S.T.A.G.S.

Author: M.A. Bennett

Publisher: Hot Key Books

Year: Aug 2017

Pages: 290

ISBN: 9781471406768

Genre: Young Adult Thriller

Reading Time: July 31 - Aug 1
Binding: Signed Paperback

Goodreads

Blurb:

It is the autumn term and Greer MacDonald is struggling to settle into the sixth form at the exclusive St. Aidan the Great boarding school, known to its privileged pupils as S.T.A.G.S. Just when she despairs of making friends Greer receives a mysterious invitation with three words embossed upon on it: huntin' shootin' fishin'. When Greer learns that the invitation is to spend the half term weekend at the country manor of Henry de Warlencourt, the most popular and wealthy boy at S.T.A.G.S., she is as surprised as she is flattered.

But when Greer joins the other chosen few at the ancient and sprawling Longcross Hall, she realises that Henry's parents are not at home; the only adults present are a cohort of eerily compliant servants. The students are at the mercy of their capricious host, and, over the next three days, as the three bloodsports - hunting, shooting and fishing - become increasingly dark and twisted, Greer comes to the horrifying realisation that those being hunted are not wild game, but the very misfits Henry has brought with him from school...

Review:

 Let me start off by saying this is not a mystery. What is going to happen is clear, sometimes because Greer is retrospectively telling us the story and likes to remind us of what happens at the end but also because it's pretty obvious. When the popular kids at school invite the misfits on a secluded weekend that involves weapons, something bad is going to happen and the characters that don't suspect something are naive. Greer likes to make comments on things she sees and link them to her knowledge of movies. When this first happened I thought it was cool, then I realised it added nothing to the story and was just one of the characters odd quirks that entertained herself. Some of the references (Cogsworth) were funny but there were some that I didn't understand, so it got a bit pretentious and added nothing to the story. You'd also think that Greer would have watched plans to humiliate the misfits play out a million times with this movie knowledge, so why the hell wasn't she suspicious sooner?

 This is a thriller for a younger audience, I believe the age suggestion is 14+ and I think at 14 I would have enjoyed it much more. But at 18, I wanted this to be darker. None of the traumatic or shocking parts are really dealt with, they happen quickly and are mostly dismissed by Greer. Instead there is a lot of scenery description (nice) and some teenage relationship obsessing. I think Greer is 17 but she acts about 14 in the face of a possible relationship. I'm not sure whether it's accurate as people get giddy around these kind of changes or if it's a drawback of an adult writing as a teenager. Either way, if an older audience had been decided and this was New Adult instead, it could have been awesome and more bloodthirsty to my liking.

 The plot is good, but knowing who lives and dies from the first few chapters is a bit weird. Greer makes comments on how stupid she was or how she should have felt throughout and this only reminds you that she survives, meaning there aren't any real stakes in this book. If it had been left open, the thriller element of this would have come through perhaps to even a mild horror.

 We spend little time at the school, enough to make an introduction into why Greer's invitation is odd and then we jump into the action. This was really good as I don't think that having long dreary lessons with Greer being lonely and self-pitying would have been entertaining or helped me empathise with her. It likely would have made me dislike her character more. I liked Greer until around the morning of the shootin' day. If you read it, you'll know why. Her attitude was...urgh. She didn't develop a huge amount and nor did any other characters, there were only realisations of what the Medievals were really like. 

 I should mention this Medieval thing, because it could get really annoying. The popular group is called the Medievals, they are old money and act like they still live in our world a few hundred years ago. They use cars but ignore modern technology. Technology is 'Savage'. With a capital 'S'! Swearing is Savage. Phones are Savage. Anything that is Savage is automatically discarded by most people in the school who want to become a part of the Medievals. This is one of those school cliches that works in a book. If it's a social norm at S.T.A.G.S. then it fits, but it's constantly referenced and Greer checks herself for anything Savage before acting in front of the Medievals over the weekend.

 The end was a slow kind of redemption. The act you've been waiting for the entire book happens and there are 50 or so pages left. Things continue and you wonder why until a few things happen and everything becomes bigger than the characters realised which answered a couple of questions I had along the way.

 I realise my review has been pretty negative but I feel like this book won't work for readers that are ready for adult thrillers, it's a kid's thriller book. There are quirks that are irksome for older readers that you wouldn't notice at a younger age. I noticed them, but I still read this book in under 24 hours and enjoyed it whilst I was reading. I'd love for the idea to be told for an adult audience. The underlying ideas the Medievals have are pretty awesome and could pull off some great following books.