Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A summer vacation turns sinister as a monster grows hungry. Every summer, Evan Rio and her parents escape to the lakeside town of Sonrisa for a big reunion. But this summer is different. Evan’s parents aren’t coming; they’ve been fighting. Billie and Jackson—Evan’s long-distance best friends—have hit puberty and are changing. Evan’s changing, too: Her mom’s dieting rules are leading her to skip meals and obsess over her appearance. When a strange creature starts wreaking havoc, the trio decide to track the beast and reclaim their perfect summer. Can they stop it before someone gets hurt? Mejia’s latest powerfully links eating disorders with body horror, drawing parallels between the monster and Evan’s own appetites. Frequent references to calories, meal skipping, and buzzing hunger provide a vivid window into Evan’s internal struggles. The story’s tone avoids shame and is hopeful, even affirming, as Evan confronts her own perceived monstrosity. Evan is biracial (her mom is cued white, and her dad has deep brown skin), Billie, who’s queer, has golden-brown skin, and Jackson, who has asthma, is racially indeterminate. While Evan’s mom is awful and abusive (but not without redemption—“We can have empathy for those who lead us astray, but we cannot allow them to continue leading,” the monster observes), Billie’s mom provides a necessary foil, showing what it might look like to support a child with anorexia. An author’s note provides essential context and encourages readers to seek help. Intriguing and not for the faint of heart.(Horror. 10-14) Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly
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In this expressive work of psychological horror, Mejia (It Happened to Anna) explores one tween’s grappling for bodily autonomy throughout a gripping summer-set mystery. Though 12-year-old Evan Rio’s parents haven’t officially separated, she knows it’s coming: her father is full of hollow cheer, while her mother, wrestling with body image issues, redirects her anxiety toward Evan under the guise of bonding through restrictive diets and exercise. Instead of spending the summer together as usual, Evan is sent to stay with her best friend, Billie Barnard, also 12, in lakeside resort town Sonrisa. While Billie is preoccupied by first crushes, however, Evan’s worries about her family fester, exacerbating her anorexia, body dysmorphia, and internalized shame. Meanwhile, the citizens of Sonrisa attempt to uncover the cause of mysterious claw marks, paw prints, and goose carcasses appearing around town, as well as nocturnal howling. Suspenseful atmosphere raises the stakes of Evan’s hair-raising investigation, while empathetic prose realistically depicts Evan’s experience with disordered eating, including her rationalizations of her family situation, her longing for control over her body and her circumstances, and her struggles with asking for help. Characters are intersectionally diverse. Ages 10–up. Agent: Jim McCarthy, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Sept.)