Until the Last Light Goes Out by Courtney Gould
"While the creature lived, she would never truly be safe. But while the creature lived, she wouldn't be truly alone, either."
Year Read: 2026
Rating: 3/5
Thoughts: This is an interesting concept worn thin by repetition. Initially, I liked that the weirdness of the Kaleidoscope started right away, but by the middle-end, I was ready for something else to happen. There's only so much wandering around impossible hallways and running from strange noises that a girl can take before it becomes boring rather than frightening, and it's nearly impossible to sustain the tension for that long. There are a couple unsettling moments of vore horror but, again, it's more interesting in concept than execution.
I didn't have any particular feelings about the characters. I think Gould does a nice job setting up the contrast between logical, orderly Paige and chaotic KJ. Their best friendship is a little insular, maybe even a little codependent, and it puts the rest of the characters in shadow. It's clear the side characters are never as important to them (or the story) as they are to each other. I typically enjoy Gould's wlw romances, but in this case it felt a little shoehorned and under-developed. I didn't much enjoy the flashbacks to the previous massacre either, but that's typical for me. I'm not sure they add much to our understanding of what's going on, but they provide body count and some slasher-style horror.
If you're the sort of reader who prefers to have everything explained, this book isn't going to work for you. For as much as we see of the resort, we see very little of the force behind it. I wanted less of the haunted house and more of the monster, and I ended with a lot of questions. Is it even a physical being? Are they always just inside its consciousness? I'm not saying the book needs to answer all of these to be effective--sometimes the scariest monsters are the vaguest ones--just that it doesn't.
The ending feels a little neat. It's almost as though Gould wrote herself so big and powerful a monster that she couldn't find a way to write herself back out. At no point did I feel like the characters stood a chance of surviving, so any loophole was going to feel like just that. It's not my favorite Gould, but it's not my least favorite either. I received an invitation to read a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at St. Martin’s Press/Wednesday Books.
