serial killer, Barney skillfully builds suspense, keeping readers on edge until the very end. Camp Lanier is a thought-provoking and atmospheric read that delves deep into the dark secrets buried beneath the surface of a seemingly idyllic summer camp.

Thank you to the author, publisher and netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review!

I didn't realize YA horror was a genre and I'm glad it is because this story is horror lite. It has a little bit for everyone. It's a mix of horror/slasher/revenge/race war/supernatural genres. While the story is YA the writing style is definitely meant for the more juvenile ages. I did like Taylor, the black female protagonist and really rooted for, although Victoria is the true Queen. Somehow, though it all, everything works.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion

This was an interesting story I know with the history of the lake this would be a heavyish book. It was entertaining to say the least. I think I wanted more of the history woven into the story. Idk maybe this book just wasnt for me but i gave it a 4 very entertaining.

Unfortunately, this book came a little short of my expectations. Started off slow and continued to be a slow burn throughout. Had high expectations for this as a anticipated fall 2024 read.
Cover was phenomenal and very well done!

Three Stars for you. It wasn't bad. It wasn't that good. I enjoyed the book but yeah. Thank you Netgalley,

Did not finish book. Stopped at 83%.
DNF at 83%

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

The blurb for this book intrigued me: a black teen gets sent to a summer camp as a worker instead of facing jail time, and in this camp, someone goes missing every year.

The reality is that the moment you bring ghosts into the equation, it feels really cheap. You could have done a cool slasher/the humans are the monsters and brought the background from the town/camp in any other way. I can see the ending coming from a mile away, since we met the family owning the camp.

I lost interest in this book around the 60% mark, so I will not be continuing and am DNFing this.

I really enjoyed the authors prose in this book. It was easy to understand and made the writing feel more personal. However, the lackadaisical writing may have been a contributing factor to the many spelling and grammatical errors.

The concept of the story was interesting and touched on many important topics such as racism and LGBTQ+ related inequalities and prejudices.

Thank you again for the ARC copy of this novel!

This is very '90s-style YA, in terms of first-person meta narration, so do we aware of that going in. I think it's going to work (nostalgia-wise for older adult readers and ironically for teens) for a lot of readers, but it wasn't my favorite choice. The story itself was very fun but also incisive, and I'm so glad horror is being released about Lake Lanier. It's wild it's not an entire sub-genre by now, though the racial terror at the root of it (and other drowned towns, of course) can be heavy, so I certainly get it not being the most common YA focus.

Thank you Netgally for the advance copy!

This book was a 2.75/5 for me. The first half was so difficult to read, I felt like I was readibg a book targeted to teenagers 11 to 15 years old. In my opinion it could be a little more elevated . The other 50% was excellent, I felt like the last part was written by someone else. I enjoyed the satisfying ending.

This is a short read, one that you'll start, get dragged into, and finish a couple hours later.

Camp Lanier is a supernatural horror of sorts, but I think the real horror is one of long-lasting racism and horrible acts committed against the black community for decades. It mirrors history you can find in many places and highlights the struggles folks still face today.

This is a solid and sometimes quite heavy read.

I think that while this was a great story the short format made it feel a little rushed. I think this book would have benefited from being a little longer. I enjoyed my time in the world and the writing was so easy to read and I finished this book so fast! I will be recommending this as a fun summer spooky read.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

Overall, I felt this was a very entertaining read reminiscent of a good old slasher flick— albeit with some supervising supernatural elements. I’ve always thought of Lake Lanier as a deeply haunted place so I enjoyed seeing it as the setting for a ghostly revenge story.

While I appreciated the time we spend building up Taylor’s relationship with her parents (especially in the wake of a devastating loss), I felt it was wasted as an opportunity for an emotional through like. In particular, not seeing Taylor’s parents reunite with their only remaining child who was just put in so much harm’s way made me feel very cheated.

The writing also felt incredibly young in some places, I would have guessed Taylor to be 13/14 not 16. This would have been mostly ok, except when it started getting into the graphic horror of it all and then it felt jarring to switch between Taylor’s (delightful) narrative voice and the gruesome descriptions.

Still a very entertaining read so I give it a 4! Felt like going to the movies to watch a summer blockbuster lol.

This was a quick read, the writing was very concise not much filler which i appreciate. This is a YA book so i couldnt really relate to the characters very much. but the ghost story was interesting and kept me invested to the ending. This book reminds me of The Chill by Scott Carson, where a town is destroyed purposely, and the waters are now haunted/ cursed. I was expecting this to be more about discovering a town under water like in A House At The Bottom of A Lake by john Malerman. I couldn't relate to any part of the story which is why my rating is low, but with the right demographic and age group I think it would be very well received and liked. Again very well written would recommend to teens and anyone who has been to camp or grown up around lakes and or quarry lake. The scariest part for me was when the characters were running through the dark camp. Hope to see more from this author.

This review is my own opinions and thoughts, thank you netgalley and the publisher for providing this free ARC to review.

When teenage basketball player, Taylor, gets thrown under the bus by her group of "friends", she ends up taking the fall for a minor shoplifting incident. The judge says she has to choose between going to jail for two years or working at a camp for the summer. The choice was obvious. Between the all-white workers and campers, and the little girl in a white dress she keeps seeing around camp (that no one else notices), she quickly realizes that not everything is as it seems.

This was my first Barzay novel and I really enjoyed my time reading this! The supernatural horror/slasher vibes were fun, atmospheric, and often made me uneasy. I appreciate that Barzay utilized these elements to shine a light on the horrible things that have occurred in US history, and what continues to happen today.

Barzay wrote a well fleshed out, believable teenage main character (in all her frustrating teenage mentality). Like the author, I love the Final Girl trope. It was refreshing to have a BIPOC final girl who said no thank you to all the stereotypical horror movie fallings. One of my favorite lines in the whole book was "I'm in the middle of nowhere without a phone and I'm not trying to end up on a true-crime podcast."

As someone who heard about Lake Lanier and its horrible history very recently, this book came at the perfect time. I especially love the historical overview in the book acknowledgements.

I'll be checking out more of Barzay's books in the future.

Thanks so much to NetGalley, Sylvester Barzey, and Sterling & Stone for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this one! Perfect amount of suspense to keep you hooked! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book.

This is fun read for anyone who likes a camp slasher story. This was a more unique as ultimately the most horrifying thing was the cruelty of the living not the ghosts that haunt the camp. The usage of racism and racial violence was a much needed update on the slasher trope. I finished this book in one day. While it’s a ya book it felt like the reading level skewed a little lower. With such a fast read some aspects of the story weren’t explored or explained in a satisfying way. The characters, while well written, didn’t have a lot of depth and it felt like they fell into tropes in order to invoke the right feelings toward them. This is not so much a negative but more of a missed opportunity. I would recommend this to someone who’s a horror fan and wants a weekend stand alone read or a younger reader. With such potential I hope to see more in depth, perhaps more adult reading level, offerings in the future.

I wish I could give this a higher star rating because I like the overall premise of the book but the execution fell short for me and while I am a novella/short novel enjoyer, this could've been longer because it's just too much going on compressed into a short amount of time. Tense moments build on each other without room to breathe. None of the revelations really landed. I like when the culprits are hinted at throughout to give the big reveal credence but I was constantly beat over the head that I just sort of shrugged when everything culminated at the end. I did chuckle at the Scream Queens reference in the beginning though.

4.5 stars

Taylor gets caught stealing with a group of friends, and a judge sentences her to spend her summer at camp lanier working. There's stories about a creepy slasher and girls dissappearing from camp. It has some creepy horror scenes that creeped me out. I loved Taylors character. She was a bad ass, funny, and determined to find out the truth. The book was fast-paced and easy to follow. I really liked how at the end of the book, the author wrote about the history of camp lanier because it's based on true events.

Thank you NetGalley for this arc!

This book was a fun, fast read. Kind of juvenile in some parts though even for young adult.