3.5 ⭐️
I love Kate Alice Marshall. She can so no wrong in my book. This was my first YA of hers, and I didn’t love it as much as her adult thrillers.
8 contestants of a survival reality tv show arrive where they believe they are to start filming. There is only one problem, there is no crew, no cameras, and they are basically stranded in the wilderness. Who can you trust? Who will make it out alive? Who will will win this game of survival?
Great read! Loved it.

I really enjoyed this YA mystery/thriller. The pacing was done well and kept my attention until the very end. It was interesting to see how each of the characters handled their trauma differently, and worked together in a difficult situation. Mercy was such a relatable character.
Adding this authors book onto my TBR!

Solid whodunnit mystery with a killer that I clocked from the beginning. I'm a huge fan of the way that Kate Alice Marshall tells a story and while this one was good I would not say it was great. Still an easy read if you're looking for a straightforward mystery.

📚 We Won't All Survive
✍ Kate Alice Marshall
📖 YA Thriller
⭐4/5
📆 Releasing 7/29/25!
➡ Eight young contestants compete for a life-changing cash prize on a survivalist reality show set in a remote ghost town but when they arrive, nothing is as it appears to be.

🙏 Thank you to Viking Books, NetGalley and the author for an advanced digital copy of We Won't All Survive. All opinions are my own.
◾
🎯 What I loved: The pacing and setting of this book really drew me in. The survivalist reality show set in an isolated ghost town had me fascinated from the first page and every character had such an interesting backstory. Mercy was an easy character to root for and I appreciated her evolution as a character as well as her inner dialogue throughout the book- she was definitely the best character to center the story around. Though this is advertised as a YA thriller, it definitely has some really adult themes and content, so I'd likely recommend it to a more adult audience despite the age of the characters and if you're thinking this can't be for you because it's YA, definitely reconsider!

🙅‍♀️ What I didn't: As much as I loved the reality show setting, some of the descriptions didn't make sense. For instance, how could a fence go around the entirety of a town? There were a few other moments that didn't make total sense for me too like the fact that Mercy's injuries weren't mentioned during the second half of the book when they played such a pivotal role in the first half and the disconnect impacted my overall reading experience. Because each character had experienced traumatic events before coming on the show, there are a lot of potential trigger warnings and sensitive content so I'd recommend checking warnings before reading this one.
◾
Read if you love:
*survivalist reality show settings
*trauma response & characters moving past traumatic experiences
*ghost town settings
*evil billionaire pulling strings
*lots of twists and surprising motives
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See also: Rules for Vanishing, Close Your Eyes and Count to 10, A Game of Lies

This book is Hunger Games meets Survivor meets whodunnit murder mystery—and I was here for every second of it.

We Won't All Survive throws you into the chaos from the start, with a main character (Mercy) who’s already been through hell and might just be heading back. She's tough, flawed, and totally compelling. The trauma from her past is woven so well into the story that it adds weight to every decision she makes once things start going sideways.

What starts off as a survival reality show quickly spirals into a full-blown nightmare. The contestants are isolated, the set is abandoned, and when the first body drops, you know no one is getting out of this clean. I spent the whole book trying to figure out who was behind it, and I was still shocked at the end.

If you love fast-paced thrillers with high stakes, a fierce female lead, and just enough paranoia to keep you glued to the pages, We Won't All Survive is your next read. Dark, twisty, and impossible to put down.

I feel like the people that left bad reviews forgot this is a YA thriller. YA is aimed at ages 12-18. It's great that adults enjoy reading them, but it is unfair to review them without that in mind. With that being said: 3.5 stars rounded up

If you were into Fear Factor or love survival style thrillers, this one’s for you! Mercy Gray and seven other contestants think they’ve scored the opportunity of a lifetime. Six weeks in a creepy Ghost Town competing in wild daily challenges to earn food, water, and supplies, but things take a dark turn when one of them turns up dead, but no one comes to help. Looks like the games must go on.

It’s a fast paced YA thriller that l brings the suspense. Great for a weekend read!

I was really impressed with this YA thriller. Not only does the book deliver a compelling plot, but it also has interesting things to say about survival and working together. I think it covers important points about the double standards surrounding women; women have to be “nice” whereas violent or selfish behavior is rewarded in men. The author creates a suspenseful and well-written novel that I would definitely recommend to students.

4.5 ⭐️ rounded down

Two years after a traumatic shooting and Mercy is still recovering, mentally and physically. But when the opportunity arises to join a survivor reality show for a cash prize, Mercy can’t pass up the opportunity to pay back her family for the financial burden her record has cost.

Almost immediately after arriving at the abandoned ghost town set of the show, Mercy and the other contestants realize something isn’t right. And their fears are confirmed when someone soon ends up dead. As the days progress and the real life game of survival begins, all of the contents find they have traumatic pasts in common and most overcome to figure out how to make it out alive.

This was my first read by this author and for a YA thriller, it didn’t disappoint. I found the characters to be developed pretty well and while some of the twists were predictable, the pages kept me guessing and hooked as to how the story would unfold.

Thank you Penguin Young Readers and Viking Books for the opportunity to read this eARC and provide my honest opinion.

This book sounded really good. I could never get it to download. I don’t know what else to say for the length of characters needed to get it out of my pending reviews. Apologies.

I want to thank NetGalley and Penguin Group for an early copy. It was my first book by this author. It was pretty entertaining. It's a survival sort of show with some secrets from each contestant and a lot of "who did it" it's a YA but a great book I really enjoyed this book it kept me guessing who done it. So if your looking for entertainment,survival with challenges and lots of guessing then this book is for you. Thanks again m to NetGalley and Penguin Group

Trauma bonding, the Survivor edition.

Kate Alice Marshall is an automatic buy for me so I was excited to get an early peak at this one.

I read this in one sitting and was flipping the pages as fast as I could because the writing was intense and I was invested in the story.

A group of new adults are brought to a ghost town for a reality show competition. It’s unsettling from the start and more so as the bodies start to pile up. The characters were engaging and their back stories well done.

I read for fun and don’t mind suspending disbelief but some of the twists were a tad kookie. Still enjoyed it and still looking forward to her next book

We Won’t All Survive: Book Review

3.5 / 5 ( rounded up in o 4)

This one started a little to slow for me. However, once I got about 1/3 of the way in it got better. I enjoyed reading it but wasn’t blown away. The concept was interesting.
I kind of got The Hunger Games vibes.

The motto of the book could have been “don’t give up and out smart the others”!!!

I love this author but this wasn’t my favorite by her. I would recommend for sure.

Thank you for the ARC.

This book I could not put down loved it from beginning to end. I would highly recommend!! This isn't like something ie read before.

Escape room tropes are hit or miss for me and this author nailed it. I wouldn't go as far as to consider this a horror but it's a good YA thriller.

Loved: The reality TV show bringing together a group of young adults who have all suffered a traumatic event. The character development and the relationships. Full of twists and turns.

Disliked: The reasoning behind why our villain was doing what he was doing. It felt too complex/convoluted/far-fetched to understand. I would have loved to have seen more of the challenges play out before people died and that part fell to the wayside.

Spoilers: The villains were easily pegged early in the story, though I thought they were working together, not two different story lines.

OMG… I usually don’t like YA books BUT THIS? The plot twist? I can’t wait to get my hands on the physical copy. The characters were so likeable. It was a real page turner.

This one sort of give Hunger Games or Squid Game vibes in the sense that people are thrown together for a reality TV show for survival, with a massive cash prize up for grabs. What's not to love? Time is ticking, people are dying, isolated location. Quite an interesting read

Thank you NetGalley

This was a quick YA thriller with tons of twists and turns! What do you expect when reading about a reality TV survival show turned deadly?

Mercy is one of 8 contestants who sign up for a survival reality show with a prize of $100,000 to whoever makes it to the end! When the groups arrives on location, a ghost town called Laundry’s Gap, no one is there. No crew, no host, no one but the eight of them. And when they are tasked with the first mission, one of them ends up dead. Everyone becomes a suspect, but who will make it out of Laundry’s Gap in the end?

I enjoyed the character building and how each character had their own backstory. The story was fast paced and had some good twists throughout! I did have a suspicion as to whodunit, which was right, but I did not see that reveal coming!

This book was slow to start, but once it picked up I couldn’t put it down! I loved the concept of this book and the themes/messages that it conveyed. I would definitely recommend this book to all my YA Crime/Thriller fans!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Four stars for We Won’t All Survive! YA survival thriller meets locked-room murder mystery. Fast, tense, and twisty—but I wanted a little more character depth. Still, it’s very bingeable. 🎯🔪📺"

Please note that this ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is one that I liked, but didn’t love. It was a quick read (I actually read it in one sitting on a long flight), but I never got fully sucked it. It is reminiscent of other books I’ve read- bad guy leading tech company trying to manipulate a situation/control people. I did like that it wasn’t clear until the end who the bad guy was. I also liked that, because the characters had all experienced previous trauma, they second guessed themselves and each other- that part was nicely done.

3.5 rounded up.