Try Not to Die: At Meadow Spire Mall – P.W. Feutz

5 totally rad stars

Man, what can I say? TNTD: At Meadow Spire Mall is all that and a bag of chips! It’s everything good (and bad) about the 90s wrapped into one gory, heart-pounding thrill ride! This book has all the nostalgia and crumbling possibilities I feel every time I go in the closest mall and see the state of it compared to what I remember of it in its heyday.

I was hooked right from the start by P.W.’s very apt description of high school girl dramatics: a time when someone discovering your secret crush was so not cool and had everyone wiggin’ out at how totally lame you were, and you could just die. The sheer level of over-the-top drama at the start of this book was masterful, mondo props to the author!

But hey, it’s Valentine’s Day – gag me with a spoon – and what better way to spend it than to kick it with your friends at Meadow Spire Mall and celebrate Ant-Valentine’s Day? Surely, nothing will go wrong there (tell that to my 10 deaths), and we won’t see all of the people who totally embarrassed you about your wack crush the day before!

This was so much fun to read, and I got so invested in the characters and what was going to happen to them. I kept getting stressed trying to figure out how to help them and prevent others from dying, then proceeding to die myself. And the creatures?? Total buzz kills (and horrifyingly gross!)

So, my home skillets, if y’all don’t have this one at the top of your list, you’re the scrubbiest of the scrubs and I have just one thing to say to you: Whatever, Major Loser (full hand gestures included)!