Nightmare at Camp Forrestwood: A Young Adult Whodunit, (Paperback)

Holly Jenson is a relatively new student at Madison High, and she has only one real friend. Her name is Erin, and she appears to be from a poor family, wearing the same clothes to school every day. Erin also suffers from some personal hygiene problems. Both of them join a senior class camping trip to a resort where there are cabins. At first Erin does not want to go but is convinced by Holly as she does not want to be a loner. While there is a wide variety of personalities among the high school students on the trip, the one constant is that they act like high school students. There are one or two class clowns, some intellectuals, athletes, popular snooty girls and athletic, popular males. Once they arrive, unusual things begin to happen. Some get sick, there is the specter of a local family where one of the boys stabbed and killed his mother and the general spookiness when city kids are in the forest. One of the strongest personalities is found stabbed to death in a restroom and that initiates the herd mentality of teens confronting a dangerous situation. The adult chaperones disappear, leaving the teens on their own. It of course ends with some of them escaping and the culprit is identified. As is the case with stories of this type, the details in the structure of the writing and the presentation are what makes or breaks the quality. In this case, both are done well enough to keep the reader interested. There are no scenes where the reader goes into intense mental lock, just a stable interest throughout.