Publishers Weekly
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A genderqueer teen is hunted by a terrifying manifestation of their trauma in this gruesome thriller by Plett (Wavelength), set 10 years after a near-apocalypse triggered by a sudden phenomenon that animated machines and turned them violent. After Cedar’s mother dies under mysterious circumstances and their father and brother abandon Cedar and vanish underground, the 18-year-old flees to Sawblade Lake to live with their grandmother. There, Cedar finds a community of queer teens and the tentative promise of finally having found a place to belong—until Cedar realizes that they are being haunted by a shadowy, vengeful creature that begins murdering Sawblade Lake residents. To survive and protect their newfound family, Cedar must confront the past they tried to escape and unravel the creature’s origins. Visceral worldbuilding alongside irreverent, realistic dialogue skillfully captures the novel’s intimate emotional core against a backdrop of spine-tingling horror, while leisurely paced prose culminates in a tense, inventive narrative that blends queer identity, survival, and mystery. Main characters cue as white. Ages 12–up. Agent: Amy Tompkins, Transatlantic Agency. (May)

School Library Journal
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Gr 9 Up—The night Cedar arrives in Sawblade Lake, something with lots of teeth and an appetite for slurping down gasoline makes itself known. It dogs Cedar's heels as it opens nearby doors and mailboxes before progressing to gory murder of Sawblade's residents. Terrified, but determined to protect their new home, Cedar teams up with several other queer teens including Ada, a girl with a symbiotic relationship, with the semi-sentient machine in her heart. When the creature kidnaps Ada's younger sister to use as a host, the teens start to reach toward desperate measures. Meanwhile, readers become increasingly aware that Cedar may know more than they're sharing with their friends—or the audience—with shadowed hints hidden in the introspective letters they write to their estranged father. The gentle mystery is not overshadowed by the occasionally gruesome horror, nor is the overarching exploration of the meanings of love, safety, and community. Both character-driven and plot-driven, this book will have readers finding themselves unable to pry themselves away. Main characters are cued white. VERDICT A truly stellar example of the best that horror can be, perfect for high schoolers who are not quite ready to engage with the works of Andrew Joseph White.—Austin Ferraro

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Danger stalks one small town after a technological apocalypse. The end of the known world came 10 years ago, in a global event called Autumn. Advanced technology gained tortured sentience, “woke up in pain,” and was mostly destroyed. With their mother dead and their father and brother long disappeared, white, 18-year-old nonbinary Cedar goes to the small town of Sawblade Lake, where their father is from and their grandmother still lives. Before they even get to town, they’re menaced by a shadowy, inhuman figure and threatened at gunpoint by Morgyn, a girl they quickly become attracted to. The monster—which seems to have complex and mysterious connections to Cedar—follows them to Sawblade, wreaking havoc on their newly formed community that consists of teens who are mostly white and who include a variety of gender identities. Cedar, along with girlfriend Lucy (who’s trans) and new friend Ada (whose pronouns areshe/they and who has “obscenely pretty eyes”) must track the creature down after it possesses Ada’s little sister, Ruby. The novel offers an interesting take on the future dystopia genre and the attendant bigger ideas about how we use technology and what that use might take from us. Unfortunately, the urgent pace doesn’t always progress the plot, leaving the story spinning its wheels, and the breathless, flowery prose can feel more melodramatic than moving. A carefully drawn, if uneven, queer-normative story. (content warning)(Horror. 14-18) Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Plett takes a hard pivot from their delightful debut into their fantastically scary sophomore work, though themes of found family and queer acceptance permeate both. Plett’s venture into horror centers on Cedar, a genderqueer teen who is either running from or to something. After their mother died under mysterious circumstances potentially related to Faulty technology—a residual effect of a near apocalypse that woke up tortured souls in complex machines and destroyed much of Earth’s technological infrastructure—Cedar finds their way to Sawblade Lake, where their parents grew up and paternal grandmother still lives. Making connections turns out easier than Cedar anticipated, as they’re adopted into the wonderfully queer ranks of Lucy (the town secret keeper), Papercut (a brutish but well-meaning knife wielder), and Ada (a new crush who coexists with Faulty technology in her body). Though the idea of tech with souls leans sf, the true root of the story is rural, eldritch horror, as a creature bound to the dark starts terrorizing the town, stalking Cedar and their friends and eventually taking something precious. The incredibly successful three-part structure builds suspense and intrigue, and a combination of prose, letters written to Cedar’s father, and free-flowing verse easily works together to drive everything forward. Plett masterfully combines monster horror and the messy machinations of found family in a story that will leave any reader eager for their next title.