Review- Skeleton Creek: Ryan's Journal

Title: Skeleton Creek: Ryan's Journal
Author: Patrick Carmen
Series: Skeleton Creek #1
Publisher: Scholastic
Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads
Source: Purchased

A breakthrough new series from bestselling author Patrick Carman, featuring text and technology in an innovative new way.Strange things are happening in Skeleton Creek . . . and Ryan and Sarah are trying to get to the heart of it. But after an eerie accident leaves Ryan housebound and forbidden to see Sarah, their investigation takes two tracks: Ryan records everything in his journal, while Sarah uses her videocam to search things out. . .and then email the clips for Ryan to see. In a new, groundbreaking format, the story is broken into two parts -- Ryan's text in the book, and Sarah's videos on a special website, with links and passwords given throughout the book.

My thoughts: 

Patrick Carmen’s Land of Elyon series is one of the first few books I read when I started my blog. He writes really great books for children and teens! When I first read the synopsis for Skeleton Creek: Ryan’s Journal, I knew that this would be a series I would love!

I was initially intrigued by the mix of videos and text. Once you get to a certain point in the book, there would be a website address and a password which would unlock a video. Sarah and Ryan have been best friends for a long time and have always found ways of getting into trouble together. Their parents have forbidden them to see each other after their latest adventure lands Ryan in the hospital with a broken leg. They have discovered their only way of communicating is email and videos. Ryan documents all this in his journal just in case something goes terrible wrong, he hopes someone would find his journal and read their story.

The mystery of the story is interesting enough without adding the scary as hell videos. The only times I put this book down was at night when I was literally too afraid to watch the videos alone in my room before bed. Some of the videos were Blair Witch Project style and that movie scared the shit out of me in middle school! I was totally engrossed in the story and the videos just added to the suspense.

I think the videos really make the book! It's one thing to read a book and picture the characters in your head by the way they're described. Sometimes when I imagine characters, they're kind of cartoonish in my mind. But with these videos the characters come to like and they're right there on the screen!  They make the story more real!

I love this sort of scavenger hunt adventure that Sarah and Ryan are on. Every clue that they found just led them to a bigger and more complicated mystery that involves so many people in the town. There are hidden symbols carved into buildings and secret societies. These are my favorite type of mysteries! And that ending! OMG that ending!! That is one of the best cliffhangers I’ve ever read!

I absolutely loved this book and I would find myself counting down the minutes to the end of the work day so that I could go home and watch the next video (you know, before it got too dark, haha). I give Skeleton Creek: Ryan’s Journal 5 hearts for being the perfect mix of scary and mystery.