Black Forest Bound (The Black Forest Duology)

It was supposed to be a fun trip to Germany with their high school class, not a nightmare castle where fairy tales are dangerously real. Former best friends Sadie and Jenny have done everything they can to avoid each other since a fateful event ruined their friendship, and this trip is no exception. Until their classmates begin to disappear and Sadie and Jenny are their only hope of survival.

Black Forest Bound has the making of a horror novel based around Grimms’ fairy tales, a fantastic idea that makes a creepy, edge-of-your-seat thriller, but it doesn’t quite feel like true horror. There are far too many characters, most introduced in the first two chapters, and I could never remember who was who, even the narrators, Sadie and Jenny. The point of view switches every other chapter, and information that was stated by one of the girls was usually repeated by the other. The characters and slow beginning made it hard for me to really get into the story until over halfway through when the pace picked up, and I couldn’t put it down.