They arrived at Rosemarie’s house -which was next to a busy haunted corn maze- just in time to save her from him. This leads to a big fight that results in Alex’s throat being slit (RIP (also side note- the way it’s written, it doesn’t seem like Makani is that bummed that her best friend died which I thought was crazy)) and David running into the maze. Ollie, Makani, and Darby chase after him, eventually catching up to him. David then stabs BOTH Darby AND Ollie in the chest and runs. Makani, believing they are both dead, follows him again. He tries to stab Makani. Makani runs from him. She climbs into a corn pit and he is about to jump at her and stab her. Then…

It’s so crazy to me that this is the author of such a gruesome book. She seems so nice and innocent! I might have to read one of her rom-coms now to see if she’s good at writing that too!

I’m glad this book had a semi-happy ending. As difficult as the book was to read sometimes, it was a genre I hadn’t really read before and it was interesting to switch it up. I’m not going to lie, I will miss the crazy plot of this book. But at the same time, I’m also excited to keep reading the rom-coms I usually love.

P.S. Sorry for going meme-crazy 😓

I’ll start out by saying something I usually do not like saying… I might have been wrong. 😞

One theme I’ve noticed is the unshakeable impact of one’s past on their present self. This is seen the most through the main character, Makani. Before moving to Osborne, Makani made a drunken mistake that resulted in her (ex) best friend almost drowning (her (ex) best friend’s ponytail was cut off too, which is a tragedy in my book). Though her attorney was able to wipe the incident from her record and change her last name to give her a new start, it still haunted Makani. It stuck with her so much, in fact, that she assumed David was after her because of what she did in Hawaii. She has even said she deserved his attack, feeling extremely guilty for her past actions. Even if she still would’ve somehow ended up in Osborne if that event didn’t happen, she would not be the same person she is.

I think it is interesting how the writer chooses to write the murders in such creepy detail. I’m guessing she does this to get across her point of just how insane the killer is. Each victim’s corpse is mutilated in some way after their death (GROSS). I feel like this also helps kind of separate it from most people’s lives. A lot of murders reported in the media are SLIGHTLY more (there is no way to word this correctly so let me just add this note that I am NOT trying to justify murder or anything crazy like that in ANY WAY) humane/reasonable? My point is that generally the murders we hear about have more reason/purpose behind them and the killers are not as psychopathic. Which, in some ways, makes it less scary because it is so different from the realities of so many people, but it’s also really creepy to read, so I guess it’s just a different kind of scary.

I’m really ready for them to finally physically catch this guy! I am going crazy with all the gory details of the murders. This video is me when I start reading about someone misplacing things/hearing suspicious noises so I know a murder is coming.

I do really like that Kaiden and I can yap about the plot, but the book has been scary. After this project, I think I’m going to force Kaiden to read a more stupid book (the kind I love) with me so we can still yap without having to be stressed about catching a killer! (I have some leverage if I need it (Kaiden switched classes to ditch me in Spanish 3 😭))

This section was one of the least exciting/plot-heavy sections in this book. There was not much going on.

Though there was not a lot of things happening, it did talk about some of Makani’s trauma caused by the attack. As I mentioned in the last section, Makani is staying with Chris and Ollie at their house. Makani is (reasonably) very disturbed and paranoid about the whole situation. I think the fact that she was not home alone when she was attacked really adds to her worry. This idea of feeling unsafe even when surrounded by people is shown especially when she goes to her house with Chris and Ollie to pick up a few things she will need to stay with them. At her house, she decided to take a shower and was extremely paranoid, even though she knew that Ollie and various police officers were also in her house.

Makani be like:

This is not the only trouble Makani has to deal with though. Makani’s parents are very bad to her. While they don’t physically abuse her (that I know of) her mom is, as her grandmother described her, “a raging narcissist” and her father does not seem to care. This became especially obvious when her parents did not answer the phone when the police and hospital called them. After they eventually found out, her dad left a nonchalant message to “give him a call sometime” and her mom made the attack sound like Makani’s fault, stating how inconvenient and troublesome it would be for her to go stay with her own daughter. Now maybe it’s just me, but those do NOT seem like good parents at all.

Okay there wasn’t exactly NOTHING going on in this section… WE FINALLY FOUND OUT WHAT MAKANI DID IN HAWAII! (Unless there is more to the story…) But apparently, she was kidnapped for a swim team hazing ritual where she was humiliated and forced to drink alcohol. She was really upset that her best friend didn’t warn her because she knew in advance. Well, one thing led to another and she grabbed a knife and cut off her (ex) best friend’s ponytail! (I’m going to be honest here, while I would be extremely mad if someone cut off my hair, I expected WAY worse)

I feel like Makani leaving Hawaii and being thrown into such a different life in such a small town has really helped her grow as a person. This seems to be one of the themes of the book, how the environment has such a big impact on the individual. The guilt she feels now really seems to contrast with the more impulsive and careless personality she used to have.

Here is a site that Jasmine (the hair victim) may want to look into… https://www.byrdie.com/bad-haircut

I’m excited to hear what Kaiden says! I hope you enjoy the extremely random meme(?) below!

I thought it was also interesting how Perkins had that idea of Makani’s guilt stemming from her mysterious past in Hawaii, how she thought she deserved to die. I’m not going to lie, I did cry when her grandma stepped in and almost died. It really didn’t help Makani’s guilt knowing that her innocent grandma was almost killed trying to protect her. The hospital scene after when Chris and Ollie showed up was so sweet. I thought it was cute how her grandma, someone who had seen incriminating evidence that Makani and Ollie were… intimate, trusted Makani to go stay with Chris and Ollie.

If my theory is wrong and David was truly the only killer, I am curious to see what else will happen in the book. The murders are kind of the main plot so…

I’m excited to hear Kaiden’s thoughts on this chapter!!! I think he’ll be pretty shocked, I know I was!

Let me say, WOW. Just wow. But before I get into the murder details here, I will go over some of the less creepy things that happened this section!

Matt’s murder brought about some intense investigating from police, requiring every student at Osborne High to be questioned. Though Makani’s secret “incident” in Hawaii has not been revealed, she was very nervous to be questioned. Her anxiety makes me wonder if her incident was illegal or if she had partaken in some criminal activity in Hawaii. Whatever the cause of her initial nerves, there was added stress when the police officer questioning her turned out to be Ollie’s brother, Chris. She was so stressed after the interview that Ollie offered to take her home, and they both skipped the last 20 minutes of class.

When Chris got home and scolded Ollie for ditching school with a killer on the loose, I thought it was a good reminder of all he has to put up with. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to suddenly have to raise your younger brother. Perkins touches on the idea that Chris is still trying to juggle being a cool older brother for Ollie and being the responsible adult that Ollie needs to keep him safe and in line. In one description, Chris was called “more slender and less muscular than most cops” which made me a little suspicious. “Slender” was one of the only words used to describe the killer so I am definitely going to be cautious anytime it is used to describe any other character. Honestly, and maybe this is just me, but I can’t believe that Chris would be the killer. He seems so nice.

This murder was pretty gruesome. (Shocker there right?) Pro tip: do NOT turn on suspenseful music when you think you’ll be reading about a murder. One word, SCARY… Rodrigo’s murder may have revealed enough for me to recognize when the killer is introduced. My current theory is that the killer’s real identity has not been introduced as a character yet, since the facts do not seem to match anyone I know of. Here are the facts. The killer got into Rodrigo’s house through the guest bathroom window. There was a ding (seemingly from the killer’s phone?) when Rodrigo texted the group chat with his friends- therefore I’m guessing it is one of his friends. It sounds like the killer was in his house all night before they killed him in the morning. After his murder, the killer sat down in his living room and played his video games- they seemed to know that Rodrigo had been home alone and would be for hours that morning.

That’s all for this section of the book! I am excited to hear what Kaiden has to say about it! Stay safe out there guys 😓

Okay this book just keeps getting crazier and crazier OMG. I was really convinced I would get a break from the scary parts of this book. There was so much plot happening with Ollie and Makani that I honestly kind of forgot how horror-filled this book is.

I was glad to see that Makani and Ollie have gotten together for real! I think it is really been a nice shift from their purely physical relationship before to a real relationship. Honestly, this was something I was not expecting to see this early in the book, but I am glad they are together. In this week’s section there was a very cute scene where Ollie met Makani’s grandmother. Their unspoken connection from both of them losing loved ones was an idea that I did not expect.

In the final chapter of this section, the book took a very dark turn. I knew something had to be up when the focus randomly shifted from Makani and her life to a character that we have not seen much of. The chapter about Matt became even more suspicious when they revealed that he started constantly forgetting his belongings.

I was not prepared for a few of the gruesome details about the murder. My notes of what I know about the murders have tripled this section. I will give you a quick recap of the key points I have noticed. 1. The murders have involved the victim misplacing things prior to their murder. 2. The weapons have been knives of some sort. 3. The figure is slender and has worn a hoodie and gloves. 4. Matt seemed to know the killer. Out of the kindness of my heart, I will not share some of the more unsettling details (if you do want to know, let me know and I will reply to your comment with a few details).

I currently do not have a good guess of who the killer may be. It is so difficult to make predictions since there does not seem to be much suspicious information shared about characters so I can’t even make a list of suspects.

I started this book sometime last week and just finished the first section of the book that I committed to reading for my first post. When the first chapter and a page of a book is a murder, you know it is going to be interesting.

I thought the author’s choice to write in third person was somewhat disappointing but wise. Personally, I tend to prefer first person narration, so I was apprehensive about how I was going to like the writing style. However, Perkin’s third person narration was a good idea because it adds so much mystery. When reading a book written in first person it gives readers so much information about what a character honestly feels and remembers about whatever subject is brought up. I think that the author omitting many of the characters’ direct thoughts by writing in a third person perspective will add mystery to keep me guessing who the killer is.

I have decided to keep a list of character names to add notes to as well as notes on what has been mentioned about the murder. I hope I will be able to predict the killer before they are revealed!

This book has hooked me so far and I only just finished chapter three! I have so many questions though. The book keeps refencing Makani and her “incident” in Hawaii, claiming the results were so bad she had to change her last name to escape her past. What did she do?? Another question I have about Makani is, are her and Ollie ever going to be together for real and officially? Apparently they had a fling over the summer but will they continue to ignore each other or will they pick up where they left off months ago?? This also seems like a book that will not stop at one death, which leads me to wonder, who is going to be killed next??

I have decided to read ‘There’s Someone Inside Your House’ by Stephanie Perkins for this project. I chose this book because it seems very interesting and different from what I generally read. This project sounds exciting because I will be working with Kaiden X. We have already created a schedule that I hope will keep both of us accountable and on time with our assignments, as I tend to be a procrastinator. I am very excited to discuss the plot and mysteries with Kaiden. It may just be my bias speaking, but I think we will be very good detectives. We are hoping to solve the mystery before it is revealed. However, I am apprehensive of how scary this book may be as I tend to get spooked out easily. Kaiden wants to watch the Netflix version of ‘There’s Someone Inside Your House’ but after watching the trailer, I am not sure I can handle the level of horror the show seems to have.

Similar to how all the texts were written for different audiences for different purposes, they also brought about varying amounts of change. For example, Columbus’ journal was written more to inform the king of what the “New World” was like and encourage him to take advantage of it. This was actually achieved when the Spaniards traded unjustly, took slaves, and took over land. The other two texts were written to inspire a positive change more than anything. This is shown through de las Casas’ descriptions of how inhumanely the Indians were being treated along with Red Cloud’s hopes for peace in the future. These problems, however, did not make substantial progress until much later. So while they may have inspired more advocates for their case, there did not appear to be much change that closely followed the creation of these texts. It is difficult to blame Red Cloud and de las Casas for this, since at the time, few seemed to listen to and support the Indians, so it seems, there was not anything else they could do to make more of an impact.

In Bartolome de las Casas’s writing, “The Very Brief Relation of the Devastation of the Indies” De las Casas highlights the greed of the Spaniards in their interaction with the Indians. This is shown by the text when it says, “The tyranny exercised by the Spaniards against the Indians in the work of pearl fishing is one of the most cruel that can be imagined.” (De las Casas, 91.) The avaricious nature of the Spaniards led to the selfish and inhumane treatment of the Indians. This is often the case when one culture is wealthier or more technologically advanced, meaning they are more used to getting everything they want. They will do anything in their power to get it.