I LOVE A GOOD TEEN SUMMER CAMP THRILLER. So much much and exactly what you think it will be which is a great thing!

This is the perfect YA slasher for this time and place. Anderson has crafted a story that works on a visceral, thrilling level but also is emotional, with an extremely relatable cast of characters that really look and sound like young adults. It’s is also plenty scary with some truly gnarly kills and that final act is a doozy.

This deserves to be a huge book and is perfect for film adaptation!!

Unlikable characters are unlikable for way to long. Everyone sucks, nothing interesting happens and I was just mad the whole time.

4 stars
This book delivers twists, turns, and just the right dose of gore. A theatrical nod to all the drama kids—“Macbeth!” While it’s clearly aimed at a young adult audience, it still managed to hold my attention as an adult reader. I didn’t see the ending coming, and the plot thickened in all the right places.

Kudos to the author for crafting an engaging, suspenseful read.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

“Showstopper” is a fun and suspenseful young adult horror novel set within the confines of a haunted theater camp. I love a good camp theme! As a series of unsettling disappearances and tragic accidents unfold, seventeen-year-old Faye finds herself confronted with imminent danger while simultaneously striving to maintain her authenticity. Through its deft blend of humor, mystery, and profound themes of self-discovery and the pursuit of ambition, Lily Anderson crafts a narrative that is both engaging and just plain fun to read! Also, this books gets published on my birthday, so it was a good sign from the beginning!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC!!

This was a fun read! a YA slasher about theatre camp? Sign me up! You definitely have to suspend some belief in this one, but I never mind too much doing that with thrillers. The characters were fun and as someone who went to theatre camp, I definitely could see each one of these kids attending haha. If you like YA thriller/horror I would highly recommend this one! 3/5 for me (just because I don't typically like YA romance components)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

SHOWSTOPPER by Lily Anderson

Thank you Netgalley and Henry Holt & Co for the earc (Sept 30)

Faye is a member of Ghostlight Youth Theater Camp, and she has been every summer since junior high. It's where her friends are, and where she feels most at home. It's where she feels safe, but when accidents start happening, and the bodies pile up, Faye doesn't feel so safe. It doesn't help that she is competing with her best friend for a role.
SHOWSTOPPER had me hooked from page one, and as the bodies piled up, it kept me hooked. This book was easy to read, which I commend because sometimes that can be hard to do. This book was gripping, full of suspense, and an edge-of-your-sear mystery that had me flipping the pages as I tried to figure out the whodunit before the big reveal. It was shocking---the reveal---but around the 90% mark, based on the conversation before the reveal, I was able to piece it together.
SHOWSTOPPER was quite twisted, bl*ody, and reminded me of the horror films that I love. Also, I loved the Scream vibes with the masked k*ller. One thing I loved most about this was the bigger girl representation.
10/10 would recommend for those who want to solve a mystery with the nostalgia of early 2000s horror movies.

Showstopper is what happens when theater camp meets a slasher flick—with just enough heart to keep you rooting for the cast even as things get bloody. Lily Anderson blends camp, suspense, and a lot of high school drama into a story that somehow feels both over-the-top and painfully real.

Faye is a standout lead—smart, sharp, and ready to stop playing the princess and start owning the stage. The theater world feels authentic in all its chaotic, glittery glory, and the diverse cast brings real personality (and plenty of drama) to the table.

The horror elements are fun without being too gory, and the mystery keeps you guessing. It’s a fast read that balances tension with humor and heart. One star off for some pacing hiccups—it drags just a bit in the middle—but overall? It’s a killer time. Curtain up, knives out.

This was a quick and gory read. It reminded me a lot of the film Stage Fright 2014. I loved the theatre camp setting and the reveal in the end. A fun slasher novel.

This book could have not lived up to my expectations more. Teen theatre kid drama, endless musical references, shocking murders, intriguing mystery. This book had it all. It kept me guessing until the end (even when I thought I had figured it out) and it was difficult to put down the entire way through. I could easily see this adapted as a movie or TV series and would love to see that happen someday.

A big standing ovation for Lily Anderson, thank you for sharing this story with us.

Showstopper takes place at Ghostlight Theater Camp. This is a theater camp that highschoolers go to over the summer but this year it starts out with a murder of the director. There are also the tech kids who are mostly college students go to support with the plays.

The story mostly follows Faye who is a vet at the camp as she navigates the three weeks of theater camp and the murders that continue to take place. Alongside her are her friends Kai, Roise, Mars, and the newbie Wes this year. Lily does a good job portraying the cliquish groups high schoolers have. You have Faye, Kia, and Rosie who are the leads and then then you have Laken and Annaleigh who are not casted in the lead roles who are called the ensemble kids. You have the techie group who is the older kids like Billy and Luka.

This book had a lot of suspense and was an easy read. Throughout the whole story it kept moving and had parts to keep it interesting. This was a good YA read and I look forward to reading more books by Lily Anderson.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC copy in place of my honest review.

Theater kids, buckle up—Showstopper is Mean Girls meets Scream, with a dash of Glee and a whole lot of stage blood.

Lily Anderson’s latest is a smart, genre-blending YA thriller that knows exactly how to poke fun at theater camp chaos while still delivering real stakes, both emotional and literal. Faye is a standout lead—funny, self-aware, and ready to finally step into her full identity as an Afro-Latina performer who’s done playing watered-down roles. Her voice is fresh and compelling, and her passion for performance shines even as bodies (and set pieces) start to drop.

The balance of teen drama, identity exploration, and mystery is impressive. There’s tension with her best friend, sparks with a new crush, and plenty of side-eye at the over-the-top theater traditions. But underneath the snark and show tunes is a thoughtful story about belonging, visibility, and refusing to be cast as anything less than your full self.

The mystery hits all the right notes—spooky, campy, and sharp-edged—but the real showstopper is how Anderson blends commentary on race, ambition, and friendship into the madness. A few plot twists go off-book (and off-the-rails), but honestly? That’s part of the fun.

Okay, first of all, I loved this!! Think Scream meets acting camp! The vibes, the energy, the toxicities, it's all amazing in this book! I absolutely loved how it also represented LGBTQ+! I literally could not put this down!

I appreciated the details the author put into this book as well. I knew nothing of acting camp but I sure did feel like I knew a lot more after this lol!

If you want a campy YA horror that won't let you down, please read this! You will NOT be disappointed!!

As someone who looked forward to performing arts camp every summer this book was perfect from start to finish. This book is so much more than a cliche summer slasher, the story has depth and some very important commentary about the toxic culture a lot out experienced first hand. The twists were really well planned out (just when I thought I had it figured all out there was always more!) and there’s even summer love! I could talk about this book for hours, tremendously well done!

I really enjoyed this camp slasher. I had a lot of fun trying to figure out who the killer was and the dialogue was hilarious. The characters were well written, and I really liked the masks that were used in the story. All in all a solid addition to YA horror. Make sure to add it to your TBR. This will be out in September of 2025

Thanks to NetGalley for the copy of this ARC!

SO fun! Reading this was like a love letter to every musical theater person I've ever known. I really enjoyed the friendships and the story; I figured out one of the killers but was shocked by the other! It was awesome and fun and bloody.

I adored this story! The Gaslight summer camp is a three week intensive camp where theater kids can live out their wildest dreams (i.e. put on an amazing summer show). This year's show is Riverdale, where Faye, typically cast as the good girl ingenue, is hoping to be cast against type as Veronica instead of her more typical Betty. Unfortunately, the camp director, Boaz, turns up dead, and mysterious deaths continue to plague the camp. Join Faye, her friends Kai, Rosie, Mars, and Wes, as they attempt to solve the murder and not alert their parents. This story is a wonderful example of trans and LGBTQ representation, and a great slasher to boot. I'm a big fan of YA, and this story was one of the best I've read this year!

This young adult horror follows a high school student, Faye, as she attends her last summer of theater camp. Everything is supposed to be perfect as she says goodbye to the place she's spent every summer since she was in middle school, but people keep turning up dead. Unsure of who's telling the truth and who's lying (since it is a camp full of young actors, after all - you can't trust their reactions), Faye and the other campers insist that, despite the danger, the show must go on.

Even without being a former theater kid myself, I very quickly fell into this story. I didn't want to put the book down. The pacing kept me engaged throughout, without any slow parts dragging down the story. The ending was so satisfying as all the pieces came together - realizing the answer was right in front of you the whole time, even though I hadn't figured it out before that point.

Anderson's writing did a great job of painting the setting. While I never attended theater camp, I did attend a sleepaway camp at a college very similar to the fictional Rockville College. As I was reading this, I almost felt like I was back there. The cliques, the crummy dorms that everyone tries to make more comfortable - it was all so familiar to me and described so well by Anderson. It also provided a great change of pace from the traditional "summer camp in the middle of the spooky woods".

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a good mystery - one that keeps you guessing throughout.

I received this advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.

This was such a good book. I loved the story and the writing so much. The characters were great and the story flowed smoothly. Will definitely read more books by this author in the future.

I think there was a bit of disconnect between myself and the characters. Maybe the problem is that I was never a theater kid in school?