Today, I’m excited to be sharing my review of Be Right Back by Bill Wood. Let’s Split Up was a darkly hilarious and chilling YA horror-thriller, so I was eagerly anticipating the sequel. Did it live up to my expectations?
Thank you to Tina Mories at Scholastic UK for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.
This review originally appeared on The Nerd Daily.
A year has passed since the events in Sanera left the town reeling. Buffy, Jonesy, Amber and Cam unmasked the killer of 2001, but now, a new horror stirs. Back for the inaugural Hallowed Fall Fest where tourists wander the streets in masks and costumes, the bodies start piling up. With each new death, the gang is left a cryptic clue, leading them deeper into a horrifying mystery. An online forum is filled with speculation about local legends, and there is a clue buried within it .
If the gang can work it out, they will be able to stop the killer in their tracks. but it’s possible the killer is one step ahead. It all leads to a grand finale, back where it all began, if they can make it there alive.
Publication Date: 9th October
CW: death, murder, violence, gore, grief, death of a child, traumatic flashbacks, PTSD
My Thoughts:
Be Right Back quickly assuages any concerns around a sequel curse and delivers another phenomenal story that you will not forget anytime soon. It is perfect reading for the Halloween build-up but also anytime of the year that you are craving YA horror excellence.
Let’s Split Up was a killer of a YA horror-thriller and such an impressive debut novel, with excellent characterisation, twists, and writing that sends chills down your spine. It had that blend of heart, humour and scares that all of our favourite slashers deliver—paying homage to the greats but also delivering a fresh new spin. This sequel delivers the goods again and is an absolute barnstormer. It is an evolution of these already great elements and brings a bloody new mystery too.
At the heart of it all are Buffy, Jonesy, Amber, and Cam. It is your emotional connection to these characters that keeps the pages turning, particularly with different narrative snippets from them all. We’ve returned to them a year on from the first book as our intrepid quartet has returned home for the holidays and the ghosts of the previous year’s events loom large. Yet again, Wood captures their voices brilliantly. They are distinctive and feel three-dimensional. You get the sense that you’ve known these people forever and they easily find a place in your heart all over again. Each of them has been profoundly affected by what they went through and the sudden celebrity it has granted too. I loved how Wood explores this in depth, adding a new layer to each character as they grapple with this in their own way. Certain secrets from their pasts are also coming into play with some fascinating backstory threaded in. It is cleverly done in that you have enough here to be intrigued but not every detail has been revealed—something to bear in mind for the next blockbuster hit in the series I’m sure. Their relationships are deepened, fractured or frayed as the pages turn and it is exciting to see where this may go.
I also love the way Wood does dialogue—it feels snappy, flows naturally and is full of the type of in-jokes and references of a well-established friendship group. There is a horror shorthand that comes in as well, building on the meta feel of the first book. It is a nod and a wink but done with clear love and respect. This extends to the tropes and plot beats too, hell even the titles are playing on your expectations. That type of dark comedy is exactly to my taste and the tone of these books always feels spot on. There is plenty of darkness and monstrosity, with a very big acknowledgement that sequels can often stack up the bodies a bit more. It is gory and tragic and keenly aware of the rippling effects of this intense trauma they have endured and continue to endure. Wood raises the stakes constantly with an unrelenting weight of tension pressing down on you. No one is safe and anything can happen. All of this builds to a fantastic conclusion that left me wanting more immediately.
I loved the throughline about the exploitation of tragedy and the true crime industry that Wood explores through the celebrations to mark the now infamous case. Sanera is ‘celebrating’ the inaugural Hallowed Fall Fest, which is a capitalisation on the media storm that catapulted the events of the previous book to national attention. It is an extremely murky move and the ramifications of this are keenly felt, for the surrounding community and also as a device for the plot to unfold. These celebrations allow for disguises to easily be donned and monsters to hide in plain sight. It is sickening in some ways to see how easily tragedy is used to create income. There is a deep-seated sense of anger from the community and our core four at this twisting of events, which they confront in various ways throughout the story. It is impactful and I’m fascinated to see how Wood may continue to develop this thread in future stories.
Be Right Back delivers another chiller of a story. It is smart, slick and sensational with a wonderful continuation of the story kickstarted in Let’s Split Up. Long may these books continue.
A Short Book Lover 
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