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Rate: 4.5/5

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Medium: Book

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Overview (No Spoilers): 

Childhood best friends, Becca and Nora grow estranged following Becca’s toxic and flaky behavior in the aftermath of her parents’ passing. When Becca and three other locals disappear in one night, Nora is left to pick up the clues that get stranger and stranger with every passing night. Can Nora figure out what happened before it is too late for Becca?

Going into The Bad Ones, I was rather skeptical as I pondered how YA and horror be properly merged. Albert delightfully squashes any doubts in record time. In the very opening scenes of this book, one line simultaneously turns all expectations on their head and utterly locked in my attention in one fell swoop. Albert maintains a sprint throughout The Bad Ones as the mystery only deepens with each chapter.

I love how Albert explores the various seasons of childhood friendships and how much it can hurt when they fall apart. There’s so much complexity and depth to those friendships that manage to endure during this fragile timeframe of our youth and Albert captures both the good and the toxic the often coexist. I’m a huge fan of worldbuilding and Albert creates an incredibly detailed world around Becca and Nora’s childhood that is fueled by their imaginations, especially surrounding their Goddess game and how the lore permeates over generations. 

This story is mainly told from Nora’s perspective, but there are flashbacks to Becca, who mostly remains an enigma until the end. Becca’s intermittent chapters build toward the night she disappears. This volleying creates a deep sense of foreboding that permeates throughout the book. 

Overall, a masterclass in YA horror, The Bad Ones is fantastically creepy and contains a dangerous mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end.

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Additional Insight (Spoilers Abound): 

• The ending didn’t seem to align with the rest of the book. Becca surviving only fits with the YA aspects but not with the tone of the rest of the book.

• How was Becca showing up again explained when the rest of the people were still gone? 
• The opening scene at the sleepover when the last line of the chapter said something along the lines of “Oh ya. Now I remember that so and so doesn’t have a sister” totally shocked me and changed the direction of the book in one line. Amazing.
• With these disappearances. Nora’s behavior seemed so suspicious. Why was she not investigated? 
• The evil entity at the end reminded me of the demon in Denzel Washington’s Fallen.
• Since we know the evil entity was not always just going after people who were bad. Was the young man evil who disappeared during prom the generation before?

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