Book review: Ten by Gretchen McNeil

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Description:
Shhhh!
Don't spread the word! Three-day weekend. House party.
White Rock House on Henry Island.
You do not want to miss it.
It was supposed to be the weekend of their lives—three days on Henry Island at an exclusive house party. Best friends Meg and Minnie each have their own reasons for wanting to be there, which involve their school's most eligible bachelor, T. J. Fletcher, and look forward to three glorious days of boys, bonding, and fun-filled luxury.
But what they expect is definitely not what they get, and what starts out as fun turns dark and twisted after the discovery of a DVD with a sinister message: Vengeance is mine.
Suddenly, people are dying, and with a storm raging outside, the teens are cut off from the rest of the world. No electricity, no phones, no internet, and a ferry that isn't scheduled to return for three days. As the deaths become more violent and the teens turn on each other, can Meg find the killer before more people die? Or is the killer closer to her than she could ever imagine?

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Review:
Ten has been on my TBR list for a few months, and I finally got around to reading it for the A to Z reading challenge. One thing I have to say about this book is that it keeps up the pace, and I had a hard time putting it down. There's something happening in every chapter, and the book is written in a simple language that makes the story speed by.

The plot itself is fairly standard, taken straight out of a typical teenager horror movie. Even most of the characters are the stereotypes you find in other stories in the genre, complete with their own flavor of high school drama. And like the teens in many horror flicks, I couldn't believe it took so long for the characters in this book to figure out that something bad was happening. If the author had made the characters smarter and focused less on their high school problems, I might have given this book 5 stars.

Despite the criticism, I did enjoy this book and will read others from the author. If you're looking for a fun story that entertains but doesn't challenge you intellectually, Ten will do a pretty good job of that.

I read this book as part of the Authors A to Z reading challenge. Next up: Headhunters by Jo Nesbo.