Review: It Found Us by Lindsay Currie

This was my first book by this author. I had hoped it would be my first of many, that I would want to buy all her other books too. But sadly I think this will be the only one for me. I had to buy it, since that cover is beyond creepy and awesome. It sounded spooky. I thought I would love this one so much. I very much did not. Sigh.

I'm unsure about how I will write this review of mine. I am giving the book two stars. It disappointed me so much. And I honestly do not have all that much that I want to share about it, so I think my review will end up being short. I simply wanted so much from this book. I adore creepy middle grade stories. And this was not.

I shall begin with the writing. I did not like it one bit, I am sorry to say. It felt so awkward, the way everything was written. A weird type of first person point of view, I guess. I didn't like it at all. The main girl was twelve years old, I felt like she was eight. She was supposed to be super smart, solving mysteries and such. I didn't think she was. Her list of clues bothered me so much, haha, and it was repeated so many times. It was the simplest list. And their detective work was bad too. I wanted to love this book. But I did not. It just felt silly most of the time. The kids were trying to find a missing boy. Trying to be detectives. They were so awful at it, honestly. So many things were repeated through the book too, about how awesome their parents were. I grew very tired of it.

This book tells the story of Hazel and her older brother Den. And her best friend Maggie too. I sadly have to say that I did not care for any of these characters. I didn't find them exciting or anything like that. Sigh. Hazel likes to solve things. Den is a typically teenage boy. Maggie is someone who hears every type of gossip. That is mostly what we get to know about them. I didn't see why Hazel and Maggie were friends. And I wish there had been more about that, honestly. So I could have actually cared about any of them.

Anyway. The story is that Den is sneaking out with his friends to play hide-and-seek at the graveyard and Hazel goes to spy on them, trying to get content for her someday-podcast. They play one round. Everett, the best friend of Den, does not come out. And they cannot find him. And they hear scary noises and bad weather arrives too. I felt like this book tried hard to be scary, but it never actually was. Not even for one moment. And I think that is what disappointed me the most. It was not creepy or spooky or anything. Aw.

The kids are sad and just want to find Everett. So they do their own investigating. Which leads to ghosts and things like that. I found it to be written so badly. It annoyed me at all times. Sigh. Wish the elephants on the cover actually had anything to do with the story. They didn't. The one thing I liked about this book, was the actual story of the ghost. But it was written so badly that I did not care. But it was based on a real event; I liked that a lot. I just wish the book around it had been better. How rude. Still. I liked that one part.

It Found Us ended up being a huge disappointment for me. It looks gorgeous. But the story was not. But I'm going to say that it might just be a me issue. Perhaps, anyway. I like my middle grade books to be a little more mature, and the writing in this one was very much not. I suppose some kids might like it, but I just found it awkward. And I have read a whole lot of amazing middle grade stories with amazing writing. So yeah. This book was not for me. But it might still be for you. It is very much not as creepy as the cover.

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