Literature & Fiction
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Five Survive
From the author of the New York Times and multimillion-copybestselling A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series comes a new blockbuster thriller about a road trip that turns deadly. Eight hours. Six friends. Five survive.
Red Kenny is on a road trip for spring break with five friends: Her best friend - the older brother - his perfect girlfriend - a secret crush - a classmate - and a killer.
When their RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, they soon realize this is no accident. They have been trapped by someone out there in the dark, someone who clearly wants one of them dead.
With eight hours until dawn, the six friends must escape, or figure out which of them is the target. But is there a liar among them? Buried secrets will be forced to light and tensions inside the RV will reach deadly levels. Not all of them will survive the night. . . .
Five Survive is the most-anticpated thrill ride of the year and an instant classic!
Red Kenny is on a road trip for spring break with five friends: Her best friend - the older brother - his perfect girlfriend - a secret crush - a classmate - and a killer.
When their RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, they soon realize this is no accident. They have been trapped by someone out there in the dark, someone who clearly wants one of them dead.
With eight hours until dawn, the six friends must escape, or figure out which of them is the target. But is there a liar among them? Buried secrets will be forced to light and tensions inside the RV will reach deadly levels. Not all of them will survive the night. . . .
Five Survive is the most-anticpated thrill ride of the year and an instant classic!
Editorial Reviews
Praise for Holly Jackson's latest thriller FIVE SURVIVE:
"Intervals of intense suspense and a well-crafted puzzle blend to create a thrill ride of a story."-Kirkus Reviews
"Nailing-biting thriller." -Publishers Weekly
Praise for Holly Jackson's A GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER series:
"The perfect nail-biting mystery." -Natasha Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"Holly Jackson plays off of our collective true crime obsession brilliantly." -PopSugar
"Gripping."-E! News Online
"If you love true crime, murder mysteries, and unstoppable young women, this is the perfect easy-read thriller." -Business Insider
"A knockout series." -The Nerd Daily
"An instant shocker that will leave you on the edge of your seat." -Los Angeles Times High School Insider
"This is a great, twisty read for fans of YA." -Book Riot
"A taut, compulsively readable, elegantly plotted thriller."-The Guardian
"A fun, gripping, and skillfully constructed novel of suspense. I loved Pip-her relatable quirks, her inventive investigative approach, and her willingness to step outside of her safe world in search of the truth." -Emily Arsenault, author of All the Pretty Things
"Dark, dangerous and intricately plotted-my heart literally pounded." -Laura Steven, ...
"Intervals of intense suspense and a well-crafted puzzle blend to create a thrill ride of a story."-Kirkus Reviews
"Nailing-biting thriller." -Publishers Weekly
Praise for Holly Jackson's A GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER series:
"The perfect nail-biting mystery." -Natasha Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"Holly Jackson plays off of our collective true crime obsession brilliantly." -PopSugar
"Gripping."-E! News Online
"If you love true crime, murder mysteries, and unstoppable young women, this is the perfect easy-read thriller." -Business Insider
"A knockout series." -The Nerd Daily
"An instant shocker that will leave you on the edge of your seat." -Los Angeles Times High School Insider
"This is a great, twisty read for fans of YA." -Book Riot
"A taut, compulsively readable, elegantly plotted thriller."-The Guardian
"A fun, gripping, and skillfully constructed novel of suspense. I loved Pip-her relatable quirks, her inventive investigative approach, and her willingness to step outside of her safe world in search of the truth." -Emily Arsenault, author of All the Pretty Things
"Dark, dangerous and intricately plotted-my heart literally pounded." -Laura Steven, ...
Readers Top Reviews
Energy Rae
Six teens are on their way to spring break when things start to happen with their RV. With flat tires and no gas, and no cell reception, they're dead in the water and won't be going anywhere anytime soon. But they aren't alone. We watch the story unfold as things go fantastically awry. What I liked: It's super dramatic, and I love how fast things turn. The characters, except for Simon, are super fleshed out. Poor Red has lost her mother. Her father has checked out, they have no money, and she has low self-esteem. You can't help but empathize with her. Oliver is a straight out jerk who winds people up, leaving everyone pretty helpless in his wake. Jackson wrote him well enough that I wanted to reach into the book and wring his neck. I love when a book evokes those kinds of feelings. Also, I wasn't sure of the motive behind everything and enjoyed not knowing. What didn't really work for me: Why wasn't the relationship between Maddy and Red explained sooner? I had no idea how they were related for too many chapters, which was confusing. I don't know why the explanation was put off. Also, what is going on with Red? Even though it's not spelled out, it's clear she has PTSD. But what was up with her always missing time? She could barely hold conversations because she constantly checked out of them, but PTSD doesn't explain that, nor does Jackson. Also, I think I read roughly 40 times that the RV was 31 feet long, another thing that isn't explained by the PTSD that I'm just presuming she had based on personal experience. So ultimately, what was up with Red? But back to what I liked: So I didn't love every aspect of the book, and that's okay because here I am, giving the book 4 stars. Because I am a poly reader and had 3 books going when I started this, I promptly abandoned the other two because Jackson writes this in such a meandering way that I didn't know why we were in this situation, but I desperately needed to find out. I enjoyed how the story is broken up by each hour, and a lot goes on in each hour. The book is stressful in a very fun way. Overall, this was a super fun read, and I am grateful I got to read an early copy of it.
Pamela ClaytonEne
Let me preface this by the fact that I do not usually read a lot of thriller/suspense, but I have read all of Holly Jackson's Good Girl's Guide to Murder trilogy and enjoyed those. I also enjoyed this quite a bit. Holly Jackson does a really good job of making you think you figure out the twist at about 30% into her books, and then the last 20% of the book hits you with an additional 5 other twists that take you for a fun ride. The premise of this book is that 6 young adults are going on a road trip from PA to Gulf Shores for Spring Break. They borrow an RV to get there, and then they have a harrowing night when somehow they become the target of an active shooter in the deep woods of SC. This is a story of survival and wits, as well as trying to figure out why the heck this is happening to them. We hear the whole story through our somewhat unreliable narrator Red (short for Redford). Red is joined by her best friend, Maddy, Maddy's older brother Oliver and his girlfriend Reyna, Simon, the aspiring thespian and friend to Maddy and Red, and Arthur, a boy on Simon's basketball team and sort of crush of Red. Red is unreliable because it seems like she has memory problems maybe some ADHD or autistic tendencies, and she keeps telling us she is lying. But she is observant and smart, or as she keeps reminding us "has potential". Red also has a traumatic past, and the word "mom" is taboo around her. I did see one of the "twists" at 25% through, but the rest of them...whoa. Jackson's writing style should be effortless and straightforward, but for some reason I end up reading her books at a slower than average pace for me. But I think this is her best executed novel yet. Good Girls Guide was fun and quirky and by the end of it, I was ready to be done with those characters. But Five Survive has a fresh cast, a story contained mostly to one night's events (besides flashbacks in Red's mind), and I like how she closes the novel with a bit of her "mixed media" that only appears at the end. This is somewhere between a 3.5 and 4 star for me, and I think if you like thrillers/survival stories, this is one to check out!
Pamela Clayton
Finished the book cover to cover in one sitting. I can’t wait for the next book by Holly. Definitely a must read thriller.
Andrea Cramer P
Dang, Holly! You've done it again. I loved her trilogy and pre-ordered this book the minute I saw I was able to. Just finished it after three days and all I can say is "wow"! A couple parts were somewhat predictable, but so many other parts weren't. I love her writing and I felt like I was stuck in that RV with the characters the whole time. If you liked her other books, please give this one a try. You won't regret it.
danielle.Andrea C
I thought this would be a somewhat predictable and fun read. And in some ways I was right, I figured out two big points pretty much right away. But then everything twisted upside down and all the layers were peeled back and then it was just, wow! So good. Loved this so much, absolutely a step up from the Good Girls Guide series, which is great in its own way, but with this book Holly Jackson proves herself a master of twisty endings.
Short Excerpt Teaser
ONE
Here and not. Red and black. One moment there, another gone. Her face in the glass. Disappearing in the light of oncoming headlights, reappearing in the dark of outside. Gone again. The window kept her face for its own. Good, it could keep it. Back, the window didn't want it either.
Red's reflection stared through her, but the glass and the darkness didn't get her quite right, blurring the details. The main features were there: the too-pale glow of her skin and the wide-set dark blue eyes that weren't hers alone. You look so much alike, she used to hear, more than she cared to. Now she didn't care to hear it at all, even think it. So, she looked away from her face, their face, ignoring them both. But it was harder to ignore something when you were trying.
Red shifted her gaze, looking instead at the cars in the lane beside and below. Something wasn't right; the cars seemed too small from up here at her window, but Red didn't feel any bigger. She watched a blue sedan edging forward to pass, and she helped it along with her eyes, pushing them ahead. There you go, bud. Ahead of this thirty-one-foot-long metal can, speeding down the highway. Which was strange when you thought about it; that you traveled down a highway when high was right there in the name.
"Red?" The voice opposite interrupted her thoughts of lowways and highways. Maddy was looking at her through the dimmed inside lights, skin screwed up around her sandy-brown eyes. She gave a small kick under the table, jabbing Red in the shin. "Did you just forget we were in the middle of playing a game?"
"No," Red said, but yes, yes she had. What had they been playing again?
"Twenty Questions," Maddy said, reading Red's mind. Well, they had known each other all their lives; Red had only gotten a seven-month head start and she hadn't done a lot with it. Maybe Maddy had learned to read her mind in all that time, more than seventeen years. Red really hoped not. There were things in there no one else could ever see. No one. Not even Maddy. Especially not Maddy.
"Yeah, I know," Red said, her eyes wandering to the other side of the RV, to the outside door and the sofa bed-currently sofa-where she and Maddy would sleep tonight. Red couldn't remember; which side of the bed did Maddy like again? Because she couldn't sleep if she wasn't on the left side, and just as she was trying to read Maddy's mind back about that, her eyes caught on a green sign outside in the night, flying over the windshield.
"That sign says Rockingham, aren't we getting off this road soon?" Red said, not loud enough for anyone at the very front of the RV to hear, where it would have been more use. She was probably wrong, anyway, best to say nothing. They'd been driving on this same road for the past hour, I-73 becoming I-74 and then US 220 without much fanfare.
"Red Kenny, focus." Maddy snapped her fingers, a hint of a smile on her face. It never creased, though, Maddy's face, not even with the widest of smiles. Skin like cream, soft and clearer than it had any business being. It made the freckles on Red's face stand out even more, side by side in photos. Literally side by side; they were almost the exact same height, down to the highest-standing hair, though Red's was dark blond where Maddy's was more light brown, a shade or two separating them. Red always had hers tied back, loose bangs at the front that she'd cut herself with the kitchen scissors. Maddy's was untied and neat, the ends soft in a way Red's never were. "I'm the one asking questions, you're the one with the person, place or thing," Maddy prompted.
Red nodded slowly. Well, even if Maddy also liked to sleep on the left, at least they weren't on the bunks.
"I've asked seven questions already," Maddy said.
"Great." Red couldn't remember her person, place or thing. But really, they'd been driving all day, setting off from home around twelve hours ago, hadn't they played enough road trip games? Red couldn't wait for this to be over so she could finally sleep, whether left side or right. Just get through it. They were supposed to arrive at Gulf Shores around this time tomorrow, meet up with the rest of their friends, that was the plan.
Maddy cleared her throat.
"And what answers did I give, remind me?" Red said.
Maddy breathed out, an almost sigh or an almost laugh, hard to tell. "It was a person, a woman, not a fictional character," she said, counting them off on her fingers. "Someone I would know, but not Kim Kardashian or you."
Red looked up, se...
Here and not. Red and black. One moment there, another gone. Her face in the glass. Disappearing in the light of oncoming headlights, reappearing in the dark of outside. Gone again. The window kept her face for its own. Good, it could keep it. Back, the window didn't want it either.
Red's reflection stared through her, but the glass and the darkness didn't get her quite right, blurring the details. The main features were there: the too-pale glow of her skin and the wide-set dark blue eyes that weren't hers alone. You look so much alike, she used to hear, more than she cared to. Now she didn't care to hear it at all, even think it. So, she looked away from her face, their face, ignoring them both. But it was harder to ignore something when you were trying.
Red shifted her gaze, looking instead at the cars in the lane beside and below. Something wasn't right; the cars seemed too small from up here at her window, but Red didn't feel any bigger. She watched a blue sedan edging forward to pass, and she helped it along with her eyes, pushing them ahead. There you go, bud. Ahead of this thirty-one-foot-long metal can, speeding down the highway. Which was strange when you thought about it; that you traveled down a highway when high was right there in the name.
"Red?" The voice opposite interrupted her thoughts of lowways and highways. Maddy was looking at her through the dimmed inside lights, skin screwed up around her sandy-brown eyes. She gave a small kick under the table, jabbing Red in the shin. "Did you just forget we were in the middle of playing a game?"
"No," Red said, but yes, yes she had. What had they been playing again?
"Twenty Questions," Maddy said, reading Red's mind. Well, they had known each other all their lives; Red had only gotten a seven-month head start and she hadn't done a lot with it. Maybe Maddy had learned to read her mind in all that time, more than seventeen years. Red really hoped not. There were things in there no one else could ever see. No one. Not even Maddy. Especially not Maddy.
"Yeah, I know," Red said, her eyes wandering to the other side of the RV, to the outside door and the sofa bed-currently sofa-where she and Maddy would sleep tonight. Red couldn't remember; which side of the bed did Maddy like again? Because she couldn't sleep if she wasn't on the left side, and just as she was trying to read Maddy's mind back about that, her eyes caught on a green sign outside in the night, flying over the windshield.
"That sign says Rockingham, aren't we getting off this road soon?" Red said, not loud enough for anyone at the very front of the RV to hear, where it would have been more use. She was probably wrong, anyway, best to say nothing. They'd been driving on this same road for the past hour, I-73 becoming I-74 and then US 220 without much fanfare.
"Red Kenny, focus." Maddy snapped her fingers, a hint of a smile on her face. It never creased, though, Maddy's face, not even with the widest of smiles. Skin like cream, soft and clearer than it had any business being. It made the freckles on Red's face stand out even more, side by side in photos. Literally side by side; they were almost the exact same height, down to the highest-standing hair, though Red's was dark blond where Maddy's was more light brown, a shade or two separating them. Red always had hers tied back, loose bangs at the front that she'd cut herself with the kitchen scissors. Maddy's was untied and neat, the ends soft in a way Red's never were. "I'm the one asking questions, you're the one with the person, place or thing," Maddy prompted.
Red nodded slowly. Well, even if Maddy also liked to sleep on the left, at least they weren't on the bunks.
"I've asked seven questions already," Maddy said.
"Great." Red couldn't remember her person, place or thing. But really, they'd been driving all day, setting off from home around twelve hours ago, hadn't they played enough road trip games? Red couldn't wait for this to be over so she could finally sleep, whether left side or right. Just get through it. They were supposed to arrive at Gulf Shores around this time tomorrow, meet up with the rest of their friends, that was the plan.
Maddy cleared her throat.
"And what answers did I give, remind me?" Red said.
Maddy breathed out, an almost sigh or an almost laugh, hard to tell. "It was a person, a woman, not a fictional character," she said, counting them off on her fingers. "Someone I would know, but not Kim Kardashian or you."
Red looked up, se...
