Romanceopoly Review: The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek by Rhett McLaughlin, Link Neal, Lance Rubin

“It sat in that forgettable line between the good and bad where all mediocre books go to die.”
~ Under the Covers

When teenagers Rex and Leif’s best friend gets taken mysteriously in the middle of the night to a reform school with a history of “accidents” befalling its students, they are determined to get her back. But, as they discover more of the schools secrets they realise this is far bigger than they expected and they need to be careful about who they can trust.

This felt like a book with an identity crisis. What did it want to be? A coming of age young adult story? A supernatural thriller? A psychological thriller? An episode of Scooby doo? It’s hard to pin point. Now, a book that doesn’t easily fit genre definitions isn’t necessary a problem for me, not everything needs to be labelled. But, for me, it’s lack of a clear identity made it feel like a confused and indecisive mix of all of the above and lacked any depth.

I picked this up for two reasons; I love a good mystery and because of who the authors are. I imagine that most people who bought this book bought it because they love Good Mythical Morning, the hugely popular YouTube channel, which they created and host. Of whom I number as one of its fans. But like most celebrity written books it was more of an exercise in ego and merchandising than a story that would truly stand out on its own. This all sounds very harsh, it wasn’t a particularly bad book, it just wasn’t a good one either. It sat in that forgettable line between the good and bad where all mediocre books go to die.

I was prepared to like this book, unfortunately although I didn’t dislike it, it just felt more like an indulgence rather than a good story.

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