The Mary Shelley Club

Specs:

What The Vibes Are

What It’s About

New girl Rachel Chavez is eager to make a fresh start at Manchester Prep. But as one of the few scholarship kids, Rachel struggles to fit in, and when she gets caught up in a prank gone awry, she ends up with more enemies than friends.

To her surprise, however, the prank attracts the attention of the Mary Shelley Club, a secret club of students with one objective: come up with the scariest prank to orchestrate real fear. But as the pranks escalate, the competition turns cutthroat and takes on a life of its own.

When the tables are turned, and someone targets the club itself, Rachel must track down the real-life monster in their midst . . . even if it means finally confronting the dark secrets from her past.

What I thought about it

***Possible Spoilers below

After a home invasion, Rachel and her mother tried to make a fresh start in Manhattan. Attending Manchester Prep as a scholarship kid definitely wasn’t easy, but after discovering a secret club within the school, Rachel’s life at this new school started to look up. The Mary Shelley Club was an elusive group of students who performed pranks on kids who were inspired by horror movies and urban legends. When a masked figure — resembling the mask of her assailant — began following her around, Rachel’s world started to close in as she raced to figure out who the masked man was before they finished what they started.

The Mary Shelley Club & Its Members

Club Rules

 The Mary Shelley Club is a secret.

Think of it as the Fight Club, but give it a Billy Loomis twist. Made up of four kids from four different cliques, they found a common love for horror and pranks. They had weekly movie nights in between the execution of pranks, where they argued over tropes and which movie was more revolutionary than the other.

Everyone gets one Fear Test that all members must help execute. You must perform the task that the leader of the Fear Test assigns to you. No exceptions.

The Fear Tests were the pranks. It was all a part of the Game. The objective was to scare the crap out of your target. Mostly, it was fueled by social revenge and the need to humble the target. Like most plots similar to this, it didn’t just end in screams, did it? Anyways, whoever performed the best Fear Test won the Game. Lots of work just for bragging rights. Bragging you can only do during secret club meetings…. pardon? 

 That’s it? You betcha.

You must pick your target before the test starts. That’s your eight ball. You may scare everyone else in the room, but if you don’t sink your eight ball, you’ve failed the test.

This rule was more important to the plot than you’d think. The psychological aspect of this was *chef’s kiss*

 The Game isn’t over until everyone’s had their turn.

 A member of the club may never be a target.

We talked about the Game. It’s all about whose target screamed the loudest.

Moving on, let’s talk about the members. Thayer Turner, the son of the State Attorney General; Bram Wilding, the rich Golden Boy; Felicity Chu, resident goth chick with a monotoned attitude; and, lastly, Freddie Martinez, the attractive film nerd, who was also a scholarship kid. All the different cliques do not bring attention to the club. (John Tucker Must Die was coming to mind. Anyone else? No? Got it.) Thayer was more of a jokester. He was funny and dramatic. Bram was the brooder. The morally grey golden boy with a permanent disinterested scowl on his face. Felicity was the unimpressed Goth chick who pretty much hated everyone. She was enchanted with executing the Tests and giddy when she’d hear the Targets scream. Freddie was the hot guy who was considered a nerd because he was in the Film clique. Rachel mentioned his insanely sharp jawline… a lot. Freddie was the more sensitive one who connected the most with Rachel.

 A Fear Test ends when your target screams.

The Final Girl:

Rachel Chavez, our heroine and resident Final Girl. After a home invasion leaves one of her assailants dead, Rachel and her mom move to Manhattan from Long Island in hopes of a fresh start. To cope, Rachel became obsessed with horror movies; so when she started catching onto a secret club and their pranks, naturally, she became intrigued. After confronting the people she believed to be members, she was finally awarded admission into the club. If only the home invasion were the end of Rachel’s worries.

Conclusion

I enjoyed the plot. The only thing I have against it is the length. There was a lot of character development and such, but no action until maybe the last hundred pages. The plot twist was amazing. I had some idea of the direction it was going, but not to the extent to which it went. Moldavsky left the ending pretty open-ended. Definitely a possibility for a sequel. Hope she writes it.

♡ G&P