Tastes Like Candy 2: Sugarless by Ivy Tholen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Scare Factor: 💀💀💀| Plot: 📕📕📕📕| Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Length: 📱374 pages | Genre: YA Horror | POV: First
Dates Read: 04.27.24 – 04.30.24



✴✴✴ TW: M*rder, Verbal Ab*se by a Parent, Neglect by a Parent, Mention of Extramarital Affairs, Depiction of Gore ✴✴✴


🕊️ ➞ Tropes:

🕵🏻 Teen/Amateur Sleuth 🕵🏻
🎢🎡 Carnival/Amusement Park 🎡🎢
🔪👤 Serial Killer 👤🔪
🔪🩸Slasher 🩸🔪
🕵🏻Whodunit🕵🏻
🚫Trust No One 🚫
🩸Gruesome 🩸
👩🏻 Final Girl Vibes 👩🏻
👻No One’s Safe 👻
👤👺Hooded / Masked Killer 👺👤
👹😵‍💫Crazed Motive😵‍💫👹


🕊️ ➞ Synopsis:

Five years ago, a group of teenage girls entered the Poison Apple Halloween Carnival for a scavenger hunt, and all but one died at the hand of a masked killer. Now, a copycat killer has emerged and is using a familiar cotton-candy-coated playbook to pick off a new group of girls one by one.

Meanwhile, the Scavenge’s lone survivor—still haunted by ghosts from the past and unable to move on from her loss—begins receiving disturbing text messages, seemingly from beyond the grave. When someone from home contacts her for help, she realizes that she must return to the carnival to warn the new girls and stop the original killer’s protégé, or they may suffer the same fate as the victims in the last Senior Scavenge.

There’s just one According to the people of Belldam, the Senior Scavenge never happened.



🕊️ ➞ Progress Notes & Initial Thoughts:

**As posted to my Threads**

4% // Dusty’s mother is such a raging n@rcissist it hurts. She makes feel every single one of David Rose’s stages of astonishment and disgust all at once. Consecutively. In a row.

8% // Okay so my three guesses right off the bat…
1. Dusty’s awful mother. She’s giving Blythe vibes
2. Opal – she seems very observant and gives little digs which could lead to resentment.
3. Dusty – the MC herself! She does have a good motive… bad home life, verbally abusive and controlling mother, but so far no talk of her future. Plus it’d be a good twist, albeit rare.

16% // WHAT??? SHES ALIVE???


24% // So this is an apprentice situation?? Who’s on the other side of the screen? Is this a known killer or will there be a reveal? The anticipation is killing me and I’m fighting sleep.



45% // Okay okay loving the way this is going… I think it’s Riley who’s the mastermind behind the texts.

72% // “for funsies”?? Oh it’s def Nico

75% // Nico’s gaslighting and self-absorption is disgusting. Violet tells her about the killings and this b!tch makes it about her?? “WhY dIdNt YoU tElL mE” stfu

83% // Okay.. my review is gonna have hella rants because the people of this town are so awfulllll 😫😫

84% // All these people just STOOD AROUND. I’m also concerned at the level of murderous rage the people of Belldam have…

96% // WHAT???



100% // The cliffhanger!!! I’m spiraling!!!!



🕊️ ➞ My Thoughts:

Tastes Like Candy 2: Sugarless was an amusing and intriguing read… I found the split parts incredibly interesting. I especially enjoyed the way Tholen showed Dusty’s, our MC of part 1, descent into a full-blown psychopath as well as the way an outside influence can play a role in that fall. I felt for Dusty, truly! Her mother was A W F U L !! Being a mommy influencer, her mother would post embarrassing videos to humiliate Dusty under the guise of a loving mom. Dusty hated how her mother forced her to wear matching outfits so she could post them together smiling and pretending to be the model mother-daughter duo.

I felt Dusty’s rage when she finally snapped… She banished her mom’s brains in with the woman’s tripod stand.



Honestly, I knew from the get that Dusty didn’t truly have the discipline or the strength to pull off what Blythe did in book one. She wasn’t given enough time and she wasn’t committed enough. I think it had to do with the fact that she wasn’t in a position like Blythe where she was going to lose everything, she was just angry and frustrated with the circumstances of her life. And her poor choice of friends, I mean I wasn’t even mad about them dying. They were all God-awful.



The mystery element of this book came with the question of who was texting Dusty from Blythe’s number. Violet swore she saw Blythe’s mangled body at the bottom of the Ferris wheel five years ago… So who the h3ll was it?? Yeah, I’d like to know too! Tholen kind of alluded to it in the ending when Blythe called Violet, but I hold Violet’s opinion that it’s an AI voice and not truly Blythe. I GUESS we’ll have to wait and see if Tholen graces us with a third book! Fingers crossed!

If you’ve read Tastes Like Candy 2:Sugarless, leave a comment with your thoughts!

xo,

L.B.



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