Fast Paced, isolated location, everyone is a suspect, and a game of survival! What more could you ask for in a thriller (this one is also YA)!?!? It was fun and exciting. The more you read the more you want to keep going! I finished this one pretty quick because I just could not stop! The main character was relatable and flawed in all the right ways. I really enjoyed all the stories and backgrounds of each of the characters and how it all came into play with their need to survive and stick together because they all held different and useful strengths that relied on each other. I feel like this is a quick and engaging thriller most people can get into! Definitely recommend, I’ve really enjoyed everything by this author so far!!!

This was good. It took me a minute to get into it but once I did, I ate it up. Finished the book same day as I started it. Following Mercy who survived a mall shooting and is now chosen as a “contestant” on a survival reality show. Or so she thought. This follows a group of 8 people who are alone in a ghost town bought by a deranged billionaire who wants to film and capture their authentic reactions to some of the most horrendous realities. Kept me on my seat wondering. Ending was perfect.

While I normally do not read YA, I really enjoyed this book. It kept me on my toes. I liked the ghost town aspect. There is a lot of PTSD talk so if that’s not something you can handle steer clear.

** Thank you to Penguin Young Readers via Net Galley for allowing me access to this ARC for my honest opinion**

I loved the premise of this book with hopeful young adults to be a part of a survival reality game show with a large cash prize at the end for the ones that make it through. There were many twists and turns that kept me guessing on who is the “bad guy” and how it would all turn out. Reading this pulled me out of reading slump and I cannot say enough great things about a great twisty thrill ride when their lives are literally on the line…. The different pasts of the characters make you doubt who you can trust!

I would definitely recommend this book to YA readers who love a great guessing game!

We Won’t All Survive is a YA book that is very well written. A thrilling book dealing with trying to survive. I was invested in this book. I did appreciate the fast pace.

I had trouble getting this one on my kindle but I found a way to read it! I loved a killing cold so I knew I needed to read this one!

I had such a hard time putting this one down. It was so freaking exciting. I loved the premise so much. The suspense was so good. I love young adult thrillers so much. I loved the characters and the writing and man I just loved it all. From start to finish. She’s def an auto buy author for me and I just purchased it and my teen is reading it now and enjoying it!!! Thanks so much

Ok it started off a little slow for me but once it picked up. I was invested in this book.
I like the short chapters, getting to know the characters.

It was an interesting book, it did have me wanting to know what was going to happen and who was going to survive.

Now it was definitely a plot twist I didn’t expect at all.

Thank you NetGalley, Kate Alice Marshall and Penguin for the arc copy.

Thank you to Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group | Viking Books for Young Readers for an early copy of this book in exchange for a honest review. I enjoyed reading this book so much that I read it in one sitting. I could not put this book down, I just had to know what was going to happen. I loved the story line and all the characters. I would definitely recommend this book.

I could not put this book down! For a young adult thriller, it had my heart pounding from start to finish. Kate Alice Marshall once again proves she knows exactly how to grip a reader and not let go.

This isn’t just a survival story—it’s layered with raw emotion, deep character development, and connections that feel heartbreakingly real. The way trauma, resilience, and healing are portrayed is both powerful and honest. Watching the characters push through their pain to find strength was beautiful and, at times, gut-wrenching.

And can we talk about Mercy and Harrison? END GAME. Their bond was intense, complicated, and totally worth rooting for.

An unforgettable ride that delivers both thrills and heart—We Won’t All Survive is a five-star must-read, no matter your age!

We Won’t All Survive by Kate Alice Marshall is a tense and twisty survival thriller that pulls you in from the first chapter. When five teens are trapped inside a house during a storm, it quickly becomes clear that one of them is hiding a deadly secret—and not everyone will make it out alive.

The atmosphere is eerie and claustrophobic, with rising tension that never lets up. The main character is smart, brave, and desperate to protect those she loves, even as the situation spirals out of control. Each character feels real, and the secrets between them add layers to the mystery.
Marshall does an amazing job building suspense and throwing in shocking twists that you won’t see coming.

If you love dark YA thrillers with strong characters, a locked-room mystery vibe, and high-stakes drama, We Won’t All Survive is the perfect read.

Kate Alice Marshall has become an auto-read author for me, and this book was just as good as I thought it would be coming from her.
Set on a survival reality tv show gone wrong, We Won't All Survive was a fun ride, which also felt meaningful. I loved the lock-room ish survival setting, I loved the range of characters (some had much more personality than others, but the ones who did were great), I loved the uncertainty that kept me guessing the whole time, and I loved watching the group of survivors dillema of deciding whether to trust each other or descend into isolation and individualism. A really fun read that made some excellent points about what makes a person and humanity in general strong.

Thank you to Penguin Teeen and Netgalley for this ARC!

Kate Alice Marshall is an auto-buy author for me for a reason.

This book was SO good. This was YA but it didn't feel immature the way YA can, it felt so poignant and important and so real. Each of the characters was relatable for different reasons, but boy did my heart connect with Mercy.

Truly cannot recommend this enough.

Set in an abandoned town under the guise of a survival based reality TV show, we meet Mercy and other teens. From the start of the show, something seems off. We find out each of the contestants has survived something traumatic in their past. Mercy's sister was the target of a stalker-esque boy who then killed a dozen people at the mall where they worked when she did not return his feelings. This concept plays a role throughout the novel. With deaths happening, this book felt very reminiscent of "and then there were none" but with YA characters and less suspense.

I have read Kate Alice Marshall's adult thrillers and enjoyed them more than this one. It was hard for me to get into this book and it seemed to drag on. A younger audience, which is the target, may enjoy this book more though.

Kate Alice Marshall is ALWAYS a hit. This is a unique concept blended into a thriller and I read it so quickly. It got me out of my reading slump, and I loved every minute of it.

Happy pub week to We Won’t All Survive by Kate Alice Marshall, and thank you to @prhaudio for an ALC and to @vikingbooks for an e-arc. This YA survival thriller had me on the edge of my seat!

Two years ago, Mercy Gray was hailed as a hero after saving people, including her sister, at a mall shooting. But she doesn’t feel like a hero. She carries a lot from that day—a bullet in her back, a ton of medical debt, and guilt for not believing her sister about the seemingly nice boy who was hanging around too much. When Mercy is recruited for a new reality survival show hosted by billionaire Damien Dare, she jumps at the chance to bring home a huge cash prize that could help pay for her sister to go to college. But when she gets to the location of the shoot and meets the other contestants, something doesn’t seem right. No one from production is there, but, before they can leave, the gates close trapping the contestants into a survival nightmare that they may not come out of alive.

This book felt very different than Marshall’s adult mysteries that have become some of my absolute favorite books, but it is just as well written. She assembles a really interesting, diverse cast of characters that each have reasons for being on the show and despite the ensemble nature of the book, I ended up feeling really attached to a lot of them (to be fair, some are around for much longer than others!). One theme explored in the book is toxic masculinity which couldn’t come at a better time, and I loved how the author handled the messaging. While there are popcorn elements to this book and the reality-show-gone-wrong tropes I’ve seen in other thrillers, I also loved the message about what it really takes to survive which is equally timely right now. I don’t honestly know that I can think of another book like this that does it so well. I’d definitely recommend We Won’t All Survive to anyone looking for a looked room survival thriller.

3.5 ⭐️

I really enjoyed the last Kate Alice Marshall book I read so when I saw her new book was YA I couldn’t hit request fast enough. And I was thrilled to get an arc.

I have to say, the characters were great. Everyone was well fleshed out and had an interesting backstory. The plot was fun and most of the twists were unexpected.

It was a good read but unfortunately not a fun one. It was LITERALLY a headache to read. This isn’t on the author AT ALL, she’s awesome.

The publisher and Netgalley decided in their infinite wisdom to make the arc available only as a PDF. That means, instead of comfortably reading on my kindle it was only available to be read in the netgalley app. Picture this: a trade size paperback page shrunk to fit a phone screen. No way to make the words bigger. Just squinting and eye pain.

I tell you this because it may have affected my rating. It’s hard to enjoy reading under these circumstances. And I definitely won’t be requesting any other arcs that only come as a pdf.

I absolutely loved this and highly recommend it for purchase. This exciting page-turner is part survival and part mystery/thriller. The teen and young adult characters all have survived a trauma and that is why they were picked (or lured???) to participate in a survival reality show by billionaire Damien Dare. The action kicks off immediately when the contestants discover that there is no production crew and they are locked in to a creepy ghost town. Their focus soon shifts to actual survival when contestants die and no one is sure who to trust. Is the killer someone hiding in the town or is it one of them...?
Themes include obsession and control and the dangers of not believing women and girls when they are getting unwanted attention.

3 out of 5 Stars!

Mercy Gray was praised as a hero for saving lives during a mall shooting that took place two years ago. Even today, she carries souvenirs from that incident, including a fragment of a bullet lodged in her back and a mountain of medical debt. But most importantly, she carries guilt for ignoring her sister’s warnings about the sweet door next door. So when billionaire-turned-TV-host Damien Dare recruits Mercy to compete on his new show, she cannot turn it down. She needs the cash prize to send her sister to college, to make up for what she ignored. But when she and the other contestants arrive at the off-grid location, things aren’t adding up. Nobody is there. They are locked in. Then one of them turns up dead. Maybe it was an accident, but when it happens again they don’t know what to think. As resources are running low, surviving this show takes on a new meaning.

I was so excited to see that Kate Alice Marshall was releasing not just one, but two books in 2025! Earlier this year, “A Killing Cold” was released along with being a Book of the Month pick. I instantly jumped at making that book my pick, as I had read “No One Can Know” and “What Lies in the Woods” by Marshall. When Marshall was releasing a young adult thriller this summer, “We Won’t All Survive”, I was ecstatic, knowing I wouldn’t have to wait till 2026 to read another book by her. Marshall does an amazing job at writing twisty thrillers with complex layers that make me scared to turn the page.

“We Won’t All Survive” was a fast-paced, psychological thriller with intriguing characters. I really enjoyed hearing from Mercy, our main character. I thought she was very smart, driven to figure out what was going on, and had great character development throughout the book. I wish we could have gotten perspectives from other characters, even if they were sporadically done, because I think it would have given the book another layer of mystery and doubt.

Unfortunately, I was able to figure out who the culprit was and the twist in the end. I thought it was clearly laid out, but I also feel like I have an eye on figuring out a mystery. I don’t think it completely ruined my reading experience, because there were smaller mysteries that I still had to read to uncover, but it made the ending really drag out.

Overall, if you are a fan of Kate Alice Marshall and are waiting for her 2026 book to release, I would highly recommend reading this young adult thriller to get your fix! “We Won’t All Survive" was published on July 29th, 2025, so go check it out at your nearest bookstore!

Thank you to Penguin Group, Penguin Young Readers Group, Vikings Books for Young Readers, Kate Alice Marshall, and Netgalley for a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

First off, I want to say thank you to @netgalley and @vikingbooks for the advanced copy!

Kate Alice Marshall delivers another gripping and chilling survival thriller in We Won’t All Survive, blending psychological suspense, brutal realism, and teen emotion into a fast-paced, gut-wrenching read. The story follows a group of teens navigating a post-apocalyptic world where survival comes with devastating moral costs. Each teen brings their own trauma, fear, and motivations to the group, making the tension feel personal and dangerous. No one feels entirely safe, and that raw unpredictability keeps the pages turning. The book plays with trust, loyalty, and the question: who do you become when civilization falls apart?

The pacing and atmosphere of this book completely pulled me in. The concept of a survivalist reality show set in an abandoned ghost town was instantly gripping, and the eerie, isolated setting added so much tension. Each character came with their own compelling backstory, making the group dynamic unpredictable and rich with conflict. Mercy was a standout—easy to connect with and thoughtfully developed. Her inner voice felt authentic, and watching her grow over the course of the story added real emotional depth. She was the perfect anchor for a plot this intense. While it’s marketed as a YA thriller, the themes and situations feel much more mature. I’d actually recommend it more to adult readers who don’t mind that the main characters are teens. If you're usually hesitant about YA, this book might just change your mind.

Marshall does a great job with creating suspense. The game show survival idea is one that works really well for this book. The ending, however, ruined the whole thing for me. It just did not feel right.